The Application Of TPR Teaching Approach In Panamanian Elementary Children's Chinese Class

With the development of international Chinese language education,many countries have incorporated Chinese into their basic education system,and the number of children's Chinese learners has increased drastically.During the period when I worked as a volunteer Chinese teacher at the Confucius Institute of Panama University,I also experienced the great difference between overseas Chinese classes for children and domestic Chinese classes for international students.After this approach was introduced to China,it was initially used by front-line English teachers in English teaching classes in China.With the increase in the number of overseas children learning Chinese,Chinese teachers from China to overseas have gradually used this method to teach Chinese and achieved good results.This paper takes the application of the Total Physical Response teaching approach in children's elementary Chinese classroom as the research content,takes 50 second grade students in Panama Culture School as the research object,uses literature review method,case study method and classroom observation method as the research method,analyzes the feasibility of implementing the TPR teaching approach in terms of school situation,teaching content and teaching objects,and then designs and presents the teaching cases.Finally,through reflecting on the teaching cases,I summarized the advantages and disadvantages of the TPR teaching approach in the implementation of the Panamanian junior Chinese classroom and related suggestions.The paper is divided into five chapters.Chapter 1: Introduction.It is also discussed that the TPR teaching approach has been studied in foreign countries for nearly 60 years and has been widely used in the teaching of English to children in China,but it is rarely mentioned in the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language to adults in China.Chapter 2: Overview of the TPR teaching approach.The concept,theoretical basis,teaching principles and supplementary teaching methods of the TPR teaching approach are elaborated,which provides a theoretical basis and reference for studying the application of the TPR teaching approach in Panamanian junior Chinese classrooms.Chapter 3: Overview of Chinese Language Teaching in Panama.Through the analysis of the Chinese teaching situation in Panama,the feasibility of using the TPR teaching approach in Panamanian cultural schools is considered in terms of the teaching situation,teaching contents,and teaching targets of each teaching site.Chapter 4: The practice of the TPR teaching approach in cultural schools.Two teaching cases show how the first lesson of the TPR teaching approach should be conducted and how to use the TPR teaching approach to teach physical nouns.The two cases are also reflected on,and the strengths and weaknesses of the teaching approach are summarized.Chapter 5: Suggestions for applying the TPR teaching approach to Panamanian children's elementary Chinese classrooms.According to the strengths and weaknesses in the practical application of this teaching approach,corresponding suggestions for improvement are put forward.Finally,the concluding section presents a summary of the full research and points out the shortcomings of this paper.It is hoped that to enrich the nationalized research cases of TPR teaching approach and provide reference for front-line Chinese teachers at the same time.