Teaching Advanced Chinese with Authentic Materials

This CALPER project is developing a practical guide to selected features of natural spoken Chinese, which will specifically highlight important interactive aspects of the spoken language. The materials are aimed at students who have had at least 300 hours of instruction in Chinese but will also be valuable for teachers who would like to use them with somewhat less advanced students. We have gathered a large collection of conversational Mandarin Chinese, which forms the basis for the materials. The data come from speakers discussing readings, narrating stories from their past, talking to each other while playing games, talking about movies, talking on campus tours, conversing with each other at dinner parties, and talking while shopping at a farmers' market.

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TEACHING AND LEARNING MATERIALS:

Working with Spoken Chinese
is a series of online teaching and learning materials for high-intermediate / advanced learners (ACTFL Speaking Proficiency) of Mandarin Chinese, which can be used in instructed settings or for self-study. Use of the units is free, but registration is required.

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Professional Development Materials

• Chinese Corpus Resource Guide [PDF (~307k)]. Download information on the left sidebar

• A Corpus Worker's Toolkit. Online. Go to the right sidebar

• "Developing Teaching Materials with Authentic Data and Corpus Analysis Tools". Presented at the 3rd UC Language Consortium Conference, UCLA, April 23, 2006 [powerpoint]

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In Professional Journals

Jing-Schmidt, Z., & Tao, H. (2009). The system of disposal in Mandarin: cognitive and discourse functional perspectives. Language and Linguistics , 10 (1), 29-58.

Liu, J., & Tao, H. (2009). Negotiating linguistic identities under globalization: language use in contemporary China. Harvard Asia Pacific Review, 10 (1), 7-10.

Song, Z., & Tao, H. (2009). A unified account of causal clause sequences in Mandarin Chinese and its implications. Studies in Language , 33 (1), 69-102.

Ming, T, & Tao, H. (2008). Developing a Chinese heritage language corpus: issues and a preliminary report. In A. W. He and Y. Xiao (Eds.), Chinese as a heritage langauge: Fostering rooted world citizenry (pp. 167-187). Honolulu: University of Hawaii, National Foreign Language Resource Center.

Tao, H. (2008). Issues in language acquisition and the status of Chinese as an international language. Journal of the Hunan Normal University (Special edition on teaching and research on Chinese as a foreign language), 6 (2).

Tao, H. (2008). The role of corpora in Chinese language teaching and teacher education. In P. Duff and P. Lester (Eds.), Issues in Chinese language education and teacher development (pp. 90-102). University of British Columbia, Centre for Research in Chinese Language and Literacy Education.

Tao, H. (2005). The gap between natural speech and spoken Chinese teaching material: Discourse perspectives on Chinese pedagogy. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, 40(2), 1-24.

Tao, H. (2004). "Introduction" to special issue on "Corpora, language use, and grammar." Journal of Chinese Language and Computing, 14.

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Project Director: Hongyin Tao, University of California-Los Angeles
Graduate Assistant: Houxiang Li, The Pennsylvania State University