Teacher Discussion Forums

I am trying to teach a young chinese adult english on a one to one basis and really have no idea where to begin. The student is an absolute beginner and knows essentially nothing of the language. The problem is compounded by the fact that his knowledge of pinyin is poor and so his ability to recognise roman letters is not good, although he is able to speak the alphabet a,b,c etc and can write and recognise all of the letters (with some difficulty).

Am I best to concentrate on conversational skills without touching on reading and writing at all (how would I go about this)? Or should I begin with reading, writing?

I really am clueless and would really appreciate any help offered on this subject. Please email me if you have suggestions. I really am stuck!!!

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You have a lot of options. And if one method doesn't seem to be working, it's okay to switch directions.

If I were you, I would start out with really basic oral language (greetings, to want, to like, pronouns, is/are/am, eat/sit/stand/drink/sleep/read/write, present progressive -ing). I would supplement it with basic phonics (i.e., written language + sounds) activites, which double as pronunciation excercises.

When I was first learning Chinese I thought I'd just ignore the written language--too difficult, I thought. But after the first month I realized how that policy cut me off from so much information, and I went back to the beginning to learn characters. Given that experience, I would definitely not recommend ignoring the teaching of written English to your student.