There are so many Chinese books on the market emphasizing an easy way of learning either through songs, stories, pictures, games, and more to attract learners to learn what most people believe to be a difficult language. These methods seem to focus more on the way of how students learn than on the material itself. They should be described as the “fun way of learning” rather than the “easy way of learning.” Not only do instructors, parents, and learners make mistakes in differentiating the two, but book authors sometimes also confuse the concepts of learning Chinese the easy way versus the fun way. After years of learning, do the learners learn all that they are expected to learn? Do they fulfill the objectives indicated in the book? I have heard of parents who have spent thousands of dollars on lessons and in the end, their child only learned 6 words. I have tutored students who had previously learned Chinese for a couple of years and can’t remember what they have learned. When I showed them Chinese characters, they would say that they looked familiar, but they would not be able to pronounce them or they did not know what they are.

A well-designed book will not only attract people to learn but will also enable the learners to retain what they have learned. The process of learning should include reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Students learn better by learning these four ways of reinforcing the Chinese language at once with constant repetition than learning without any one of them. There are teachers that skip the writing process just to make teaching easier and to ease the burden on students while learning.

However, the way to make the learning process easier for students is not to avoid teaching the difficult parts but to change the teaching methodology altogether. Unfortunately those teachers or authors who eliminate the writing aspect are not aware of this.

In order to make Chinese learning easier, the four steps have to be very clear. Usually, it is a good idea start with listening and speaking, followed by reading and writing. I often emphasize the importance of following stroke orders (See “Daily Chinese” workbook) and remind students that writing characters is not drawing; following stroke orders could prevent mistakes and help with the learning of future characters as well. The objectives have to be clear in each unit so that the teachers are able to use it as a guideline to help students comprehend the content and to teach in a manner that makes the learning more flexible. There should be only one key concept in each chapter, each of which should clearly define what language aspects the learners are expected to achieve. If the chapter is about greetings, it should not be mixed with nationality or professional titles. If the topic is about the family, it shouldn’t involve concepts regarding school. Since they are major topics, they should be introduced in separate chapters. Mixed topics are pointless, hard to focus on, frustrate the learners and reduce the chance of retaining the material.

The learning process should consist of a constant building up upon previous learned concepts so that it’s synonymous to a rolling snowball. Making learning easy is not just about making the material interesting or changing the way it is presented, but more importantly, it is about how the material is organized and introduced to students.

Wendy Lin from Practical Chinese