"Lesson plan" for myself (feedback requested)

[shibole]

Well, this may seem a bit insane, and I know I should probably just take a class, but for various reasons (including money) I don't want to do that right now. Since I have a native speaker at my disposal (my wife, though unfortunately she isn't a language teacher) I decided to try to use a real textbook (Integrated Chinese) and go through it in a manner similar to how a class would.

I thought I'd try to do one "lesson" (chapter in the book) per week. If you're not familiar with the book I'm using, it looks like each lesson has two dialogs which each demonstrate vocabulary, grammar, etc. Here's what I came up with. I'm using the textbook and the workbook, but not the character workbook or audio CDs.

Any feedback regarding my sanity or the below plan would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Chinese Lesson Plan

Using Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1

1. Monday – Dialog 1

1. Add new flashcards to pile

2. Write each new character N times

3. Workbook listening comprehension exercises

i. Have speaker read dialog from textbook

ii. Have speaker make up dialogs to match “workbook dialog” questions

4. Review Grammar notes for dialog 1

5. Brief Pronunciation Exercises with focus on anything troublesome

2. Tuesday – Dialog 1 again

1. Flashcard vocabulary test for Dialog 1

2. Workbook reading, writing, and grammar exercises

3. Pattern drills for Dialog 1

4. Brief Pronunciation Exercises with focus on anything troublesome

3. Wednesday – Dialog 2

1. Same as Monday except with Dialog 2

4. Thursday – Dialog 2 again

1. Same as Tuesday except with Dialog 2

5. Friday

1. Add supplementary vocabulary flashcards to pile

2. Write each new character N times

3. Pronunciation exercises (full)

4. Tests

i. Vocabulary (flashcards)

ii. Reading (sentences)

iii. Writing (have speaker speak sentences and write them?)

[Lu]

Plan looks ok, I'd add more character writing though. Review new vocab, including characters, every day, if at all possible.

What might suffer without a teacher: pronounciation and understanding of grammar. When you ask why something is said X rather than Y, you might often get the answer 'that's just how we say it'.

[shibole]

Plan looks ok, I'd add more character writing though.

Would you say that's it's better to write say 20 of each character a day rather than 40 one day and none the next?

Also, when just starting out, how many times should I write each character do you think?

Would just copying sentences also be useful? I have written exercises but I'm not sure if the writing is enough.

What might suffer without a teacher: pronounciation and understanding of grammar. When you ask why something is said X rather than Y, you might often get the answer 'that's just how we say it'.

I know that that is what I end up saying every time my wife asks me about English grammar

[yonglin]

if insufficient understanding of grammar is a concern, there are a few quite good grammar books out there, from what i've heard.

[shibole]

if insufficient understanding of grammar is a concern, there are a few quite good grammar books out there, from what i've heard.

Are you thinking of something like this?

http://amazon.com/gp/product/0071377646/

I have it on my list of things to buy but figured that it would be pointless until later.

[simonlaing]

I think the quiz's and tests are important parts of the learning.

I think a few more interesting exercises can help with learning and help if your wife isn't as charismatic as you would hope.

Things like her giving you a situation where you would use the words and you have to make up a dialog about it.

Writing short paragraphs can help. (Writing is best, but if you're a beginner you might enjoy typing as it is much easier.)

learning to sing chinese song, laoshu ai da mi is a simpler one (Love you like a mouse loves big rice )

Watching movies and speaking after them works sometimes too, espicially to get your mouth in to the positions it will need to be to make the sounds. (Romantic or older drama movies people speak slower.) Junky HK police movies sometime just teach you good profanity.

Doing role plays is good.

Also often going back and reviewing or building on what you know. If you don't review you will forget it, (Chinese is difficult).

Good luck,

have fun,

Simon

Simon:)

[roddy]

Can you get tapes or CD's for the textbooks - you can make much better use of your wife than getting her to read stuff out of the book - getting her to point out when your pronunciation is wrong and engaging in realistic if simple dialogs for a start. I realize you've got that in there already, but I would get her to spend time on what a CD can't do.

As for simple dialogs, I can't see anything in there where you are actually talking your own talk as it were. Sure, you're at a low level, but there's no reason you can't go through 'where are you from; I'm from ____' several dozen times.

On copying sentences, you're much better off creating your own ones. Same grammar, different words, etc. Create is > copy.

[shibole]

I think the quiz's and tests are important parts of the learning.

I think you are right, I'm just not sure what to use for those. There are some here: http://eall.hawaii.edu/yao/icusers/tcforic.htm but of course they're restricted to teachers and if I were the one hosting those I wouldn't give them out to any random person who claimed to be using them on their own.... Any ideas on how to generate quizes/tests?

Can you get tapes or CD's for the textbooks - you can make much better use of your wife than getting her to read stuff out of the book

I can but I'm not sure if that's worth $40. There isn't too much for her to read and I want her to listen to my pronunciation anyway, so I'm not sure it would save her any time. I am using some online pinyin apps that play sounds, etc., so I'm not totally relying on her.

As for simple dialogs, I can't see anything in there where you are actually talking your own talk as it were. Sure, you're at a low level, but there's no reason you can't go through 'where are you from; I'm from ____' several dozen times.

That's what the "substitution drills" are. The textbook has a number of those per lesson. They seem to be based on both dialogs though (rather than some only using vocab from dialog 1) so I might just have to learn both dialogs up front.

Things like her giving you a situation where you would use the words and you have to make up a dialog about it.

Writing short paragraphs can help. (Writing is best, but if you're a beginner you might enjoy typing as it is much easier.)

I'm going to stick with writing vs. typing, otherwise I'll never learn to write properly. I'm interested in calligraphy anyway so writing is pretty important to me. For me, for some reason, the speaking and listening is much harder than reading and writing

Thanks for the other ideas!