Series Talk 1 on Singapore Chinese Education -- Chinese Language Pedagogies 

Series Talk 1 Guest Speakers: Dr May Liu, Prof Aw Guat Poh, Prof Wang Xiaojun
From SCCL: Dr Chan Chiu Ming, Dr Chin Chee Kuen, Dr Tan Chee Lay (from left)

SCCL held its first Series Talk (2012) on 28 Apr 2012 at its multi-purpose hall. Despite the heavy downpour, more than 165 teachers and members of the public turned up for the event. The key speakers for the talk were Prof Wang Xiaojun (Western Michigan University), Assoc Prof Aw Guat Poh (Asian Languages and Cultures Academic Group, NIE) and Dr Liu May (Senior Lecturer of SCCL).

Prof Wang received his doctorate degree in applied linguistics and is currently a tenured professor of foreign languages and the head of Western Michigan University's Chinese language programme. He is also serving as the first director of the University's new Confucius Institute, which he founded. Prof Wang gave a concise introduction to various theories of second language acquisition and enlightened the audience on the various approaches to the teaching of Chinese Language as well as curriculum design.

In her sharing session, Assoc Prof Aw, adopting the interesting approach of authentic teaching and learning, shared with the audience her innovative pedagogies of second language teaching for children in the Singapore primary school context. She illustrated to the audience on how to use innovative media, such as teaching using movies and pictures, to enliven the learning environment and arouse children's interest in the learning of Chinese language.

On a similar note, Dr May Liu encouraged the audience, especially parents, to read together with their young ones as they embark on their journey of learning the Chinese language. She observed that parents could adopt the "CROWD" methodology (short form for "C": Completion of sentence, "R": Recall questions related to the content of the book, "O": Open-ended questions, "W": Wh questions to consolidate the learning of new vocabulary, "D": Distancing questions that help the child to relate the material in the book to their real-life experiences) to stimulate their children's thinking skills, enrich their vocabulary and enhance their comprehension of the reading passages.

In this enlivening series of talk, the presenters had helped the audience gain a better understanding of the latest Chinese Language pedagogies as well as the benefits and importance of reading to their young.