What if Chinese-forums.com had an assistant . . .

[roddy]

Imagine that Chinese-forums.com has the use of a native Chinese speaker, with Chinese teaching qualifications or experience, a computer, and about ten or so hours a week to spend on us, who can be directed to work on whatever projects are deemed worthwhile.

What would you ask them to do? Anything is possible, as long as it generates something of lasting value for the forums.

I've done this in the past on an intermittent basis - basically paid a normal tutoring rate for the benefit of informed responses on Chinese language issues, by someone with the English language skills to express themselves clearly, and that I could direct to topics where I thought their input would be valuable. With advertising income having increased lately I'm looking at restarting, but I wanted to throw this out there to see if I could get any ideas on what the members would like to see happening.

[Scoobyqueen]

I think the idea of on-line teaching expertise is a good one.

To me, it would be useful to be able to draw upon his or her expertise in the following fields:

1) Highlighting typical problems/errors foreigners encounter and especially those that are not explained in a text book.

2) Vocabulary explanation - I use this section of the forum to pose questions on the intricacies of words or expressions. I find a dictionary often cannot do this adequately.

In my Chinese lessons, my teacher goes through the vocabulary and provides other examples and then ask the students to provide examples . It would be useful to have a service where someone would correct short sentences using new vocabulary followed by explanations (in Chinese).

3) A new entry on the forums where you can ask questions and have your pronunciation and short written sentences evaluated (it ties in with the above).

He or she could additionally conduct an analysis of the typical questions asked on the forum so as to identify the needs of users. Additionally or instead Roddy, if you have not already done so, you could mail a short questionnaire to identify areas of improvements and most favoured topics etc. Then you have some statistical data to go by. Your advertisers probably love that type of data.

[Senzhi]

Besides the obvious language benefits, it would be good to see more "subjective" responses from native Chinese.

How about one from every province, to increase awareness of the vast differences between cultures inside China?

[self-taught-mba]

How about one from every province, to increase awareness of the vast differences between cultures inside China?

No thanks - don't need my advertising fees going up again to cover it.

Also, not the best time to announce this. There's a labor-law crackdown. Roddy's going to jail. Don't worry, I'll help manage the funding while he's gone.(sh)

But not sure if best idea. Often a discussion ensues about what is the best way to say something. This often leads to lots of side discussions (I like reading them, and in the process, alternative but incorrect answers get explained away making it more memorable). A native speaker may cut that discussion short and more senior members feel less needed. Also, would the board become overwhelmed with simple dictionary lookup type answers that would clog the front page?

Maybe going through all the old unanswered posts instead? That might be really useful and bring back some old members who got frustrated?

We thought about assigning a teacher to do this btw (As Roddy proposed a long time ago in some thread). The threads would've gotten really long and if there's only one sig. line at hte top there's no recognition. Not too mention I can see any ambiguous, mildly incorrect answer or unanswered question getting us wrath/blame. So we didn't do it.

An occasional helping hand might be nice, but not at the expense of discussion/board culture.

Oh yeah - maybe they answer many "living in China" /where to find type questions that are difficult for us. Ex. best torrent site for listening materials, cool new slang, hot blogs, hot gossip, "what's in" so we can get more connnected with our Chinese counterparts.

--typed

[skylee]

We thought about assigning a teacher to do this btw (As Roddy proposed a long time ago in some thread). The threads would've gotten really long and if there's only one sig. line at hte top there's no recognition. Not too mention I can see any ambiguous, mildly incorrect answer or unanswered question getting us wrath/blame. So we didn't do it.

Who are "we"?

[lilongyue]

If roddy goes through with this, then I think it would be necessary to find a Chinese with extensive experience teaching foreigners. Maybe it doesn't need to be said, as we all probably know that speaking a language doesn't mean one can teach it, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. For the members of this forum whose Chinese may be a bit more advances, and whose language problems extend beyond something a dictionary or first year text book can answer, we need someone who can clearly explain the grammar rules involved with using words. What I mean is something like the "Chinese Usage Dictionary" which is linked in the "Best of Chinese Study Tools" thread. Here's the link http://berlin.cls.yale.edu/chineseusagedictionary/. For those of us who have some serious study behind us, the kinds of questions that remain are the differences between 运气, 好在 and 幸亏, or 可惜 and 怀疑. These subtle differences aren't explained in dictionaries, and they weren't explained well in my textbooks either, if explained at all. In fact, even some of the teachers I had didn't do a good job of explaining these difference, so maybe it's a tall order.

[Luobot]

I think that Self-taught-mba makes a good point. A number of forum members do an outstanding job of helping out, and it’s a big part of the forum culture, here, which I wouldn’t want to see disappear.

On the other hand, along the lines of Lilongyue’s above post (which appeared as I was about to post this), grammar is an area that’s difficult to explain for someone who isn’t a trained teacher. Most native speakers (of any language) don’t necessarily know the grammar rules of their own language, as they absorbed it by osmosis over their lifetime. They can tell you what feels right or wrong but not why. A professional teacher should know the intricacies of grammar and how to explain it, providing both the general rule (to the extent that they exist in Mandarin) and specific examples. It would also be of long-lasting value to the forum if answers to grammar questions were organized into a Grammar Wiki or a Grammar FAQs sub-forum of some sort for easy reference. Another possibility is to go beyond providing dictionary definitions of vocabulary words and try to give more of a feel for what the word means as its used in real life.

[roddy]

Some quick responses or clarifications. . .

@Scoobyqueen

1) I think this already happens to an extent just with people coming on here and posting about what they find difficult.

2) This is certainly possible already - there's no reason you can't post stuff and I'm sure you'd get a number of responses.

3) Similarly - people already (though not often) post samples of their pronunciation or writing for comments. A sub-forum for this might be a nice idea though.

@Senzhi

Not sure what you mean by "subjective" responses.

@STM

A native speaker may cut that discussion short and more senior members feel less needed.

We already have any number of native speakers posting, and I'm not sure I've noticed any discussions getting cut short. I don't think one more would make much difference. Plus guidelines for anyone working like this specify not attempting to answer every question, or answer questions quickly, but to leave them a day or two, see what responses are there and then post additional or clarifying information if necessary. Often it isn't - we've already got some damned fine posters, after all .

Also, would the board become overwhelmed with simple dictionary lookup type answers that would clog the front page?

No, as there's a sub-forum for quick translations which doesn't feature on the front page, and anyone posting questions that can be answered by looking in a dictionary are likely to be told to do just that.

@Skylee: "Who are "we"?"

STM and his school. One of the ways businesses can promote themselves on here is by making (useful!) posts with or without a signature link. I've discussed with a number of schools the possibility of them having their teachers do this, but to date I don't think anyone has done so.

@liyongyue

If roddy goes through with this, then I think it would be necessary to find a Chinese with extensive experience teaching foreigners.

Agreed. In the past I've worked with a BLCU CSL undergrad, I'm currently talking to someone on an post-graduate CSL course. I'm not sure if that would qualify as 'extensive experience' but it's a start. . .

The basic 'answering questions' thing is pretty straightforward and can be more or less taken as a given. What I'm curious about is levels of interest in other, perhaps more structured, stuff. Say for example, with the first episode watching - would it be useful to have someone watch an episode in advance and make vocab / cultural notes? If, along the lines of what Scoobyqueen is suggesting, we had a section where people could submit example of their writing or speaking for comments, including where necessary input for someone with a CSL background, would you use it? Would you use the Chinese corner more if there was a larger chance of you getting feedback on your writing? Etc, etc. Ideas welcome, and some of them may even get implemented.

And @Luobot who snuck in as I was typing - this has been done before and there was no fall-off in contributions from existing members. If anything there's a multiplier effect as the extra responses in turn generate their own comments or queries. And one possible project would be to tidy up and expand on the Grammar sticky. Not sure about the Wiki as that seems to be dead in the water, but that's a topic for another day . . .

[anonymoose]

If, along the lines of what Scoobyqueen is suggesting, we had a section where people could submit example of their writing or speaking for comments, including where necessary input for someone with a CSL background, would you use it? Would you use the Chinese corner more if there was a larger chance of you getting feedback on your writing?

Yes. I think what would be useful is if not only were mistakes in our writing corrected, but also alternative / more native-like / more elegant ways of expressing the same thing were proactively suggested.

[roddy]

That should be doable, although I might want to see if we can think of a way to do it without breaking up the flow of conversation - if you start pasting chunks of corrected annotated text into a conversation, you're going to lose your train of thought I think.

[DrWatson]

I don't know if it would be doable, but as an intermediate learner, I would appreciate something like a weekly essay written with proper grammar but with a an appropriate reading level in terms of vocabulary. From that we learners could spin off questions about grammar or vocabulary in the text.

I say this because of course there are textbook Chinese readers and of course there are the online newspapers. The former fails in that unless you type out large parts of the text surrounding a sentence you have a question about due to context and what not. The latter is also difficult because the vocabulary is often well above the intermediate and advanced intermediate level. If the author is available to answer some questions it really helps.

Again, I don't know if it would be possible, but it is something I would definitely appreciate and take advantage of.

[Senzhi]

Not sure what you mean by "subjective" responses.

Simply what people think and feel, without the facts. It helps to increase cultural awareness.

I think this is happening now already, but maybe a bit too much from foreigners, and not enough from Chinese from all corners of China.

My post was only meant to be a sidenote, as your idea is good, though not only for language purposes.

[LaoLiang]

There are plenty of books and resources and forums (like that www.chinese-forums.com) if one is looking for specific information.

The one thing that a native speaker of Mandarin (assuming there is such) can offer that can not be achieved otherwise, is a conversation with a native speaker. Meaning, have them participate in the 中文角 conversing and correcting in Chinese, according to the level or the poster. For example, have a section for "spoken modern mandarin" as is, starting even with small greetings etc. my 0.02 cents.

[simonlaing]

Two things that I thought of.

One for beginners would be the proper ways of pronouncing things.

2. reading comprehension exercises,

chinese pod does well with listenting comprehension but I am not sure about reading comprehension for intermediate or above.

Good luck,

simon:)

[lilongyue]

Although it may be going to far from the original intention of what is being offered, what about a classical Chinese sub-forum? It would be harder to find a Chinese with both the ability to clearly explain grammar to foreigners, and knowledge of classical Chinese, but not impossible. Although perhaps interest wouldn't be great enough to warrant more that what's already available, i.e. occasional questions posted in the reading and writing sub-forum. Anyhoo, just throwing out an idea. The school in Taiwan I was thinking of attending for a while had classical Chinese classes, not just an elective course. I don't know about the other unis teaching Chinese to foreigners, but Zhejiang University offers a classical Chinese elective course, which despite my interest I've never attended due to time constraints. Since I'm nearing the end of my last semester at Zheda, I won't have the option to attend that class anymore, even if I had the time, but am still very interested. A Chinese friend said I should just buy a classical Chinese text book, and study by myself. Maybe we could set up an online study group kind of thing, everyone buys the same text book, and work through a lesson a week, or something like that. Depending on the responses to my post, maybe another thread could be started asking people if they would be interested in doing this?

[imron]

Creating threads is free And you'd possibly get more responses if you created a separate thread from the beginning, rather than hoping people will read a suggestion buried at the end of another thread. Even then though, judging from previous "book of the month" and "grand first episode projects", you might not get much in the way of a response

[lilongyue]

It's not big deal, I myself probably don't have the time right now to do something like this, truth be told.