I'm going crazy in China!

[rezaf]

My first year in China was OK and the books and the teachers weren't that bad but now after two years I can just say that I've never seen a worse education system in the world. The books are so boring and the whole system is so anti-creativity. I have an exam tomorrow and the book is so full of crappy useless things that I don't even want to degrade myself studying the book. Seriously people might get better results if they study Chinese in their own countries. what a waste

Edited January 16, 2009 at 01:42 AM by rezaf

[Lu]

Welcome to China :-/

China is a useful place for learning Chinese not because teaching methods there are so great, but because you get to practice every day all the time. I clashed with the education system as well, and am very sure that if I ever want to study for another degree, it will not be in China or Taiwan, however much I love those places. The system is ok for language learning, I guess, as there's only so much deeper understanding you need there: if you learn the words and the grammar you get a very long way. But I would not recommend anyone to study something else there.

Good luck on the test tomorrow, and try to enjoy the rest of your life there. It is a great place, after all.

[rezaf]

The funny thing is that I bought some Chinese books in London and they are way more organised than the books we study here. I'm gonna start learning them after my exams. I mean it's all about the system. I spent a month 左右 in London learning English and thanks to the incredibly creative system my spoken English is twice better than it used to be. I'm not sure but I have a feeling that learning Chinese with western methods and Chinese teachers who can be found everywhere in the west should be more efficient and practising speaking isn't that hard when we have things like skype and msn. I want to study traditional Chinese medicine in china but many people tell me that western countries have better schools for even Chinese medicine!

[imcgraw]

To be honest, I've never been able to find a Chinese course in the west that emphasized creativity either. Just because the teachers are over here doesn't mean they adhere to Western methods of language teaching. Actually, my best experience with teachers was in Beijing, studying one-on-one with tutors from http://www.thatsmandarin.com/. Obviously the one-on-one attention is worlds better than a university course. Besides that, however, their teaching methods contain most of the elements of Communicative language teaching, a central tenant in Western theories of foreign language acquisition.

[peekay]

I want to study traditional Chinese medicine in china but many people tell me that western countries have better schools for even Chinese medicine!

True, the best Chinese medicine school in the world for is probably UCLA (Center for East-West Medicine.)

[simonlaing]

I think the teachers and the styles of teaching varies a lot in China.

I had one terrible male teacher for intermediate Chinese who didn't want to stop for questions or even set as side time at the end of class for questions. He lectured fast giving an example of words for 2 hour lectures. It was mind numbing.

If you got lost early or weren't fully awake your were done for.

Other teachers had different styles and even put aside time in class for group work or role-plays these worked better.

The books varied as well.

good luck,

Simon:)

P.S. You'd think Tutors would solve everything but if you don't have a plan or strict measurement tools like homework or quizes it is easy to be lazy with them too.

[DrWatson]

I want to study traditional Chinese medicine in china but many people tell me that western countries have better schools for even Chinese medicine!

You might want to look into Hong Kong if you're dead set on China. There are quite a few authors who practice Chinese medicine and the Art of Tea, and they are based in Hong Kong. There's also Taiwan too, Taiwan has preserved a lot of traditions people in China have moved on from.

[renzhe]

To be honest, I'm pretty allergic to most language-teaching, whether "Chinese-style" or "Western-style". The creative inventive language teaching methods consisting of singing and dancing and playing games only make me aggressive So if it makes you feel better, I'm even worse.

[Lu]

There's also Taiwan too, Taiwan has preserved a lot of traditions people in China have moved on from.

Including, in my experience, the teaching style of 'teacher knows, student knows not; teacher talks, student listens'.

[rezaf]

To be honest, I'm pretty allergic to most language-teaching, whether "Chinese-style" or "Western-style". The creative inventive language teaching methods consisting of singing and dancing and playing games only make me aggressive So if it makes you feel better, I'm even worse.

Task-based Language Learning has proved to be a very efficient way of learning a language. I have learnt English and German using that system and although I have spent very short time learning them, both of them are way better than my Chinese and Arabic(and maybe even my mother tongue Farsi!)

I think that the whole Asian system of mianzi, (extra)respecting your teachers and people older than you has caused this problem. I mean limiting people's creativity and boldness certainly comes from a feudal culture for controlling people.

Anyway I'm gonna change the system of the school next semester. It's only gonna be 5 or 6 students for the advanced class. I don't think that convincing the teachers will be that hard. We had a good teacher for the 听说课， who wanted to try new methods but didn't know how. I think I should read some books and teach them how. Any suggestions?

[Erbse]

I think that the whole Asian system of mianzi, (extra)respecting your teachers and people older than you has caused this problem. I mean limiting people's creativity and boldness certainly comes from a feudal culture for controlling people.

Don't worry if You are non-Chinese. If a Chinese loses his face, he has no future, but if a laowai loses his face, then he still has 999999998 faces left, so there is virtually no damage to him.

[rezaf]

No I mean the whole ranking system is very problematic and I can sense that it's a huge barrier in classes cuz my classmates are from countries like Korea and Japan where ranking and mianzi are even more important and I can feel that it stops the class from being more fun and creative. I think these traditions are just some feudal tricks for controlling the peasants of those times. I have seen the books that Chinese students use for learning English and no wonder why most of them can't speak English in spite of the time they spend on those books. The education system really needs a shake-up now.

[renzhe]

Task-based Language Learning has proved to be a very efficient way of learning a language. I have learnt English and German using that system and although I have spent very short time learning them, both of them are way better than my Chinese and Arabic(and maybe even my mother tongue Farsi!)

I think that a part of this due to the fact that both are easier to learn (in the beginning anyway) than Chinese.

[rezaf]

You are forgetting that my mother tongue is not a European language.

[liuzhou]

You are forgetting that my mother tongue is not a European language.

But it is an Indo-European language.

[rezaf]

It's half Arabic! As much as I hate to say it, Farsi is Arabic with an Indo-European grammar. And yet my Arabic is so bad even after 6 years of studying Arabic in school.