A Study Of The Chinese Learning And Teaching Method Of The Italian Jesuits In The Late Ming Dynasty

This paper mainly studies and discusses the methods and effects of Italian missionaries coming to China to learn Chinese in the late Ming Dynasty.When the Jesuits first set foot on the territory of China,they first used the learning mode of"pretext and learning".Such a method is very similar to the way children learn language in the period of enlightenment.First they practice the use of letters or single Chinese characters,and then they learn the language.When Westerners learn Chinese,they first think of the teaching of Chinese characters,which is the inevitable result of the traditional language learning experience of Westerners.Since then,after several studies,combined with the valuable experience of teaching and practice,Jesuits have gradually begun to adopt the learning and teaching mode of paying equal attention to both language and teaching,integrating daily oral practice into teaching.This new learning method has achieved good results,but also has an important impact on the hundreds of years of learning and teaching of Chinese in Europe.The teaching content includes the following methods:Firstly,we should hire famous teachers to help and teach each other.It is the most direct and effective way to employ Chinese teachers to teach Chinese.Second,compile a Portuguese-Chinese dictionary,using Roman letters as the phonetic notation of Chinese characters.Portuguese-Chinese Dictionary,a masterpiece,uses Roman Pinyin,which marks the initials and finals beside each Chinese character,and the five-tone symbols.This enables Western readers to read out the corresponding Chinese pronunciation only by following Roman Pinyin,which is the earliest teaching material for spelling Chinese characters with Western letters.Thirdly,the structure of Chinese characters is analyzed by combining Western memory methods.Matteo Ricci’s Book of Western Countries is used to analyze and study the structure of Chinese characters for easy understanding.Fourth,keep practicing oral English and writing.Speaking and writing are equally important in Chinese teaching,which can be seen from Matteo Ricci’s teaching content.This model of paying equal attention to both writing and speaking has formed a tradition,so that when these missionaries returned to Europe,they taught Europeans Chinese in the same way.Furthermore,learning to write is the need of teaching.As the main purpose of learning Chinese,missionary work of course requires Chinese learning to lean towards written writing,rather than to lean towards never speaking the same spoken language as Chinese people.But for foreign teachers,the learning and teaching methods of "pretext and the language" are not conducive to the improvement of spoken language.The teaching method of "paying equal attention to Chinese" can not only improve the spoken language level,but also make the spoken language level and the writing level grow together,and there will be no imbalance in learning ability.Therefore,the promotion of culture is also an integral part of teaching work.Therefore,the last part of the paper also summarizes the influence of Jesuits on cultural exchange and the enlightenment to us.There are still many shortcomings in this paper.More foreign Chinese teachers need to participate in practical learning and teaching theory in order to continuously optimize the Chinese teaching environment.