A Research On The Application Of Thematic Teaching Method In Elementary Chinese Courses With Burnley Primary School As Sample

In the context of secondary language acquisition,a thematic approach has been proposed as a means of engaging learners by teaching the language and its components in combination with cultural elements in order for the student to apply what they've learnt to real life situations.Each theme carefully combines multiple teaching points,including vocabulary,syntax,traditions and culture which are easily applicable to real life situations and experiences.In the UK,Chinese is taught as an “interest” or“comprehensive” class outside of the national curriculum.As such,there is huge disparity in the quality and time invested in teaching Chinese to English students in different areas of the country.This article discusses the use of the thematic method to design lessons for teaching Chinese to primary school students in the small town of Burnley,located in Northwest England.The obstacles to effective Chinese teaching based on the perceived importance of teaching Chinese,the characteristics of the learners,availability of time and material resources as well as the authors experience teaching Chinese to primary school students will be discussed.It was found that the core language elements,when interspersed with rich and interesting classroom activities established the students' cognitive system of Chinese,and met the requirements of the“ foreign language learning” skills and emotion fields of the British curriculum standards,while providing the groundwork for long-term sustainable development of Chinese teaching.This article is divided into 3 sections with 5 chapters in total;the introduction,discussion and conclusion.The introduction elaborates on the origin of topic selection,research significance,research review,research content and research methods,as well as the origin of the thematic teaching method and the current research situation at home and abroad.The second chapter provides an overview of the current education situation of Chinese language teaching in the UK.This section also analyzes the need for teaching Chinese,target characteristics,teaching objectives and teaching resources at Burnley Elementary School,and preliminary analysis of the feasibility and application of thethematic teaching method in teaching Chinese at this school.The third chapter is the core part of the thesis,which comprehensively shows the selection of teaching topics,the establishment of teaching objectives and the integration of teaching content.Two example themes,"color" and "Spring Festival" are used to demonstrate the application of thematic teaching when designing lessons.The fourth chapter provides a reflection on the application of the topical teaching method and offers suggestions of its suitability.The teachers classroom performance is assessed and based on feedback from observers and the the teacher themselves,the advantages and disadvantages of the topical teaching method is objectively analysed.The concluding chapter summarizes the main contents,conclusions and shortcomings of this article.