1 Performing Culture Pedagogy

Introduces the origins, definition, and features of Performing Culture Pedagogy. Founded by Professors Galal Walker and Mari Noda, it emphasizes the integration of language, culture, and communication, with culture at the core. Through performance-based activities, it cultivates students' intercultural communicative competence, redefines the roles of teachers and students, breaks traditional teaching models, and explores the connotations of performance practice and its implementation methods across different stages.

2 Performance Practice

Discusses the design and implementation of the "Performance Practice" class type within Performing Culture Pedagogy. The Performance Practice class focuses on drills and enactments, where students engage in communicative interactions within target-language cultural contexts, aiming to flexibly apply learned knowledge. Teachers do not use students' native language to explain grammar and cultural knowledge during performance practice; instead, such explanations and Q&A are conducted in "Interpretation" classes. The ratio of interpretation is adjusted based on student levels and textbook detail. The ideal ratio between Performance Practice and Interpretation classes is 4:1, as seen in the curriculum at The Ohio State University. Performance Practice also involves teaching target culture, divided into Achievement Culture, Information Culture, and Behavioral Culture, with different emphases at various stages. Furthermore, designing contexts and scripts for lesson preparation is a challenge in Performance Practice. The text provides examples of context and script designs for speaking and literacy at different learning stages to guide target expressions.

3 Elementary Speaking Performance

Focuses on elementary-level speaking performance, covering cultural points, grammar points, and vocabulary points. Cultural points focus on greetings and introductions. Through practice in different scenarios, students are guided to correctly use "你好" (hello) and forms of address with names. Grammar points emphasize introducing names, designing formal and informal scenarios to help students master the use of "您贵姓" (May I ask your surname?) and "你叫什么名字" (What's your name?). Vocabulary points involve topics of marriage and relationships. Through practice in friend dialogues, target expressions are integrated while conducting cultural comparisons to enhance students' cultural sensitivity.

4 Elementary Literacy Performance

Discusses the application of Performing Culture in elementary-level literacy performance, emphasizing the principle of "speaking and listening first, reading and writing follow." It prioritizes developing oral skills before introducing literacy skills. By delaying the introduction of Chinese characters, learners first master pronunciation and basic features of Chinese, reducing cognitive load. Starting with learning the character versions of already-mastered spoken content, the proportion of written texts is gradually increased to complete the transition from spoken to written language. Writing skills begin with an introduction to the Chinese character writing system. Through activities like dictation and writing dialogues, practice focuses on transforming spoken into written language. Over the past decade, scholars of Performing Culture have actively explored literacy performance at the elementary level, proposing various teaching suggestions and methods, such as daily writing, authentic reading tasks, typing real emails and text messages, to improve students' literacy abilities.

5 Intermediate Speaking Performance

Discusses the design of intermediate-level speaking performance, including cultural, grammar, and vocabulary points. Cultural points focus on the behaviors of toasting and urging others to eat at Chinese banquets. Through practice in different scenarios, students master related etiquette. Grammar points emphasize the displacement meaning of the "把" sentence structure, combining it with scenarios like enjoying Peking Duck, allowing students to learn through practice. Vocabulary points use scenarios like roommates cooking homemade meals to practice vocabulary describing flavors and related grammatical structures, while integrating behavioral culture.

6 Intermediate Literacy Performance

Discusses the design and implementation of intermediate-level literacy performance. Chai (2022) suggests that intermediate literacy performance should continue the approach from the elementary stage, assessing students' speaking and literacy abilities through specific contexts like ordering at a Chinese restaurant. Liu Ying (2019) recommends training in informal correspondence and relatively formal stylistic writing at the intermediate level. Zeng Zhini (2018) applied the "Zhihu" online social Q&A community to Chinese media classes, organizing students to read Zhihu discussion posts and answer questions, aiming to provide authentic discourse environments and diverse discourse styles.

7 Advanced Speaking Performance

Focuses on advanced-level speaking performance, covering cultural, grammar, and vocabulary points. Cultural points focus on humble self-introductions in formal settings, designing various scenarios combining professional contexts and cultural background knowledge. Grammar points explain the usage of "巴不得," allowing students to practice expressing urgent desires through scenarios. Vocabulary points explore the idiom "迫不得已," using scenarios to guide students in expressing situations of being forced to accept something.

8 Advanced Literacy Performance

Discusses the design and implementation of advanced-level literacy performance in the Performing Culture classroom. Advanced literacy performance focuses on using authentic materials from the target society to guide learners into specialized fields. Through reading and writing activities, such as imitating model texts to write speeches or composing short essays, learners can acquire the thinking habits and expressive techniques of the target language society, enhancing sensitivity to the language expressions of different social roles. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of the writing process, breaking down writing tasks and interspersing them throughout the semester. Through writing support activities and guided evaluation criteria, teaching content is deepened, and students' comprehensive abilities are improved. These literacy activities embody the cultivation goal advocated by Performing Culture of unifying knowledge and action within target cultural contexts and applying learning to practice, helping learners communicate like professionals.

9 Conclusion

Summarizes the performance practice cases within the Performing Culture framework, clarifying the teaching model and content. It demonstrates methods for designing authentic contexts and native-like scripts from the perspectives of speaking culture, grammar, and vocabulary, and explores methods for literacy ability practice at different learning stages, aiming to promote learners' proficient use of Chinese for professional communication.