Joël "Marc" Bellassen or Bel Lassen (; ; born 27 May 1950 in
Sidi-bel-Abbès,
French Algeria) is a former professor () of
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
at and the first Inspector General in the field of Chinese Language Teaching at the Ministry of Education (France). He has been well known in his field in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
since he co-wrote the book , which became one of the main textbooks used to teach Chinese in French secondary schools. He is now the President of the European Association for Chinese Teaching.
Biography
A graduate in Philosophy and Chinese at the
Université Paris VIII - Vincennes, he departed for China in 1973, where he studied Philosophy and Chinese at the Beijing Languages Institute and Peking University from 1973 to 1975. Upon his return to France, he set about building the discipline of the teaching of Chinese language. He is particularly known for his pedagogical innovation of the 1980s when he conceived methods to teach Chinese language in primary education which included colour-coding
Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...
to assist memorising of the four tones in
Standard Mandarin (first tone: blue; second tone: yellow; third tone: black; fourth tone: red).
Bellassen taught at the
École alsacienne
The École alsacienne is a co-educational private school located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.
The school was founded by a group of French Alsatians after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. It then became a model for reforming t ...
in Paris, following by teaching posts at
Université Paris VII and then at
INALCO
Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales ( en, National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations), abbreviated as INALCO, is a French university specializing in the teaching of languages and cultures from the world. ...
. In 2003, Bellassen received the Chinese Language and Culture prize from the Chinese Ministry of Education.
In 2006 he was made the first Inspector General in the field of Chinese Language Teaching at the French Ministry of National Education. His reference book in the field of Chinese teaching, ''Méthode d'initiation à la langue et à l'écriture chinoises'' (1989, , with the collaboration of Zhang Pengpeng,张朋朋), became one of the main textbooks used to teach Chinese in French secondary schools and which mirrors the international approach of the "zi benwei" (字本位 Character-based constructional approach to Chinese). Several of his texts on teaching have been translated into English. He is one of the vice-presidents of the International Chinese Language Teachers Association.
Bellassen approach
''Méthode d'Initiation'' broke the mould for Chinese textbooks by diving straight into the use of single
Han characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
(zh:
字 zì) and only afterwards providing Chinese multi-characters words (zh:
詞 cí). The general aim is to immerse the student in the language and culture, with the characters being seen as a primordial element of this.
One of the main aims of the textbook (which uses
Simplified Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the ''Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one o ...
and
Standard Chinese pronunciation) is to teach the student 400 essential characters that represent two-thirds of the vocabulary found in modern Chinese texts.
Bellassen and Zhang later went on to publish book 2 of the course: ''Perfectionnement à la Langue et à l'Écriture chinoises'' (1991, ; and a double edition including book 1: ). This sequel is even more centred on the characters, with even less grammatical explanation. It aims to teach a further 500 characters and consolidate the absorption of the first 400; these 900 essential characters together represent 91% of the vocabulary found in modern Chinese texts.
Bellassen has published 40 books and more than 90 academic articles.
Bellassen has appeared on French television to promote the study of the Chinese language.
Bibliography
*''Le Chinois pour tous'' (et A. Arslangul), Bescherelle-Hatier, 2010,
*''Méthode d'Initiation à la langue et à l'écriture chinoises (nouvelle édition avec DVD)'', La Compagnie, 2008,
*''Gunxueqiu xue hanyu - Snowballing Chinese - Le chinois par boules de neige - '' (et Liu Chia-ling), Sinolingua 2008, Pékin,
*''Zaijian le, Zhongguo. Wo de 70 yinji'', Dongfang chubanshe 2007, Pékin,
*''Annales de chinois, du Bac aux concours'', Editions du Temps 2006,
*''Le chinois pour les Nuls'' (et W. Abraham; Yu W.), First 2006,
*''Empreintes chinoises : De Chine et de France, regards croisés'' (et Jin Siyan), Nicolas Philippe 2004,
*''Shuo zi jie ci, Le chinois recyclé'', Beijing Daxue chubanshe 2002, /H.0750
*''Le chinois aux examens'', You Feng 1998,
*''A Key to Chinese Speech and Writing'', tome I, (et Zhang P.), éd.Sinolingua, Pékin, 1997,
*''A Key to Chinese Speech and Writing'', tome II (et Zhang P.), éd.Sinolingua, Pékin, 1997,
*''Chinois : mode d'emploi, grammaire pratique et exercices'', réédition You Feng 1996,
*''Les idéogrammes chinois ou l'empire du sens'', You Feng 1995,
*''Perfectionnement à la langue et à l'écriture chinoises'' (et Zhang P.), éd La Compagnie, 1991
*''Méthode d'initiation à la langue et à l'écriture chinoises'', Ed. La Compagnie, 1989,
*''Le noyau rationnel de la dialectique hégélienne'', A propos d'un texte de Zhang Shiying (& A. Badiou et L. Mossot), Maspéro, 1978,
*''Filosofia y conservacion de los tomates'' (trad. espagnole),
Anagrama
Anagrama is a Spanish publisher founded in 1969 by Jorge Herralde. In 2010 it was sold to the Italian publisher Feltrinelli.
Since 1969, Anagrama has published over 3,500 titles. currently, Anagrama publishes around 100 books annually, between t ...
,1974
*''Philosophie et conservation des tomates'', L'Impensé Radical, 1973
External links
*
Minimum essential Chineses charactersAmazon.fr search for "Joël Bellassen"Interview for ''Le Temps'' newspaper Interview in ''People's Daily Online''.
*
tp://trf.education.gouv.fr/pub/edutel/actu/2006/enseignement_chinois_7.pdf
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellassen, Joel
People from Sidi Bel Abbès
1950 births
Living people
French translators
Chinese–French translators
Peking University alumni
French sinologists