Thursday, March 15, 2007

Zhang Peng Peng visits Victoria, Australia

Victorian Chinese teachers welcome Professor Zhang, Pengpeng from Beijing Language and Culture University. He has been invited here by the Victorian Department of Education to assist teachers of Chinese from all sectors to improve their teaching practice and introduce a new philosophy of teaching and learning; a philosophy which I believe will make both the teaching and learning of Chinese faster, easier and more enjoyable.

His first Professional Development session on Friday the 9th of March was nothing short of spectacular. Prof. Zhang amused and amazed in a full day's presentation introducing the guiding theory underpinning his new approach. His talk included entertaining and enlightening stories taken from his own experience spanning 32 years of teaching Chinese, summaries of the development and influence of linguistic research in Europe and China and a history of China's attempts to grapple with the task of "reforming" the language.

Prof. Zhang challenged us to think about our own practice by asking two deceptively simple questions: "What do we teach?" and "How should we teach it?". It soon became apparent that identifying ourselves simply as Chinese teachers was not entirely accurate. In fact, we are teachers of Mandarin Chinese and Chinese characters. According to Prof. Zhang, lumping spoken and written Chinese together, as has been done for many years, is a hindrance to the learning of both. His analogy was that it is very difficult to walk with both legs bound together, but if each leg is freed, one can advance more rapidly.

Many of the teachers in attendance said it was the most useful and enlightening Professional Development session they had ever attended. I personally feel that I learned more in one day than in my whole year of graduate studies in education. Prof. Zhang has inspired me in many ways and I owe him a debt of gratitude as I believe all of us who teach Chinese do. I have always believed that the perception of Chinese as a very difficult language to learn is inaccurate. Now we have a theory which will aid the teaching and learning of Chinese in a truly revolutionary way.

Thank you, Professor Zhang!

I would encourage every teacher and learner of Chinese to investigate Prof. Zhang's work. Particularly recommended are his "Intensive Spoken Chinese" 《口语速成》 and "Rapid Literacy in Chinese" 《集中识字》 which are both in his "New Approaches to Learning Chinese" series 《新编基础汉语》 published by Sinolingua (华语教学出版社) and also the excellent "Three Sinogram Verses Using Radicals" 《部首三字经》 published by the Beijing Language and Culture University Press (北京语言文化大学出版社)

Zhang, Pengpeng will be in Victoria until May. Any queries can be directed to Ms. Wei, Hongxia at the Victorian Department of Education and Training.

EDIT: You can find some of Prof. Zhang's books and tapes on amazon.com here.