The Three Modules Of Linguistic Competence And The Strategies Of Teaching Chinese As A Foreign Language

On the basis of Chomsky's Universal Grammar Theory, Xu Jie divided the linguistic competence into three modules, that is, the Language Computational System, the Lexicon and Writing Symbols, and the Culture-related Language Knowledge. The three modules have different properties and different ways to be learned. This is true in the mother-tongue acquisition, and also is suitable in the foreign language acquisition. According to the UG theory and the three modules theory, this paper discusses the strategies of the teaching Chinese as a foreign language compared with the ways of linguistic competence acquisition of people whose mother tongue is Chinese.The Language Computational System includes the phonetic system and grammatical system. During the teaching Chinese as a foreign language process, teachers should guide the students to analyze the same points and differences between their mother-tongue and Chinese, then they can directly use the phonetic and grammatical rules in their mother tongue that are the same as in Chinese, which is a good way to promote the Chinese learning by using the positive transfer. As to the different rules between the learners' mother-tongue and Chinese, they have to overcome the negative transfer by resetting the parameter and doing intense practice to master the target language.The second module includes the lexicon and Chinese characters. First recognizing and then writing Chinese characters mode helps students cultivate the feeling of Chinese characters. On this basis it will be more effective to teach the strokes, writing orders, components and structures. In addition, special attention needs to be paid on the teaching of punctuations. During the lexicon teaching, the morphemes'meaning should be taught in the words that are formed according to the word-formation rules. This is a good way to enrich the students'vocabulary. While those formulaic structures which are adverse to the word-formation rules, such as irregularities, idioms and slang, should be taught as a unit.The acquisition of Culture-related Language Knowledge is related with the teaching of Chinese culture. Teachers have to combine the language teaching and the culture teaching so as to make the students cultivate the interest in the Chinese culture. Meanwhile, teachers can encourage the students to take part in all kinds of social and practical activities, and then they can learn the language as they are enjoying the culture.