In Chinese language, the set phrases and separable words are important points for those students who study in China to learn. Therefore, teachers should pay more attention to the two points. For the set phrases, teachers should make efforts to figure out some effective methods to gain their understanding and help them master the set phrases.

The set phrases contest is a good way for students to remember the phrases. If there are ten students, teachers should prepare thirty cards. Teachers in Chinese language school should write down one set phrase in each card and then turn them over. All of these set phrases should be classified into three types. Each group should be marked by the number from one to ten.

Teachers should tell the students that they can just read out the set phrases of the first group, especially those characters with more than one pronunciation. Students who learn Mandarin in China should find out the wrongly written character in each set phrase of the second group. For the set phrases in the third group, students should fill the blank.

Here are some examples for this game. The set phrases like “自给自足、百发百中、不省人事” can be applied to the game to help them learn Chinese. For the second group, teachers can write the set phrases wrongly as “遵师爱生、大杀风景、走投无路” and so on. Teachers can prepare the set phrases like “名落( )山、各有( )秋、不( )余力” for students to fill the blanks.

The separable words in Chinese language usually mean the two-syllable verbs and some other constituents can be inserted into middle of them. For example, we can say “吃饭” and “吃了饭”. When students learn Mandarin, teachers can demand them mark the separable words with a kind of certain mark when they see one.

Besides, teachers can write them down on the blackboard and ask students to add many kinds of constituents to the separable words. After adding the elements, teachers can also lead them to read to help them memorize. Students who study Chinese should be told there is no formal regularity for the adding parts so teachers should explain them clearly.

After teachers applying the set phrases contests to the teaching, students can learn the set phrases effectively in pronunciation and characters as well as meaning. The separable words should be marked and summarized when they meet to help learners master them.