Teaching Practice Of Children’s Song In Chinese Teaching In Thailand

Chinese language learning at a younger age has become an irreversible trend in Thailand in which the course of Chinese teaching and popularization is relatively full-fledged, and children have gradually developed into another important group of Chinese learning in Thailand. However, children have different characteristics from adults. They are active, curious and willing to show themselves, which determines that the efficient ways to learn Chinese for children are different from that for adults. What are they? Children’s song may be one of the options.Therefore, children’s song was explored in this investigation based on the second language theories and teaching practice. The effects of children’s song in Chinese teaching were comprehensively studied from three aspects, i.e., theories of children’s psychology, second language acquisition, the syllabus of Youth Chinese Test(YCT) and Thailand policies on Chinese teaching; practical teaching performed by myself at the Confucious Institute of Betong in Thailand; interviewing teachers and students at multiple local schools and the corresponding class observations.It is found that children’s song could not only reduce the boring of traditional language learning, but also improve the learning efficiency through lively singing. Therefore, children’s song is an efficient way for children learning Chinese. To further improve children’s motivation on Chinese learning, enrich language knowledge, enhance the skills of mastering Chinese and thus daily communicate using Chinese, the children’s song was assorted into different categories based on Thailand policies and the outlines of YCT.However, there are still some limitations for the application of children’s song, such as not enough teachers, heavy assignments for children, and teacher’s prestige being challenged. Therefore, recommendations on how to more properly and efficiently apply children’s song in Chinese teaching were proposed on the basis of teaching suggestions from several teachers and my own practical teaching.Finally, some relevant suggestions, based on teachers’ teaching advice and my own classroom practice, are proposed for the application of children songs into pedagogical practice with the purpose of improving children’s Chinese language learning.