Teaching Toolkits
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Primary School Teaching Toolkit
Higher Chinese Writing Strategies for Singapore Upper Primary Students
Author: Zhou Hongxia, Wang Juan, Li Jing, Tham Kok Yung
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, this teaching toolkit on “Higher Chinese Writing Strategies for Singapore Upper Primary Students” is designed for Primary 5 and 6 Higher Chinese writing lessons. It consists of eight units, four on Continuous Writing and the other four on Situational Writing. Each of the units focuses on using the Composition Maps designed by the authors to guide students on how to analyse the question of the writing task to determine what to write and on how to organise and structure their composition. In addition, the lesson plan and worksheet for every unit provide examples and suggested words to use so that students will learn how to enrich the content of their composition by adding appropriate descriptive elements (such as describing people’s appearances, actions, language, facial expressions and thoughts).
The toolkit adopts the notion of differentiated instruction in its design. Each unit contains a lesson plan, a set of PowerPoint (PPT) slides, and three different worksheets to accommodate the learning needs of students of different degrees of readiness.
A brief note on the toolkit’s instructional design is also provided for teachers’ reference.
Descriptive Writing Strategies for Upper Primary Students in Singapore
Author: Zhou Hongxia, Sim Lucy, Lim Jie Ni
Developed by the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Descriptive Writing Strategies for Upper Primary Students in Singapore” teaching toolkit is designed for Primary 5 Chinese language teachers. It can be used as school-based teaching materials for teaching Chinese writing lessons.
As the toolkit seeks to align with the teaching philosophy and pedagogy of the Instructional Materials (IM), the teaching design takes an integrated approach where students start with reading examples of descriptive texts extracted from the IM, and then apply what they have learned from their reading to their writing practice. It consists of eight units, each focusing on two to three sub-skills such as describing appearances, actions, language, and thoughts. The sub-skills are introduced progressively. Considering the differences among students, the toolkit adopts the notion of differentiated instruction in its design. Each unit contains a lesson plan, a set of PowerPoint slides, and three worksheets that accommodate the different learning needs for students of different readiness levels in class. Teachers can use the toolkit as school-based teaching materials for Primary 5 Chinese writing lessons, or select relevant teaching content of description skills from the toolkit according to the students’ learning needs to promote their descriptive writing techniques.
To help teachers better understand the design of the toolkit, a brief note on instructional design is also provided.
Techniques to Enhance Students’ Topic-examining and Content-conceptualising Ability in Titled Composition
Author: Gong Cheng, Tay Boon Pei, Wang Juan
Developed by the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Techniques to Enhance Students’ Topic-examining and Content-conceptualising Ability in Titled Composition” teaching toolkit is designed mainly for Primary 5 Chinese language teachers, but is also a useful tool for Primary 6 and Secondary 1 teachers. It provides teachers with useful supplementary teaching materials and can be used for a school-based curriculum.
The toolkit provides thinking scaffoldings to help train students in topic-examining and content-conceptualizing in titled composition. It guides students to explore how to analyse the titles in order to come up with the relevant topics and materials, and in turn cultivate their awareness of the importance of planning and organising in the writing process.
The toolkit consists of six sets of teaching design, comprising lesson plans, PowerPoint slides, and worksheets as well as thinking diagrams for titled compositions. With sufficient scaffoldings, the toolkit provides a systematic, step-by-step guide to improve the teaching and learning of titled composition writing. The many thinking graphs can help to make the thinking of writing visible. It is a very useful toolkit for Chinese language teachers to teach titled compositions.
Techniques to Enhance the Teaching and Learning of Text-paragraph Writing
Author: Gong Cheng, Tay Boon Pei, Tan Geok Hoon
Developed by the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Techniques to Enhance the Teaching and Learning of Text-paragraph Writing” teaching toolkit is designed for the use of Primary 4 Chinese language teachers. It provides teachers with useful supplementary teaching materials and can be used for a school-based curriculum.
In this Toolkit, “text-paragraph” refers to any paragraph in a whole text. “Text-paragraph writing” refers to the writing activity of filling in a missing paragraph from a given text. Text-paragraph writing activities help students understand that paragraphs are an organic part of the whole text.
Based on the contents of Happy Companions (Huanle Huoban), this Toolkit targets at the difficulties and problems that students often encounter when writing text-paragraphs. It aims to improve students' paragraph writing ability and enhance their textual awareness.
The Toolkit consists of five units, comprising lesson plans, PowerPoint slides, and worksheets. In addition, a grading rubric, a diagram demonstrating the thinking steps for text-paragraph writing, and a summary table of the classification and examples of inter-paragraph /inter-sentence cohesive relation are provided for reference. Complete with scaffoldings, the Toolkit provides a systematic, step-by-step guide to improve the teaching and learning of text-paragraph writing. In addition, the many thinking graphs help to make the thinking-in-writing visible. This is a very useful toolkit for Primary 4 Chinese language teachers in their teaching of text-paragraph writing.
Singapore Primary Chinese Vocabulary Revision and Consolidation Toolkit
Author: Dr. Fan Jinghua, Dr. Goh Poh Huat, Huang Wanyu, Guo Xinyu
Characters and phrases already taught need to be refreshed through revision and consolidation activities before they can enter long-term memory. Character revision and new vocabulary learning require different approaches and strategies, and their teaching also requires different lesson plans and designs. The present teaching toolkit developed by the SCCL research team aims to enhance the revision of shixie zi (characters for writing) in the primary Chinese textbooks. It comprises three parts: 1) basic concepts concerning memory, with special reference to vocabulary revision, and an introduction to the principles underlying the design of revision activities in the toolkit, 2) one set of revision and enhancement activities for the “characters for writing” in the P1 to P5 Chinese textbooks, and 3) a list of the “characters for writing” designed for quick access to facilitate teachers’ design of class revision activities.
“New Stars Island” Graded Picture Book Series (Grade 1-3) Teaching Toolkit
Author: Lim Kwee Hua, Zheng Yingjiang, Sim Lucy
“New Stars Island” Graded Picture Book Series consists of stories written by awardees of the 2016 “Creativity, No Boundaries!” National Children’s Story Writing Competition. It was published by Singapore Centre of Chinese Language and distributed by the Committee to Promote Chinese Language Learning to all the primary schools in Singapore.
To promote the effective use of these picture books, the three Master Teachers invited school teachers to design teaching activities utilizing the picture books, and gave them advice where appropriate. This collection of the teaching designs is for the reference of all primary school Chinese language teachers. It consists of lesson plans, worksheets, samples of student works and a Parent-Child Co-reading Guide. Teachers can select from among the series graded picture books appropriate for their students’ reading level and use the teaching activities suggested in this toolkit to promote reading habits in schools.
Chinese Paragraph Writing Strategies for P3 Students in Singapore
Author: Zhou Hongxia, Sim Lucy
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Chinese Paragraph Writing Strategies for P3 Students in Singapore” teaching toolkit is designed for Chinese language teachers teaching Primary 3 students. It can be used as school-based teaching materials for teaching Chinese paragraph writing lessons.
Based on the contents related to paragraph writing teaching in Happy Companions (Huanle Huoban), the lesson plans have incorporated the notion of Differentiated Instruction by providing different learning contents and worksheets for students of high, medium and low levels.
The toolkit consists of eight units, comprising lesson plans, PowerPoint slides and worksheets. In addition, to help teachers better understand the principles behind the toolkit development, a summary of the theoretical underpinnings and a brief note on instructional design are provided.
Chinese Sentence Writing Strategies for P2 Students in Singapore – A Teaching Toolkit
Author: Zhou Hongxia, Sim Lucy, Tay Boon Pei
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Chinese Sentence Writing Strategies for P2 Students in Singapore” teaching toolkit is designed for Chinese language teachers teaching Primary 2 students. It can be used as a school-based teaching material for Chinese sentence writing lessons.
Aligned with the teaching of sentence writing in the textbook Huanle Huoban, the toolkit expands on and transforms the basic sentence structures selected from the textbook to help students with sentence writing. It guides students to write a variety of sentences and coherent paragraphs, laying a solid foundation for paragraph writing in Primary 3.
The toolkit comprises ten teaching designs which contain lesson plans, PowerPoint slides and worksheets. In addition, a summary of the theoretical underpinnings and design rationales equips teachers with a better understanding of the principles behind the toolkit.
Bridging Picture-based Composition and Topic-based Composition Writing
Author: Gong Cheng, Tay Boon Pei, Chia Swee Hong
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Bridging Picture-based Composition and Topic-based Composition Writing” teaching toolkit provides useful supplementary teaching materials for teachers of upper primary schools and lower secondary schools. It can also be used for school-based curriculum.
The toolkit comprises 6 units, each including lesson plans, PowerPoint slides and activity sheets. In addition, each lesson plan is accompanied by a detailed explanation of the design rationale behind the lesson plan and teaching activities. Teachers can also refer to the theory, strategy and instructional design in the toolkit to better understand the basic teaching principles.
Teachers may follow the lessons plans in the toolkit. Alternatively, they may also use the chart of re-arranged skills to design their own syllabus according to their students' specific learning needs.
Blended Learning for In-service Teachers’ Professional Development – Handbook for New Instructors
Author: Tan Yuh Huann, Tan Yan Ni, Chow Fong Yee
This handbook is a culmination of the authors’ three-year research and development effort into blended learning for in-service Chinese Language (CL) teachers’ professional development. The primary audience of this handbook is teacher educators who would like to learn about blended learning as an approach for in-service teachers’ courses. Chapter One introduces the definition and theoretical underpinnings of blended learning. Chapter Two covers the model of blended learning the authors used, its design principles, and the relevant strategies. Chapter Three shares the findings on how blended learning had impacted some of the teacher-participants. Chapter Four, written by three highly experienced CL Master Teachers, captures their individual first-hand reflections and experiences of blended learning for teachers’ professional development. Finally, Chapter Five provides a brief conclusion to the handbook.
Targeted Teaching for Primary 1 Oral Chinese
Author: Dr. Fan Jinghua, Mdm. Chow Fong Yee, Mdm. Tan Yan Ni
This teaching toolkit begins with an introduction to the concept of targeted teaching and proceeds to re-arrange in a progressive order the oral skills as presented in Primary 1 Chinese language textbooks. On the basis of this, it comes up a set of 34 lesson plans, complete with PowerPoint slides and activity sheets.
The teaching plans are designed in line with the Oracy Theatre and Real-Life Application sections in the textbooks. With this toolkit, teachers will be able to follow the general progress of the textbooks while targeting at students of different levels to strengthen and improve their skills.
Teachers may follow the lessons plans in the toolkit. Alternatively, they may also use the chart of re-arranged skills to design their own syllabus according to their students' specific learning needs.
Enhancing Chinese Oral Narrative Skills
Author: Dr. Li Li, Mdm. Tan Geok Hoon, Mdm. Au Su Yee
This teaching toolkit is a refined version of the intervention materials used in a two-year experimental research conducted by SCCL in 2014 on enhancing Chinese oral narrative skills. It is designed for Chinese oral language teaching from Primary 3 onwards and may be utilized as supplementary or school-based programme materials.
The toolkit comprises 12 lesson plans and accompanying PowerPoint slides, complemented with activity sheets, audio stories, self- and peer- assessment sheets for students, and self-reflection checklists for teachers. Focusing on students’ everyday life, the toolkit content also includes familiar fairy tales and interesting animal stories. Students’ will be trained step by step through various tasks and activities designed to enhance their narrative skills.
The systematic and explicit teaching of narrative skills will equip students with knowledge about narrative structure, describing details and text cohesion, and eventually enhance their oral competence in Chinese language. Students’ understanding of the narrative structure will help in developing their reading comprehension and composition skills.
I can write "what I see" and "what I think"—scaffolding instructions for picture composition writing
Author: Mdm. Zhou Hongxia, Dr. Goh Poh Huat
The teaching toolkit, entitled “I can write ‘what I see’ and ‘what I think’—scaffolding instructions for picture composition writing”, is a product of collaborative school-based research by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, Concord Primary School and De La Salle School. It provides teachers with supplementary materials for Chinese composition writing lessons, and can be used as a school-based curriculum.
Designed for teaching picture composition writing in Primary 3 and 4 classes, the toolkit aims to assist students with the scaffolding teaching model and help them overcome the limitations of paucity of ideas and lack of coherence in writing. It comprises 8 units, complete with lesson plans, worksheets and PowerPoint slides. In addition, the chapters on scaffolding instruction theory and the toolkit’s overall design equip teachers with a better understanding of the principles behind the toolkit. All the lesson plans have been experimented in schools with sound students’ performance and are well received by teachers. This is a very handy toolkit for middle primary Chinese language teachers.
Elementary Writing (Revised)
Author: Dr. Ng Tai Cheen, Dr. Yan Jing, Mdm. Dong Yan, Mdm. Kuah Hui Hui
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language (SCCL), the revised “Elementary Writing” teaching toolkit is designed for use in lower Primary Chinese language lessons. As the product of a collaborative school-based research project by SCCL, Anglo Chinese School (Junior) and Bukit Timah Primary School, this toolkit exemplifies the innovative concept of “Research-Validate-Train” advocated by SCCL.
The toolkit comprises resources for both Primary 1 and Primary 2 levels. For each level, there are ten lesson plans and related student activity sheets designed on the basis of effective pedagogical principles. All the resources are aligned with the latest 2015 Chinese Language (Primary) Syllabus launched by MOE.
The revised “Elementary Writing” teaching toolkit provides a systematic approach to the teaching of elementary writing and is a useful resource for lower primary Chinese language teachers.
Drama is the Laboratory of Learning Chinese as a Second Language (Updated Version)
Author: Dr. Chou Shiao-Yuh, Mr. Lim Chin Nam
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Drama is the Laboratory of Learning Chinese as a Second Language” teaching toolkit (Updated Version) is designed for use in the teaching of Chinese language in primary and secondary schools. The toolkit comprises two parts: the Written Part and the Demonstrative Videos.
The Written Part begins with an introduction to the theories of drama in education and their application processes. It continues with an exploration of how drama can be integrated in the teaching and learning of Chinese, followed by a concise account of eight common drama conventions. The accompanying lesson plans, 7 for secondary school and 3 for primary school, give teachers a concrete idea of how the drama conventions can be applied in the Chinese classroom. Samples of students’ compositions written with the aid of drama conventions are also appended.
The Video Section comprises the interviews of participant teachers and students as well as examples demonstrating how the drama conventions are used in the classroom. There are 13 videos in the toolkit.
The Written Explanations together with the Demonstrative Videos in the toolkit equip teachers with a deeper understanding of how drama can effectively be integrated in Chinese language teaching. The toolkit aims to change the stereotype concepts of the use of drama in education and ultimately promote drama pedagogy in Chinese language education.
Improving Higher Primary Students’ Oral Proficiency by Using Digital Storytelling
Author: Mdm. Wu Jing , Mdm. Chow Fong Yee, Ms. Ng Mei Wan
Designed for Primary 3 and 4 Chinese teachers, this toolkit aims to improve students’ oral proficiency while engaging them in self-directed and collaborative learning through the use of digital storytelling. Through the five steps of Speaking, Typing, Writing, Digital Story Assembly and Presentation, the toolkit will help to enhance students' comprehensive language competence of Chinese.
The toolkit contains four demonstrative teaching designs complete with lesson plans, worksheets and PPT presentations for teachers to integrate digital storytelling in their lessons. Five additional lesson plans dealing with different areas in oral and written communications are appended to give teachers ideas on the alternative methods of using digital storytelling in the teaching of Chinese.
More Reading for More Fun
Author: Mr. Ang Swee Choon, Mr. Mao Zhaohui
Infusing theories from the field of education psychology, this package aims to help primary school students find fun in reading by providing teachers with effective teaching strategies for Chinese vocabulary acquisition and thinking skills development.
Based on L. W. Anderson’s taxonomy of knowledge, the first chapter of this package tackles vocabulary acquisition by classifying vocabulary with a modified classification model, and then recommending 6 teaching methods for these different categories of vocabulary, namely: 1) Explanation through Examples, 2) Show and Tell, 3) Comparison and Contrast, 4) Deconstruction, 5) Translation and 6) Demonstration by Performing. A total of 12 lesson plans, 12 PowerPoint slideshows and 12 worksheets are included in this chapter.
The second chapter focuses on reading strategies, where teachers can train students to look out for “5W1H” and “PEEL” and opportunities for “Thinking Transfer” in passages from school textbooks. 13 lesson plans, 13 PowerPoint slideshows and 16 worksheets are included in this chapter.
To help teachers better understand the theories behind our production, design concepts, instructions and dissertations are also provided in the CD for reference.
When students are equipped with better reading techniques, provided with more knowledge transfer opportunities and have less difficulty with vocabularies, they will definitely find reading less tedious and enjoy reading in time to come.
Teaching Chinese Idioms with Animation
Editor: Dr. Chin Chee Kuen
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Teaching Chinese Idioms with Animation” teaching toolkit is designed for use by Primary 3 to 6 Chinese language teachers when teaching Chinese idioms. They may use the toolkit as a teaching aid or school-based teaching material.
Comprising 13 lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations as well as the respective network link addresses for the 48 animations specially created by Lu Feng Technology, the toolkit caters for the learning needs of primary school students in Singapore. Students would be able to master 48 idioms while watching the animations, with their interest in Chinese thus stimulated.
Each of the 13 lesson plans comes in two versions, catering to pupils of different levels of proficiency. The lesson plans demonstrate 13 different strategies to teach Chinese idioms. Appended to each lesson plan is a short essay, explaining the educational theory behind the strategy adopted. These strategies are effective not only for the teaching of Chinese idioms, but are also useful for the teaching of Chinese vocabulary in general. This toolkit is therefore beneficial to both students and teachers.
Elementary Writing
Author: Ms. Yan Jing
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Elementary Writing” teaching toolkit is designed for use in lower Primary Chinese language lessons. As the product of a collaborative school-based research project by SCCL and the Bukit Timah Primary School, this toolkit exemplifies the innovative concept of “Research-Validation-Training” advocated by SCCL.
The toolkit comprises ten lesson plans and related student activity sheets. The lesson plans will be a handy guide for primary school Chinese language teachers when teaching writing. The student activity sheets are fully illustrated with interesting cartoons which will certainly attract the students. The toolkit provides a systematic approach to the teaching of elementary writing. Students will learn basic writing skills in stages, beginning with sentence writing and moving onto paragraph writing. The first five lessons introduce some basic sentence patterns used in narration while the remaining lessons help students grasp the essential elements and basic structure of the narrative. It is a most useful toolkit for lower primary Chinese language teachers.
Secondary School Teaching Toolkit
Bridging Picture-based Composition and Topic-based Composition Writing
Author: Gong Cheng, Tay Boon Pei, Chia Swee Hong
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Bridging Picture-based Composition and Topic-based Composition Writing” teaching toolkit provides useful supplementary teaching materials for teachers of upper primary schools and lower secondary schools. It can also be used for school-based curriculum.
This toolkit focuses on teaching writing from perspectives of content and structure. It aims to help students mobilize their prior knowledge and experience in writing picture-based composition and apply them to topic-based composition writing. With this toolkit, teachers can systematically teach topic-based composition writing, and target at students’ difficulties to guide them through writing compositions.
The toolkit comprises 6 units, each including lesson plans, PowerPoint slides and activity sheets. In addition, each lesson plan is accompanied by a detailed explanation of the design rationale behind the lesson plan and teaching activities. Teachers can also refer to the theory, strategy and instructional design in the toolkit to better understand the basic teaching principles.
Blended Learning for In-service Teachers’ Professional Development – Handbook for New Instructors
Author: Tan Yuh Huann, Tan Yan Ni, Chow Fong Yee
This handbook is a culmination of the authors’ three-year research and development effort into blended learning for in-service Chinese Language (CL) teachers’ professional development. The primary audience of this handbook is teacher educators who would like to learn about blended learning as an approach for in-service teachers’ courses. Chapter One introduces the definition and theoretical underpinnings of blended learning. Chapter Two covers the model of blended learning the authors used, its design principles, and the relevant strategies. Chapter Three shares the findings on how blended learning had impacted some of the teacher-participants. Chapter Four, written by three highly experienced CL Master Teachers, captures their individual first-hand reflections and experiences of blended learning for teachers’ professional development. Finally, Chapter Five provides a brief conclusion to the handbook.
Teaching and Learning Interaction Strategies via iMTL Portal for Secondary 3 Chinese Language (Express)
Author: Dr. Liu May, Mdm. Lim Kwee Hua, Ms Siow Sze Teen, Ms Tan Yu
Built on the basis of the research project “Developing Task-based Learning on the iMTL Portal to Strengthen Students’ Oral and Written Interaction Proficiency: An Exploratory Study with Upper Secondary CLB Students” by the Ministry of Education, this teaching toolkit is tailored for the Secondary 3 Chinese Language (Express) curriculum.
It features a wide variety of resources, including lesson plans, PowerPoint slides, activity sheets, supplementary teaching activities, as well as oral samples and rubrics. Ten videos clips are also provided and uploaded to the iMTL portal for easy access. The themes of seven of the videos correspond closely to seven lessons in Secondary 3 Chinese textbooks (Express), while those of the remaining three are relatively independent.
This toolkit will be helpful for teachers to conduct textbook-based lessons on oral and written interaction, and effectively improve students’ oral and written interaction skills.
Drama is the Laboratory of Learning Chinese as a Second Language (Updated Version)
Author: Dr. Chou Shiao-Yuh, Mr. Lim Chin Nam
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Drama is the Laboratory of Learning Chinese as a Second Language” teaching toolkit (Updated Version) is designed for use in the teaching of Chinese language in primary and secondary schools. The toolkit comprises two parts: the Written Part and the Demonstrative Videos.
The Written Part begins with an introduction to the theories of drama in education and their application processes. It continues with an exploration of how drama can be integrated in the teaching and learning of Chinese, followed by a concise account of eight common drama conventions. The accompanying lesson plans, 7 for secondary school and 3 for primary school, give teachers a concrete idea of how the drama conventions can be applied in the Chinese classroom. Samples of students’ compositions written with the aid of drama conventions are also appended.
The Video Section comprises the interviews of participant teachers and students as well as examples demonstrating how the drama conventions are used in the classroom. There are 13 videos in the toolkit.
The Written Explanations together with the Demonstrative Videos in the toolkit equip teachers with a deeper understanding of how drama can effectively be integrated in Chinese language teaching. The toolkit aims to change the stereotype concepts of the use of drama in education and ultimately promote drama pedagogy in Chinese language education.
Creative Writing (Secondary School): Our E-learning Way!
Author: Dr. Tan Chee Lay, Mdm. Teoh Hee San, Ms. Puah Lynn Dee
Based on theories of creative thinking, the 8 lesson plans in this toolkit provide different creative strategies (including association, imagination, sensory experience, creative titling, rewriting, role-playing, relay writing, and time/space-travel) to help students think out of the box and enhance their creative writing ability through collaborative learning. All the lesson plans have been experimented in schools with satisfactory results.
Apart from lesson plans, the toolkit consists of PowerPoint presentations, an article on the theoretical framework of the toolkit, scholarly papers and other materials, aiming to better provide support for teachers who wish to use ICT in the teaching of creative writing.
Complementing the toolkit is an online writing portal "iWrite" (iwrite.sg) which was constructed for teachers and students to write interactively inside and outside the classroom. The integration of tablet PC in the designed lesson plans has also made “seamless learning” in creative writing possible.
Situational Exploratory Project Work
Editor: Dr. Chin Chee Kuen
Developed by Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Situational Exploratory Project Work” teaching toolkit is designed for Secondary 1 to 2 Chinese language teachers. As the product of a collaborative school-based research by SCCL and Hua Yi Secondary School, this toolkit provides teachers with useful supplementary teaching materials and can be used for a school-based curriculum.
By completing the self-exploratory tasks required in different project works in the toolkit, students will be able to practice and learn Chinese language in real-life scenarios. The toolkit comprises six projects and additional materials, such as an essay on the theoretical framework, reading texts and lesson plans.
From Reading to Writing
Author: Mr. Ang Swee Choon, Mdm. Kwek Siew Hoon, Mr. Mao Zhaohui
Infusing a set of theories and strategies from the fields of educational psychology and language pedagogy, this package aims to help secondary school students find fun in writing by providing teachers with effective writing teaching strategies that focus on the development of students’ reading and thinking skills.
The design concepts and theoretical framework of the toolkit is elaborated in the first chapter. The purpose is to help teachers better understand the theories behind the approach adopted.
The second chapter provides instructions on the teaching of three writing strategies. A fundamental analytic skill, the “PEEL reading and writing strategy”, is effective in helping students understand the structure of a paragraph and identify the different types of sentences within it. The second strategy, “writing based on critical thinking”, aims at stimulating students’ critical thinking through reading, which will eventually enable students to generate more ideas and contents for their compositions. Finally, the third strategy, “reading for imitative writing and ‘sequel’ writing”, focuses on improving the structure and organization of students’ writing.
13 lesson plans, 13 PowerPoint slideshows, 12 text structures worksheets and 2 dissertations are included in the third chapter the CD for reference.
When students are equipped with better writing techniques, given more training for their reading and thinking skills, they will be able to generate more contents and become better in structuring their essays. In this way, they will definitely find writing easier and more enjoyable.
Drama is the Laboratory of Learning Chinese as a Second Language
Author: Dr. Chou Shiao-Yuh
Developed by the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language, the “Drama is the Laboratory of Learning Chinese as a Second Language” teaching toolkit is designed for use in the teaching of Chinese language at all levels in secondary schools.
The toolkit comprises two parts: the written part and the demonstrative videos. The written part begins with an introduction to the theories of drama in education and their application process. It continues with an exploration of how drama can be integrated in the teaching and learning of Chinese. Eight commonly used drama conventions are introduced. The introductions, together with the lesson plans, give the teachers a basic idea of how the drama conventions can be applied in the Chinese classroom. Samples of students’ compositions are appended.
13 lesson plans, 13 PowerPoint slideshows, 12 text structures worksheets and 2 dissertations are included in the third chapter the CD for reference.
The video section comprises interviews of participating teachers and students and videos demonstrating how the drama conventions are used in the classroom.
The written explanations together with the demonstrative videos in the toolkit aim to help the teachers acquire a basic understanding and actual experience of how drama can be integrated in Chinese language teaching. Ultimately, the toolkit aims to correct teachers’ misconceptions of ‘applying drama’ in education and ultimately promote the use of ‘drama as pedagogy’ in Chinese language education.