A group of 23 principals of Chinese schools in Canada, led by Mr. Allen H. Ten, visited the OCAC (Overseas Community Affairs Council) on March 24 and took part in the Let’s Learn Chinese textbook series explanatory meeting held by the OCAC. The main speaker at this event was the convener of the textbook series editors, Yih-fen Sun, from the Department of Chinese as a Second Language of National Taiwan Normal University.
OCAC Deputy Minister Shih-Chang Hsin said that in the last few years the Chinese language learning environment and teaching trends have changed, and the OCAC launched a new teaching material composition plan in 2015 in light of these changes. All the editors have experience of teaching Chinese overseas. With the concept of Chinese as a Second Language, the OCAC merged the characteristics of Chinese and local cultures into the textbooks, and developed differentiated teaching materials suited for Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines.
Sun said Let’s Learn Chinese refers to the language learning rules of many countries, setting four stages of learning progress so that learners can proceed gradually, a method that matches the international language teaching trend. The textbooks relate the content to real life so that learners can use what they have learned right after school, and listening, speaking, reading and writing ability are developed at the same time. The textbooks not only use phonetic symbols and traditional Chinese characters but also have Hanyu pinyin and simplified Chinese characters.
