Why is “Willy Goat” unique?
Willy Goat is the second text book series to be published by Ignite Chinese that is specifically written for Teaching with Comprehensible (TCI) based instructions and Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) practitioners. The Willy goat series have been written in a style that combines the characteristics of Dr. Krashen’s work, learning and the brain, with children’s developmental stages. At the start of the story, our main character, Willy, is a preschooler. Gradually, throughout the story he grows older. Willy Goat is just like every other kid in the world; he faces daily challenges about making friends, learning the value of family, becoming a part of a school community, handling social and emotional conflicts, and developing responsibilities and independence. Therefore, the themes of Willy Goat come from children’s daily life and interaction with others. Children are familiar with the behavior patterns and interactions from Willy Goat, so they can relate to him on a personal level.
Willy Goat is aimed at non-native Chinese students in elementary and middle school. Willy Goat is also a step one reader for native Chinese children. It provides comprehensible, fun, engaging and age-appropriate textbooks for children. Willy Goat has a total of 9 stories. It employs the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) level one vocabulary and is written in a unique, spiral, repetitive way. At the same time, it highlights and emphasizes the characteristics of Chinese languages in rhyming and rhythm. It uses a visual circling written philosophy to expose hanzi to students to this unique, repetitive story form, and helps their brains to recognize patterns and store information more efficiently.
Willy Goat embodies seven characteristics of a TCI curriculum: 1. It uses the most frequent words and structures to quickly build up students’ communicative skills. 2. It employs high frequency phrases that are repetitive, but organized in a novel way. 3. Each story has a small, set number of new words woven into a long passage. 4. It builds a basic structure of communication by constantly guiding students to be able to talk about “where, what, who, how and when” from very early on. 5. It uses backward-design principles in order to master HSK level 1 vocabulary. The vocabulary is broken into 9 groups and woven into 9 big, different spiral stories, or “Chapter stories”. Each chapter story is then broken down further into mini stories. Each mini story level employs a variety of TCI based approaches and assessments to help achieve the desired goals. 6. It is centered on students’ interests and experiences. 7. The language is simple but contains deep meanings.
In a classroom, each Willy Goat story will be used as a chapter reading. The process to prepare students for reaching the goal of reading it successfully is often a combination of TPR, MT and/or collaborative story-asking. This last technique is the signature of TPRS, and is practiced through circling questioning techniques. This is the core of TPRS.
Why don’t we teach students to write Hanzi, Chinese characters, mechanically like we all have done and just let them read? To answer this question, we will need to address how Willy Goat’s Teacher’s Guide is uniquely different. I strive to guide you through how to provide a comprehensible process, and how you can create effective auditory input. This helps students to acquire the sound and meaning of new language, helps to prepare students for getting through their “silent period” and ultimately being able to communicate verbally. It is only at this point that students move on to writing. This whole process is similar to how native children acquire their mother tongue. For most Chinese children, before they enter school they can speak about 2500 words. In their fast-growing brains, they have stored these words’ sounds, syllables and meanings. Only after they step onto the school grounds do they start to learn how to read as they add shapes or pictures to each sound.
In order to keep and sustain a beginner’s interest in Chinese, Willy Goat’s main focus is to start with high frequency phrases and structures. Names, brands, or locations are non-essential information that is most likely kept in English. The human brain can not store every piece of information. Rather, it needs to be selective in order to survive. A high frequency phrase is therefore more important than a person’s name or a location.
Lastly, I would like to emphasize that Willy Goat utilizes the French linguist Nathan Dummitt’s color coding system, which employs different colors to differentiate tones. This takes away the pressure of not knowing tones accurately and allows students to focus their brain power where it is most needed in order to acquire the language.
小羊Willy究竟有什么独特之处呢?
小羊Willy 是以“可理解输入为宗旨的教学法”和 “协创故事教学法”为依据的二语教材。这些故事的撰写结合了Dr. Krashen 著作中的一些二语习得理论,以及大脑如何支配学习以及儿童脑力发展阶段的特性,在故事之初,我们的故事主角Willy还是一个没上学的小羊羔,但随着故事的发展他也慢慢成长起来.
书中的主题都是来自孩子们熟悉的日常生活,所以容易与自己的经历联系到一起。跟所有的孩子一样,Willy经常需要面对各种各样的挑战,也在这个过程中不断地学习与成长。它慢慢地学会了如何交朋友,怎样融入学校生活,如何处理社交和情感冲突,也逐渐意识到家庭的重要性,它变得越来越有责任心,也越来越独立。
小羊Willy 是为中文非母语的中小学生编写的,同时也适合中文为母语的学生作为初级阅读识字材料。这套丛书共有9个故事,100%涵盖了汉语水平考试(HSK)一级的词汇,适合不同年龄段的孩子,既易理解又富有趣味。同时,因为注重押韵,又便于记诵。
这些故事写作的特点是以螺旋上升的方式大量复现重要词汇和语法,一再出现的汉字形象便于大脑辨识汉字及图像和语言的规律,更有效地储存信息。
小羊Willy包含了以可理解输入为基础的教学法大纲的七大特点:
- 运用高频词和句子结构快速帮助学生建立沟通技巧;
- 总是以一种新的方式来组织和运用这些不断重复的高频词;
- 每个故事中都会在原有的基础上融入一小部分新词;
- 通过不断引导学生在学习初期就用“ 谁”、“在哪儿”、“怎么样”、“什么时候”进行交流,从而帮助学生建立交流的基本框架;
- 用反向设计教学法帮助学生掌握汉语水平考试(HSK)一级水平的词汇。这些词汇被分成9组,分散在9个不断循环上升的迷你故事(章节书)中。每一章节的故事又分成不同级别的迷你故事,每一级别迷你故事都会运用以可理解输入法为基础的方法和测评来帮助学生达成目标;
- 以学生的兴趣和经验为中心;
- 语言虽然简单但是意味深长。
在课堂上,每一个故事都可以作为章节书来阅读。为了帮助学生顺利地达到能够阅读的目的,教学过程中会用到全身动作反应法(TPR),电影讨论(MT)和故事问答法(story-asking)——循环提问,这是协创故事教学法(TPRS) 的核心和标志。
为什么我们不机械地教学生写汉字,而是像现在这样让他们去大量地读书呢?为了回答这个问题,我们需要说明一下小羊Willy的教师指导用书的与众不同。大多数中国孩子在入学前已经会说2500个汉字左右,在他们快速发展的大脑里已经储存了这些汉字的声音、音节和意义。有了这样的基础,上学后他们当然可以直接开始学习如何阅读,与此同时,把每个字的音、形、意联系起来。而对于中文为非母语的学生来说并不具备这样的条件。
小羊Willy的教师指导用书的与众不同就体现在这里。在书中,老师会学到怎样为学生提供可理解输入的方法以及怎样创造有效的听力输入,从而帮助学生提高听力水平,跨过“静默期”,最终达到语言交流的目的。这时候,学生就可以进入书写阶段了。
为了持续保持中文初学者的兴趣,这套丛书重点集中在高频词和句型。人的大脑不可能对每一条信息都加以保存,需要对信息进行筛选,显然,高频词就比人的名字和地点更加重要。
最后,需要强调的是,这套丛书还运用了法国语言学家Nathan Dummitt 的颜色编码系统,也就是运用不同的颜色来区分语调,这就减轻了因为拿不准音调给学生带来的压力,使得学生可以把精力放在习得语言最需要的地方,进而实现高效学习语言的目的。
现在小羊威力丛书有圣诞节特价!抓住机会哦!https://ignitechinese.org/product/willy-goat-not-easy-to-be-a-child/