CLTA newsletter May 2019

CLTA NEWSLETTER
January 2019
foreign language; therefore, when teaching
Chinese, an non-Indo-European language, as a
foreign language, we must not simply follow
suit, and the characteristics of different learning
aptitudes; therefore, to increase teaching
effectiveness, they must not be taught with the
same teaching approach. What would be the
approach that is suitable for those students who
fall into the middle section of the normal
distribution curve? This is the question that I
have been trying to find an answer to. The
teaching approach that I have come up with
can be stated in Chinese as 语 文 分 治 , 分 进 合
击 , 节 奏 诵 读 , 整 体 输 入 。I have had this
approach put into teaching practice for some
years. Fundamentals of Chinese Characters,
published by Yale University Press, and
Practical Rhythmic Chinese, published Foreign
Language Teaching and Research Press, are
two books yielded from my endeavors. In
October 2018, Essential College Chinese (ECC)
Book 1 was published by Beijing Language and
Culture Press & Phoenix Tree Publishing Inc.,
and ECC Book 2 will be published later this
year. I have incorporated the teaching
approach into Essential College Chinese. I
hope that more teachers will be interested in
joining me in finding out if this teaching
approach is a good answer to the above
question in the years to come.
My personal life and my professional life have
inevitably influenced each other, yet the
influence has been positive, reinforcing, and
rewarding. Before Diana Yiqing Sun and I
were married, she had already started to teach
Chinese at Washington University in St. Louis.
I was a doctoral student writing my dissertation
and a part-time instructor teaching English as a
second language at St. Louis University. In the
summer of 1993, she went to teach Chinese at
Middlebury Chinese Summer School, and
when I joined her as a family member at
Middlebury the next summer, thanks to
Professor Scott McGinnis, the lead teacher of
the first-year Chinese then, and Professor
Richard Chi, the director of the Chinese
Summer School at the time, I was also hired to
teach Chinese there. They virtually had me
started my Chinese language teaching career in
the United States. Diana joined the Chinese
language faculty at the University of Vermont
in the year of 2000 and has been my colleague
since then. We have two children, a daughter
and a son, and we are fortunate that even
though they were born and grew up in the
United States, they have successfully inherited
their mother tongue. They have been speaking
Chinese with us ever since they first learned to
speak. When we taught at Middlebury Chinese
Summer School in late 1990’s and early 2000’s,
when we attended CLTA annual meetings
during the ACTFL conventions in early 2000’s,
and when we took our students to study abroad
in China in summer, they were with us. They
insist on us speaking Chinese to them as they
would feel wired if we speak English to them.
Our aged parents in China are particularly
happy as their grandchildren can communicate
with them in Chinese freely. We, as parents
who take Chinese language teaching as our
profession, feel that nothing can be more
gratifying than the fact that our children have
no trouble in listening, speaking, reading, and
writing in Chinese and enjoy communicating
with us in Chinese.
I have to say that your interview question about
my professional life, personal life, and even my
hobbies and favorite food is somewhat like the
one raised to a movie start or a singing star, but
I am just a Chinese language teacher who spent
some years serving CLTA. Do I actually
already have fans who want to know my
personal life and even my hobbies and favorite
food? Anyway, I have tried and will continue
to try to cooperate with you just in case there is
indeed the need to help some of our members
satisfy their curiosity about their former
executive director. My hobbies are listening to
Chinese music performed with western musical
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