Action Research On Chinese Listening And Speaking Course Based On The Anchored Instruction

Affected by the worldwide enthusiasm for mandarin, short-term intensive Chinese teaching programs are showing their vigorous vitality and vast potential for future development. The intensive business Chinese program organized by School of Chinese as a Second Language of Peking University where the author take her practice teaching is one of the successful short-term intensive Chinese language programs, with a lot of students participating in it. Anchored instruction model has provided us with a better view of short-term intensive Chinese teaching. This paper takes Class D1of the intensive business Chinese program as the object of study and has conducted researches and practices to improve the quality of Chinese listening and speaking courses and students’listening and speaking skills. It also makes some explorations on classroom teaching methods which are applicable for domestic short-term intensive Chinese listening and speaking programs and investigates the application of anchored instruction model in domestic short-term intensive Chinese listening and speaking programs and corresponding achievements, with a purpose of enriching and perfecting the instructional theory and practice researches of anchored instruction model in the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language.This research is carried out in the frame of Action Research and falls into two phases, each lasting for6weeks. The research process and results will be analyzed and evaluated through such methods as classroom observation, classroom recording, teaching journal, and student interview and questionnaire survey. During the course of teaching, the author found that the Chinese listening and speaking teaching programs of Class D1mainly have the following problems:the textbook content is isolated from students’daily life; high-intensive Chinese learning activities make students lose their interests and motivation in learning Chinese; students have different knowledge of Chinese language but they generally show a frazzled state of learning. For these problems, the author has formulated Phase1Action Research. To be specific, it is, under the guidance of anchored instruction model, to integrate teaching resources, reduce the difficulties of learning and perform topic discussions on anchored instruction model, so as to achieve integrated intensive training and inspire students’ interests and motivation in learning. According to the comprehensive analysis results of classroom observation, classroom recording, questionnaire survey and student interview, the main effects of Phase1Action Research include:1) students’class participation is improved in classes which pay more attention to situational teaching;2) classroom teaching becomes more interesting by adding topic discussions which interests students. However, there are still some problems: teamwork is not very good and big difference exists in students’classroom participation. In order to further improve Chinese listening and speaking teaching programs in the mode of anchored instruction model and solve problems arising in the Phase1Action Research, the author carries out Phase2Acton Research. The specific steps are combining topic discussion with debates and personal statement and adjusting the methods of score management and group cooperative leaning. The main effects of Phase2Action Research are:1) students’classroom participation and learning interests are improved further and become more balanced;2) students’ Chinese levels are enhanced. In general, the author, after12weeks of action research, summarized the meaning of this research as follows:1) problems existing in the Chinese listening and speaking courses of Class D1have been basically solved and students’ listening, speaking and communication ability have been improved;2) teachers’ teaching ability and capacity for scientific research have been enhanced;3) contributions are made to the short-term intensive Chinese teaching programs in China.This research falls into seven parts. The first part is introduction, including the introduction to research background, reasons and meaning. The second part is the theoretical foundation and the third part is the research overview, namely the comments on related researches. The fourth part states the research design of this paper, including the object of study and purposes, methods and steps of this research. The fifth part is about the first phase of Action Research and the sixth part is about the second phase of Action Research, which makes adjustments of research methods based on new problems found. The seventh part is the conclusion, which is the overall summary and review of this research, points out the insufficiencies of this research and proposes the research prospects.