Primary Chinese | Spoken Cantonese to written Chinese lesson plan (for tutors)

Primary Chinese | Spoken Cantonese to written Chinese lesson plan (for tutors) | 45 minutes to a textbook sentence

2026-11-04

Tutor lesson-prep guides · Primary Chinese

The ideas are there but the essay reads like a transcript: yesterday, went shopping with mum, very happy, you know. This lesson covers three conversions: swap the words, reorder time and place, delete the particles.

Objectives — Students can: (1) spot spoken words in a sentence and swap them for written equivalents, handling at least 12 common pairs per passage; (2) move time and place phrases into written position, producing sentences such as “I borrowed a book in the library yesterday”; (3) delete sentence-final particles and choose the right end punctuation, using the written question markers instead of the spoken ones; (4) rewrite 5 sentences in 20 minutes, 4 minutes each, which covers a short passage of about 100 words.

01 Prerequisites (3-minute check)

If any of these fails, fix it before the lesson starts.

Skill	Quick check	Pass mark
Register	Which register do textbooks use?	Written Chinese, not speech
Pronouns	What is the written third-person pronoun?	The standard written form, not the spoken one
Sentence frame	What must a complete sentence contain?	A subject and a predicate

02 Lesson flow (45 minutes)

Time	Stage	Tutor does	Student does
0-6 min	One sentence pair	Board a spoken sentence and its written twin, ask what changed	Students see every word swapped
6-16 min	Conversion one: words	List 12 spoken and written pairs, students match them	Write whole words, not single characters
16-26 min	Conversion two: order	Move the object and place phrases; time phrase after the subject	Time and place before the verb
26-36 min	Conversion three: particles	Delete the four common particles, add written question markers	Repunctuate after deleting
36-43 min	Timed rewrite	5 sentences at 4 minutes each	Read each sentence aloud once
43-45 min	Exit check	Three oral questions	Two or more wrong: redo step two

03 Teaching script (read it out)

Scene 1: Swap every word, not just the subject

Students change the pronoun and consider the job done: “They do not know what to do” with the spoken verb still inside. Method: sweep the sentence left to right and ask of each word whether a textbook would print it. The spoken negative becomes the written negative, the spoken phrase for “know what to do” becomes the written one. A sentence is finished only when no spoken item remains.

Word-by-word sweep; the subject alone is not a conversion

Scene 2: Reorder time and place before the verb

A word-by-word swap of “yesterday in the library I borrowed a book” happens to work, but students also produce “I borrowed a book in the library” with the place stranded at the end. Method: draw three boxes, time, place, action, drop the phrases into the boxes, then write the sentence in box order.

Time, then place, then action; three boxes before one sentence

Scene 3: Delete the particles, then decide the punctuation again

After the particle goes, many students forget the question mark, or keep a spoken particle at the end. Method: delete the particle first, then choose the end mark from scratch: full stop for a statement, question mark for a question, and a written question marker where needed. The spoken particles never appear on paper.

Delete the particle, re-decide the mark; statements and questions differ

04 Question types and worked steps

Type	Example	Steps	Answer
Sentence rewrite	Turn one spoken sentence into written Chinese	Swap each word, delete particles	Subject-only edits fail
Vocabulary match	Match each spoken word to its written form	12 pairs at a time, whole words	No single-character answers
Passage repair	A passage written the way it is spoken	Mark spoken items first, then fix one by one	Read it aloud afterwards
Particle deletion	Remove sentence-final particles	Repunctuate after removal	No spoken particle may remain

Sanity check (teach this): Check the arithmetic: 5 sentences times 4 minutes is 20 minutes, which is 44 percent of a 45-minute lesson, leaving 25 minutes. One minute per sentence would finish in five and usually means only the subject was swapped, so split each 4-minute sentence into one minute to find the spoken items, two minutes to swap them, and one minute to read it back.

05 Independent practice (3 questions)

Question	Answer	What to watch
Rewrite: “They tomorrow not come.”	They are not coming tomorrow.	Missing the written negative means redo
Rewrite: “Give a book me.”	Give me a book.	Wrong order means redo step three
Rewrite: “You go not go?”	Are you going?	A spoken particle left in means redo step four

06 Common mistakes and what to say

Mistake	Student writes	Say this
Swapping the subject only	A sentence with a written pronoun and spoken verbs	“You changed the person; the rest of the sentence is still speech.”
Keeping particles	An essay ending a sentence with a spoken particle	“That particle exists in talk, not on an answer sheet.”
Keeping spoken order	“I borrowed a book in the library”	“Place goes before the verb: I borrowed a book in the library yesterday.”
Overcorrecting	Replacing “very happy” with a dramatic idiom	“Written Chinese means clear, not inflated; ‘very happy’ is enough.”

07 Homework (paper, section and question numbers)

P5 Chinese practice paper — Composition: check every sentence for spoken words before handing in
P6 Chinese practice paper — Rewrite section: 5 spoken sentences into written Chinese
Primary Chinese chapter index — All chapters

08 Exit check (last 5 minutes)

Question	Answer	Decision
Name the three conversions.	Vocabulary, word order, particles	Missing one means redo
Can a spoken particle appear in an essay?	No	Answering yes means redo step four
How do you rewrite “you go not go?”	Are you going?	A particle left in means redo

09 Tutor FAQ

Is any spoken flavour allowed?

Quoted dialogue can keep a little, but narration stays in written Chinese.

What if the fixed sentence still reads badly?

Usually the order is still spoken; return to the three boxes.

How many pairs should be learned?

12 per lesson; about 70 after two weeks covers P5-P6 composition.

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A TutorZone lesson-prep guide. Written by the TutorZone team; questions and lesson flow are original and are not taken from any school or publisher material.