A Study Of Homework In Elementary Level CSL Teaching

Elementary stage is the entry level for a Chinese learner. The effectiveness of this stage is ofvital importance to the whole learning process of the Chinese language. To improve thestudents’level of Chinese, students’self-study is as important as the teaching in classrooms.Homework is given by the teachers to students for them to carry out independent study after theclasses, which complement the teaching during the classes. These assignments play a significantrole with respect to consolidating, transforming, assimilating and effectively impartingknowledge. The research on the role of homework is currently very limited in both China andoverseas. In order to contribute to the discussion about problems arisen from setting uphomework and improve the designs, this study investigates the empirical evidence and issuesabout homework of comprehensive course during the Elementary stage, based on the teaching ofChinese language to foreigners in China.This study first defines the scope of homework using comprehensive literature review, thensummarizes the relevant prior research, and finally discusses the characteristics of theElementary stage of Chinese learning based on a vast amount of research on relevant content.This study looks at the following aspects by questionnaires to students and interviews withteachers: the volume, level of difficulty, category, content and feedback method of homework atElementary stage. The data is then sorted and analyzed. The results show various issues, such asthe high volume of the homework, text-book-based contents, and the lack of relevance of someof the homework.Based on the homework in textbooks, four elementary Chinese-Textbooks are chosen:Chinese Course, The development of Chinese Experiencing Chinese, Boya Chinese. Thisresearch investigates the exercise in the books. In particular, it looks at the different types ofquestions, and studies issues such as high volume, lack of focus, simple and mechanical exercise, lack of relevance to real life, etc. Finally the study makes relevant recommendations on possiblesolutions.Together with the analysis results on textbook exercises, this research uses‘ChineseCourse’ as a case study. First, this research analyses the situation and categories of questions inthe textbook exercises. Then, based in these results, this research attempts to design homeworkwith the content in the previous two chapters.Finally, this paper summarizes the basic ideas of the research, and reflects on the limitationsof the study.This study, as an initial preliminary exploration of the design of homework at theElementary stage, still needs large amount of detail investigation and research, so as toeffectively use homework in teaching, and these will be continuously improved in the practice ofteaching. It is hoped that this research can shed new lights and contribute to the literature aboutthe role of homework in Elementary stage of Chinese learning.