Things to do with a tutor

[leosmith]

There was a post on this a while ago, but I didn't really find any answers in the thread. My dilemma right now is that my main goal is to improve speaking and my secondary goal is to improve my character recognition, however I haven't really found a way to do the first one with my tutor.

We meet 4 times a week for two hours. Our sessions consist of her teaching me characters (all speaking is in Chinese) and then she takes out one of my vocabulary lists (usually put together from words I don't know from Chinesepod advanced lessons) and reviews the vocab with me.

What we are doing now is OK, and I see a little improvement in my speaking as our lessons are completely in Chinese... but I would like to get more "real life" speaking practice in as our only dialogues now consist of me asking stuff like this “上面的部分是什么？“ and "这里的辈是长辈的辈吗？“

What on earth can I do to change this?

I've used tutors quite a bit. I prefer to use them for conversation only, and learn everything else on my own. I'm glad I caught this post, because I happen to be doing some surfing these days to find better ways to use a tutor. Here are some links for you (they're lengthy, so I recommend reading the rest of this post before reading the articles):

This one covers many aspect of selecting and using a tutor, but doesn't give a lot of specific info regarding sessions.

This one discusses how to quickly begin learning a language with a tutor. There's a lot more useful info here.

This one I haven't read yet, but it's supposed to discuss language learning with a tutor for the non-beginner.

The author really likes TPR (total physical response), which is supposed to be the most effective way to learn a language. I'm not so sure that's true, but there are some great ideas for what to do with a tutor. For example, He suggests having a picture book, with dozens, perhaps hundreds of photos, which can be used as the topics of conversation. The tutor can as questions like: where is the cat? what is happening to the house? what do you think is the girl telling the boy? etc. The tutor can also make statements like: this is a cat. the house's roof is being re-shingled. The girl is telling the boy not to pour water on her. Possibilities are endless.

As another poster mentioned, these can kick-off side discussions of "real conversation" which is what I think you most desire. I also like to watch video for a while, and start a conversation about some point of interest.

Making vocabulary lists during sessions is a good idea; you can try to get them memorized by the next lesson if you're ambitious. But just making the list may be enough for you, as the tutor will probably use them over and over.

Recording the sessions is another possibility. This way you can be sure to have the correct pronunciation of vocabulary somewhere. Instead of making lists and flashcards, you can just review portions of the recordings.

Another poster mentioned it's a good idea to make a lesson plan for each session. Very important if there is specific vocabulary and grammar you want to cover.

Ok, I'm all over the place, so let me summarize by making suggestions.

1. Before the lesson, make a lesson plan including vocabulary and grammar to cover.

2. Spend the first hour learning the vocab and grammar using the picture book and TPR.

3. Watch some video, and start a real conversation. Repeat until the second hour is over.

4. During the session make a vocabulary list for new words, or make a recording.

5. After the session, study the vocabulary, or review the recording.

6. Consider learning characters on your own, to give you more time for conversation.

These are merely suggestions; I'm sure you'll do whatever is best for you. Good luck, please let us know how it goes, and if you find any new info about tutors.

[kudra]

@ flameproof a possible typo nitpick --

一天，孩子们踢完球，作家对孩子们说：“你们提得真好，我很喜欢看你们踢球。如果你们每天来这里踢球给我看，

Unless I'm really not understanding, that should be 踢.

I try a similar thing, retyping traditional passages into simplified, and it is maddening trying to catch this kind of thing. I have a native speaker, not exactly a tutor, just a friend, read it over, and it is humbling. There is probably a disciplined frame of mind one needs to flawlessly use an ime, but I haven't found it, yet.

[flameproof]

kudra

You are of course correct, it was a typo...... (I just corrected it)

I have a native speaker.....

A native speaker does not necessarily make a good tutor, or a good teacher, or even a native language expert. Therefore I would really design what to do and how to use them.

[afriday11]

Hey, I am a beginning Chinese student, newly relocated to Kunshan (30km outsided of Shanghai). I was planning on using the NCPR with a tutor (and continuing with Pimsleur, though I often find myself frustrated with its utter lack of grammer explinations) but I read that

"The NCPR Series stops using pinyin after the 1st volume, but the layout and approach is the same through volume four, which I've just begun using. Volumes 5 and 6 do not use any English whatsoever aside from providing a translation of the new words."

If this is true, I don't know how I would learn to say the new vocabulary words. I know that there is a degree of phonic recongnition with characters, but not enought that I could look a list of characters and know how to pronounce them without some sort of rominization. I might be way off base, but I don't see how that book could be usefull if you don't know how to say the words in Chinese.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions on books they have found useful I would appreciate it. Now if there was only a decent bookstore in Kunshan...

[simonlaing]

HI guys,

but I would like to get more "real life" speaking practice in -

To the first poster-

Using dialogues from Listening and Speaking books can help.

When I first arrived in China in 2001, I would spend 20 minutes walking on the street and around housing compound where I lived and pointed at things and asked what they were. Wrote them down, Wrote down Chinese menus and role played interactions at the market haggling, directing the Taxi driver, (which was very useful as the part of Suzhou I lived in was sparse populated at that time, and most taxi driver's had no idea where I lived even with the Chinese written out.)

I found you should try to make tutors be strict with you and not let you pass with mediocre tones or things like that.

For the Kunshan guy, there are several other series of Chinese books. Personally I enjoyed the Fazhan series as the texts, dialogues and other were closer to the way CHinese people actually interact. The Beijing Foreign Language University has published a good grammar book called 桥 qiao I think. It's used by most of the Nanjing Uni's for intermediate students and is fairly good if you're thinking of taking the HSK later..

Shanghai has a bunch of book stores where these should be able to get. Hey even Nanjing is not that far away if you want to come here and look for books. Investing time in getting a good book that makes you interested in Chinese is worth it.

If you get to I high enough level , you can start reading DuZhe or nan ren Magazine, the equivalent of Chinese maxim. Stuff on dating and Guy stuff is cool.

have fun,

Simon:)