I must admit that I wasn’t one of the kids that liked to sing at school and for a long time avoided using songs in my teaching. But I can’t argue with the fact that I still remember all the words of the songs I was taught in German as an 11-year-old and, after seeing how powerfully they work in the classroom, I have had to re-evaluate my opinion.

There is so much that you can unpack from any given song when learning yourself or teaching others and so many activities that can come from this style of learning. In this article, I’m going to show examples of what you can do with Chinese songs (I do not own the YouTube video or claim copyright on the activities that are based on it).

Chinese Song Lyrics

It goes without saying that you can study a Chinese song’s lyrics. In addition to helping you learn new vocabulary, it’s a good idea to isolate phrases which could be used in other contexts. This is a really good way to build up a repertoire of phrases that one can say with grammatical accuracy because the tune of the song makes it less likely that you will drop words out, add words, or get them in the wrong order.

Some tips: Play with the speed settings in Youtube. You can slow the video down so that you can understand and follow the song better.

You can practice the Chinese vocabulary and phrases with online tools like Quizlet. You can also print them out and turn them into fridge magnets that you can practice pairing up on the fridge. There are many other things you can surely do – just use your imagination!

Further Related Vocabulary

The song you use to learn can be used as a springboard from which you can go down one or more paths to learn further language. For example, when I taught the song “The Wheels on the Bus” in Chinese, I had a five-year-old boy who was very keen to learn the names of the parts of the bus. So, for the next lesson I put together activities which taught and practiced these. The song made the student go further into learning new vocabulary, which was learned within the context and visuals of the original song, making the memory links stronger.

Differentiation (for teachers)

This is one of the current buzzwords in education. In basic terms, it is about teachers responding to individual students’ learning styles, interests, and readiness while planning the lesson. Running with the student’s desire to learn the parts of the bus is an example of this. If you are taking the students’ age, ability, and interests into account while planning the lesson, and possibly adding extra activities for the more able students, you will find that they engage more fully.

Follow-up Activities

The possibilities for more activities are endless and depend on the age and stage of the learner(s). You can do craft activities, card games, board games, running games, video making, Pictionary, etc. as the means to make learning more interesting and fun.

Retell

Retelling the story or content of the song in your own words is a good way to improve your speaking, even if it is still not perfect right away. This is a good way to learn sentence connectors which make a story or conversation flow well.

Choosing the Right Songs

From personal experience, I would say that in a classroom setting students from 5 to 11 years old enjoy doing kids’ songs. Ages 12 – 15 do not appreciate kids’ songs but are usually keen to study Disney songs or simple pop songs. For adults who don’t mind kids’ songs, these are still extremely useful because they often deal with everyday real-life situation that kids need to learn about – thus they contain phrases and vocabulary which are useful for adult language learners’ everyday lives.

To finish, just as a little note from a self-admitted introvert: if you have one of those quiet kids who likes to keep to themselves and doesn’t want to join in singing, you don’t necessarily have to make them join in the singing – trust me when I say that they will be processing it internally and will learn just as much as the others. If they’re anything like I was, they’ll love you for respecting their feelings. If you force them, they might resent you for doing that because it will make them feel deeply uncomfortable.

The post Learning and Teaching Chinese Language Through Song appeared first on .

Andrea learned Chinese as an adult and is now a non-native Chinese teacher with five years’ experience in high school teaching. She is a native English speaker with a degree in Chinese and German and is currently learning Spanish. Because of this, she has spent a lot of time trying out all sorts of language-learning techniques, discovering what works and what doesn’t.

Here are her top tips and tricks for successfully learning Chinese.

The Tips:

1) Learn to Listen

Bernard M. Baruch, a successful American businessman from the early 20^th century, said, “Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.” To learn a language faster, get as much listening input as you can from podcasts, radio, and videos. I find that eavesdropping on the people around me (e.g. At a restaurant or supermarket) is particularly useful because they will often be talking about everyday things and using immediately useful vocabulary. You can use WeChat to hold verbal conversations with Chinese friends. This is great because you can replay the audio as many times as you like and then record your responses. This repetition will help you master the language.

2) Practice Pronunciation

To get your pronunciation perfect, try flipping through Chinese flashcards sets on Quizlet. You can click to hear the words read out loud and mimic what you hear multiple times until it sounds right. You can also record your own voice and compare it to the audio with the correct pronunciation.

Also, whenever you learn a new word, write a little note to yourself on how you would read it phonetically. Eg. Miàntiáo (noodles) could be written as ‘myen tyow’ until you’re used to the proper pinyin. (Editor`s note: well, we still suggest that try to learn from standard pronunciation.)

3) Develop Vocabulary

Keep a little notebook for writing down new words that you encounter. I have found out that if someone tells me a new word but I don’t actually see it in written form, I’m not going to remember it. Seeing the word as well as hearing it locks it into your memory more effectively.

From your notebook, make flashcards of those words to test yourself and refresh your memory. Personally, I find paper flashcards great because of the kinesthetic experience of feeling the cards, flipping them over, and shuffling them. By the end of my degree, I had a collection of over 3,000 cards! However, if you prefer a digital version, there are many options out there (including Quizlet). Flashionary is another great app; it primarily works as a Chinese dictionary, but when you look a word up there is a ‘+’ button that allows you to add the word to your digital deck(s) of flashcards.
I like to provide my students with options (Quizlet, Sugarcane, GoVocab, paper flashcards) so that they can find what best works for them.

4) Create a Connection to Chinese Characters

Many people are intimidated by Chinese characters.  Common comments are how there are so many of them and how complicated they look. I’m not going to lie. It does take effort to become proficient with Chinese characters. But there is good news: characters are made up of different components which often give you clues about the meaning and pronunciation. The more characters you know, the easier it is to learn because you can start connecting characters with the other ones you already know.

When you’re starting out with characters, I find it helps a lot to make pictures out of them. I’m not saying that all Chinese characters are based on pictures, because that’s not true (only about 10% have their origins in pictures). What I mean to say is that it’s easier to remember what a character means if you make a picture or connection in your mind.

For example (and apologies for the bad drawing):

• I very easily get the characters 七(7) and 九 (9) mixed up, so, to mentally separate them in my mind, I think “niiiine looks like a sliiiide” and back it up with a picture in my head.

• To mentally separate the characters 姐 (older sister) and 妹 (younger sister) I think of the following pictures:

• For the character 猪 (pig), I make a picture out of only one component of the character, but it helps me to remember the meaning.

When it comes to learning to write characters, good old rote learning seems to be the most effective way. By writing it out multiple times, you are strengthening the new memory-connections which are formed in your brain. Try copying the character a few times and then covering it to see if you can write it from memory.

5) Understanding the Culture

One of the best ways to absorbe the language is to try and understand the cultural concepts behind it. Ask yourself questions like “Why is a word like this used in this culture?” Go beyond thinking “That’s weird” or “We do things differently” and try to understand the reasons behind the differences. By putting yourself in the shoes of a native-speaker, you will learn the language faster. This builds strong connections with what you are learning, and it also gives you cultural empathy, better cross-cultural communication skills, and fosters deeper understanding between different types of people.

The Tricks:

1) Find the Ideal Learning Environment

The best way to learn how to swim is to jump into the water. The same goes for learning a language. By far, the best thing that you can do for your language learning is to spend time in a country, community, or club where people use the language and you are forced to speak it. It can be as simple as going to your local Chinese supermarket and asking where a certain item is, how much something costs, what brands are good, etc. By immersing yourself, you will absorb knowledge faster.

2) Don’t Be Afraid to Make Mistakes

One thing is guaranteed when you’re learning a language; you will make mistakes – it’s unavoidable, so it’s best to accept this fact right from the start. As an introvert, I have struggled with taking risks at times, but you can step outside of yourself, face your fear, and create a different persona for the language you are learning. Many people who speak multiple languages report having a different type of ‘personality’ for each language that they speak. So, if you naturally hold back and try not to take risks, try using a new language as a way to ‘step outside’ of yourself. And remember, it’s not how many mistakes you make that matter. It’s how many times you learn from your mistakes so that you can correct yourself and become better. That applies not just to learning a language, but to life in general.

3) Get Help From Others

Sometimes, the best way to learn is from other people. Ask native speakers to correct your grammar and pronunciation. They are usually happy when you make an effort to speak their language and won’t mind correcting you. And don’t get upset about being corrected even if you’re not asking for help! It’s all a part of the entire learning journey.

4) Find Your Suitable Learning Styles

As the old saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” Try all kinds of methods and see what works best for you. Remember that what works for one type of student may not work for another. It will also help you discover what your dominant learning style is (Visual, Aural, Verbal, Kinesthetic, Logical, Interpersonal, or Intrapersonal). There are tests you can take on the internet to find out. Many people are a mix of a few of these styles, not just one. When you find the best mix that works for you, your learning will progress much faster.

In summary, the top tips to learn any language are:

1. Be willing to take risks, put in the effort, and accept ideas that are outside your comfort zone.
2. Get as much consistent and regular language exposure as possible. Ten minutes a day is better than one hour a week.
3. Find the learning techniques that help you best, then practice, practice, practice (repetition is your friend).

The post Tips and Tricks to Successfully Learn Chinese appeared first on .