Practice And Exploration Of Thematic Instruction In Short-term Online Chinese Teaching

Since the continuous development of the epidemic(COVID-19)in recent years,a series of offline Chinese summer camp teaching activities had to be transferred to online,which brings new challenges to Chinese teachers.The teaching time of Chinese summer camp is short and the teaching method is flexible,which is different from the traditional language teaching.Therefore,the mode of medium and long-term Chinese teaching is not suitable for summer camp program.Due to geographical barriers,the traditional method of face-to-face teaching cannot be implemented smoothly in the online teaching.Therefore,the teaching mode suitable for offline summer camps also cannot be applied to online Chinese summer camp.Based on the above two reasons,we urgently need to find a teaching mode that is not only in line with summer camp,but also in line with online teaching.During the summer camp of Cherry Hill Huaxia Chinese School in the United States,after the discussion between Chinese and American schools,the Thematic Instruction was finally adopted.Thematic Instruction is novel,flexible and easy to implement.Although it has been widely used in the teaching of English as a second language,but in the International Chinese Language Education,especially the teaching of Chinese online summer camp has not gained widespread application.Therefore,it is very necessary to study the application of Thematic Instruction in online Chinese summer camp.On the basis of the theory of Thematic Instruction,this paper discusses the related concepts and connotation of Thematic Instruction.Based on the certain realities of Cherry Hill Huaxia Chinese School and the theory of Thematic Instruction,we determined the teaching theme,designed the content of courses and activities,and carried out teaching for the top class and the bottom class of Cherry Hill Huaxia Chinese School.The four folk culture themes of "Qin Opera","Shadow Puppet","Clay Sculpture" and "Paper Cutting" were selected for case display.After the course,student surveys and teacher interviews were conducted to summarize the implementation of Thematic Instruction.The results indicated that the Thematic Instruction has certain advantages in the online summer camp courses of Cherry Hill Huaxia Chinese School,which improves the students’ Chinese level and interest in Chinese culture.A large number of students expressed a strong desire to participate in the summer camp next year.To sum up,it is enlightened that Thematic Instruction can provide more teaching methods for International Chinese Language Education.Teachers can refer to Thematic Instruction in teaching design,so as to make the Chinese classes more vivid and interesting,and inspire students.Finally,in order to further improve it in the follow-up courses,I summarized the shortcomings of this program,and proposed some suggestions on the application of Thematic Instruction in short-term online Chinese teaching.This study hopes to contribute to the development of International Chinese Language Education and brings some enlightenment to Chinese teachers.