Four Basic Chinese Conversational Questions, Grade 1 Style

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I could remember how useless the Chinese classes were, not because Chinese is a useless language (there are actually over a billion speakers worldwide), not because the Chinese teachers were stereotypically very strict (Grade 2 was strict, Grade 3 was even stricter than Grade 2, Grade 6 was said to be the strictest), but because of the way Chinese was to be taught. That's why I got encouraged to write about learning Chinese through meaningful conversations, not parroting. Fortunately, those old Sinjiang textbooks are no longer available except for museum purposes (read here). 


Just looking at this question and answer sweet from Ling Ling Mandarin's Instagram account--I remember what my Grade 4 Chinese teacher said, "If you want only one bon toi (question and answer), go back to Grade 1. But I don't think Grade 1 only has one bon toi." The problem with the old class was that we had to learn Hokkien before learning Mandarin. I confess my Hokkien is really bad. That's why I memorized bon toi without understanding. However, when I looked at this worksheet, I said, "That's how our bon toi should've been taught!" 

However, it's really dumb to just memorize without understanding it. Instead, it should start with students memorizing the answers to the bon toi and then making their own answers based on their real-life situations. I'll answer Question 1 as "我是菲律宾人." (Wǒ shì fēilǜbīn rén) to say that I'm a Filipino. I'll answer Question 2 as, "我有一个妹妹." (Wǒ yǒu yīgè mèimei) to say that I have one sister. That would be a sample of how to first memorize bon toi then learn to answer the bon toi in a real-life situation.

Students will be tested by their knowledge in two ways. First, it's understanding the questions and what they mean. Second, it's to answer the questions. It would be teaching conversational, understanding what the question means, and the answers to the questions. 

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