My Chinese Bridge

January 13, 2019

My Chinese Bridge

A word from the first Chinese teacher in Mostar

My name is Xiukun Meng, I am the Chinese teacher at West Mostar University, and the first Chinese teacher in Mostar. I came to Mostar, the most beautiful city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, from China in March 2018, and started my career of Chinese teaching in West Mostar University. The Chinese course in Mostar is Selective C, 30 class periods for each semester. To the students in Mostar university, Chinese is the most novel, but also the most difficult language in the world. In the first semester in 2018, 30 students registered Chinese as their selective course. And I selected HSK 1 as the textbook which unites “examination and application” together and lays stress on training students in the ability of listening, speaking, reading and writing.

During my teaching I found the following problems that students had:

1. They could not pronounce Chinese tones correctly, especially the fourth tone.

2. It was difficult for them to recognize Chinese characters without PinYin (the official romanization for Standard Chinese) and it was even more difficult for them to write characters.

In order to get rid of students’ worry about their capacity to learn Chinese and motivate their interest in Chinese language, I introduced some Chinese culture related to Chinese characters and analyzed their structure to connect Pinyin and characters with traditional Chinese culture, which impressed students deeply. Finally, they could remember the characters and improved their pronunciation greatly. The following are examples of how I presented the characters of “福” good fortune; “喜” like, love, enjoy; “筷子” chopsticks; and the structure of “男” male. When I taught the initial “f”, the final “u” and Pinyin “fǔ” I showed students the artistic character “福” and explained the meaning and how Chinese people put it up on their doors or windows during Spring Festival. Then everybody liked “福” because it can bring good fortune to people.

So they liked to learn to write it and remembered it naturally. When I taught initial letter “x”, final letter “i” and PinYin “xǐ” I wrote the character “喜” and showed my paper cutting “双喜”, then told the students it is used in Chinese weddings and introduced the traditional Chinese wedding, by which some new characters such as “新娘、新郎，抬花轿、拜天地、掀盖头” are taught.

Finally, wedding music with Suona, a traditional musical instrument, was played. (If you are interested in finding out about the Suona, Song of the Phoenix is a 2013 award-winning China art house drama about a man who dedicates his life to learning this traditional instrument only to find that the world has moved on.) In this way, students not only learned about Chinese culture, but also characters. When neutral tone was taught, I gave the example of “筷子kuàizi” in which “zi” is a neutral tone. And I gave each student a pair of “筷子”and taught them how to use them by picking up a pea. Next, I introduced some Chinese food.

When teaching the word “男”, I explained the reason for the structure. The upper part means “field for crops”, the lower part means “strength”. Because males are strong enough to plough the field for crops, the word means “male”.

Gradually, my students became more and more interested in Chinese language, especially characters. Now, one of the students named Marte, is attending the additional classes for the Chinese Bridge Competition and has learned more interesting Chinese characters. For example, “淼”, which is made up of three “水”, means big water.

“森”, which is made up of three “木”, means a lot of trees. “磊”, which is made up of three “石” means a lot of stones. “众”, which is made up of three “人”, means a lot of people.

The culture of Chinese characters is really amazing. I feel happy that my students are more and more interested in Chinese language, which motivates me to go further on my way of Chinese teaching to foreign students in order to build a bridge to the world with Chinese – My Chinese Bridge.

我的汉语桥

----莫斯塔尔首个汉语老师说

我是莫斯塔尔大学的汉语教师孟秀坤，也是波黑莫斯塔尔市唯一的中文教师。2018年3月，我带着汉办的重任，怀着对亲人的思念，来到巴尔干半岛的波黑国家美丽的莫斯塔尔市莫斯塔尔大学，开始了我在莫斯塔尔大学的对外汉语教学之旅。

莫斯塔尔大学的汉语课程是C级选修课，学生只选一个学期，30个课时，获得两个学分。汉语对于莫斯塔尔大学的学生来说既新奇又有难度，第一学期有30名学生抱着好奇的心里报了基础汉语选修课，我选用的是汉办的HSK1标准教程，这是一套“考教结合”，注重培养学生的听说读写综合运用能力的实用性教材。教学中我发现学生遇到的的问题是：

一、声调把握不准，尤其是四声发的太轻，造成洋腔洋调；

二、只认拼音不认汉字，更不想写汉字，甚至惧怕汉字，认为汉字太难了，不可能学会。

为了排除学生对汉语的畏惧心里，激发他们学习汉语兴趣，我在课堂上适当插入中国的汉字文化、分析汉字构字理据，用中国的传统文化把拼音和汉字起来，加深了同学们对汉字的印象，大大提高了其对汉语的兴趣，发音方面也相应取得了很多进步。下面以 “福”字文化，“喜”字文化，“筷子”文化，“男”字的构字理据为例子说明我是如何把中国传统文化与汉字和拼音结合起来的。

在讲声韵母和音节时练习声母f和韵母u的组合音节,首先我写出音节fǔ以及相应的汉字，并介绍“福”字的用法以及中国人过春节时贴“福”字的习俗，以及中国人对倒“福”的理解，结果同学们和中国人一样喜欢上了“福“字。

在练习声母x和韵母i的组合时，我写出拼音xǐ，并写出这个拼音对应的汉字“喜”，让大家认读，然后出示我的剪纸作品双喜字，并告诉大家双喜字在婚礼上的用法，介绍传统的中国婚俗和婚礼，通过展示PPT,教汉字“新娘、新郎，抬花轿、拜天地、掀盖头”等词汇，最后播放唢呐婚礼曲，同学们在喜气洋洋的气氛中学到了很多词汇。

汉语除了四声外，还有一个读得又短又轻的声调，这就是“轻声”，讲轻声时要举例说明，“筷子”的“子”就是一个很好的例子。筷子是中国独特的餐具，借机我发给同学们每个人一双筷子，教大家如何使用，并用夹豆子的方法练习，然后导入中国的饮食文化。

“男”字是由“田” 和“力”上下结构构成的，表示有力气在田里干活。男人比女人有力气,历史上中国是一个农业大国，有男耕女织的说法，于是这个 “男”字就表示male。

逐渐地，我的学生对汉语产生了浓厚的兴趣，并喜欢上了汉字。

马贺德同学报名参加了汉语桥比赛辅导，了解了更多有趣的汉字。例如，“淼”由三个“水”构成，表示水很大，“森” 由三个“木”构成，表示树很多，“磊”由三个“石”组成，表示很多石头（a heap of stones），“众”字由三个“人”构成表示“人”数众多等等。

汉字文化的确奥妙无穷，很欣慰我的外国学生对汉语越来越感兴趣，激励我在汉语教学的路上走的更远，用汉语架起一座通往世界的桥梁---我的汉语桥。