Self-teaching vs. Classes - The Great Debate

[anonymoose]

I believe everyone has made it clear that having someone teach pronunciation in the beginning stages of learning Chinese is crucial, but what if a person wanting to learn Chinese doesn't have this option? Would it be better for the person to put off learning until they had a teacher/tutor, or would it be fine for them to try and teach theirself?

You could teach yourself grammar, and to recognise and write characters without actually being able to sound them out, and leave the pronunciation until you have access to a tutor.

This is how I started off. I could read and write entire sentences without knowing how they were pronounced.

This may not be the ideal learning strategy, but it's certainly an option.

[wushijiao]

Xianu, I found your post interesting (as well as all the other posts), but I wonder about this:

Although the result is that they can communicate, they tend to develop some really really bad habits in terms of pronunciation/tones, and especially in terms of sentence structure or grammar, which takes a bijillion years to correct.

Actually, although I fully know what you mean, you could argue that having, say, a semester/year/two years (the basics) in one’s home country, and then coming to China might be best from the point of view of getting better grammar and pronunciation. To some degree, the fits with the Krashen view of language learning, because you can absorb genuine language in original contexts and develop grammar and pronunciation more organically than through classroom methods. On a personal note, I know a few other people who have learned almost exclusively through self-studying who tend to have fairly good pronunciation and grammar. Also, the best, most native-like Spanish I’ve ever heard was from a girl who only studied in the US for one semester, and then went directly to study abroad (in high school) where she picked up the most slang-y, native accent possible. She argued that this was possible because she hadn’t spent the traditional 5-6 years in the Spanish language education system in the US, learning bad habits (since most teachers are non-native) and a generally overly “vanilla” pronunciation.

Of course, Spanish and Chinese are very different, but I had always imagined that, ideally, quick immersion after learning the fundamentals is best. I guess in a sense this doesn’t rule out classes, since self-studying and classes aren’t mutually exclusive, but should be mutually reinforcing.

[Senzhi]

This is emblematic of a typically Scandinavian ideal (this was a Norwegian class) were classes are supposed to be collectives which learn together rather than hierarchies of ability.

Very communist

Politics aside, I tend to agree. The Scandinavian approach is quite popular. To us adults, facilitation is key, as we all have other responsibilities. Even more, we enjoy being responsible for our own learning (regardless if we succeed or not, past experiences have thought us that we always learn something, related and/or not).

[yersi]

.

[renzhe]

Renzhe, for all your claims of being too hardcore for your fellow students to catch up

There is no class I have been able to find geared to anyone above HSK Basic level, which doesn't require you to be enrolled in a University as a full-time sinology student. If you can find one around here, let me know. I've finished everything available here.

Everyone progressing above a very basic level that I know here where I live is self-studying.

I've obviously rubbed you the wrong way, and I don't know why.

I remember in a thread not too long ago you failed to recognize the beginner level expression "說不定" in a textbook sentence someone wanted to have translated.

Yeah, after a year and a half of intensive study, I translated a common phrase wrong. I was corrected, I took note, and now I've learned it. Big deal. I learned 5000 vocabulary items which I otherwise wouldn't know (because they aren't in textbooks), and as a downside, I got a hazy understanding of 說不定. I can live with that.

Funny how you can pin somebody's language level on one phrase.

Would you be open to the possibility that you may have started out with too advanced material too quickly?

I'm open to all possibilities.

I finished 3 beginner-level textbooks and all five books of NPCR (which is intermediate level) before I started reading a full-length book.

What else should I have done? Another beginner textbook? Take a class at European level A2-1 yet again?

EDIT: And, for the record, none of the textbooks I finished, including all 5 volumes of NPCR, teaches 說不定. So much about superiority of classroom teaching.

Edited June 11, 2009 at 12:15 PM by renzhe

[yersi]

.

[yersi]

.

[renzhe]

There is a really good sinology department here (a couple of my friends have graduated from it), and I'd really love to tap into their lectures and teaching materials. Clearly, the students there are highly motivated and hard-working.

Alas, I work full time, the course lasts 4 years, and they make zero exceptions when it comes to attendance, or getting your HSK score transferred into credits for first-year classes.

So what it leaves is evening classes, which are almost exclusively for beginners, with people who would like to try something new, and give up after two semesters. Even small groups of intermediate-level learners with a good teacher consists mostly of very busy people with little time to invest into language learning. Some good people have dropped out of such a group I was attending due to being too busy, others want to learn at a comfortable pace.

I never said anything about this, you're arguing against a strawman.

Your last post seemed to suggest that, if I had spent more time with proper learning material and a teacher, I'd have known words like 說不定. So I had to shoot back an arrow

[Scoobyqueen]

There is no class I have been able to find geared to anyone above HSK Basic level, which doesn't require you to be enrolled in a University as a full-time sinology student. If you can find one around here, let me know. I've finished everything available here.

I agree that it can be difficult to find courses that suit ones level and this is also the case where I live (in Germany). However, are we just talking classroom teaching here. What is wrong with using one-to-one teachers apart from potentially budget which could be solved by using on-line teachers based in China?

I was corrected, I took note, and now I've learned it.

This is exactly what I personally benefit from when a teacher is involved. In fact, I learn a lot from being wrong and then corrected rather than realising a lot later wow i have been wrong all this time and no one said anything.

[Scoobyqueen]

I lent her a Doraemon comic book, and it took her months to read it.

I have never met any women enjoying comic books but then again I am not a nerd and neither are any of my female friends.

(I always use nerd in a positive sense)

[renzhe]

What is wrong with using one-to-one teachers

Absolutely nothing.

In my case, the corrections are usually done by my girlfriend or my language partners.

In the context of the discussion " Self-teaching vs. Classes", I believe that even with a one-on-one teacher, at the intermediate level or higher, effective study will involve lots of work on your own. Things like reading, listening comprehension, you can do alone, and pick the difficult parts that the teacher can explain.

[Scoobyqueen]

I believe that even with a one-on-one teacher, at the intermediate level or higher, effective study will involve lots of work on your own.

I fully agree. In fact, for each lesson I spend 1-2 hours preparing for it (my teachers' recommendation). So if I do four lessons in a week that is already eight hours gone.

[anonymoose]

This is exactly what I personally benefit from when a teacher is involved. In fact, I learn a lot from being wrong and then corrected rather than realising a lot later wow i have been wrong all this time and no one said anything.

This discussion seems to be based on the premise that classes (where they are available) are the optimum teaching medium, and the self-studiers here are having to justify that their own methods reach the same standard. However, I don't think classes are always as effective as some here would have one believe.

In response to the quote above, from my personal experience of having attended university classes in China, in fact the teachers very rarely correct mistakes made by students.

If you really want someone to correct your mistakes, I think you need a personal tutor or friend to do this for you. Whether this falls under the category of self-teaching or classes is of course another issue...

[yersi]

.

[yersi]

.

[anonymoose]

maybe this discussion could be reframed as "assisted study" vs. "self-study"?

Well, I think all self-study will contain some degree of assistance. I mean, even just speaking with a Chinese person in my book constitutes a form of assistance.

[renzhe]

I think that the discussion will be more fruitful if we all don't think about it as either-or, but rather state our experiences with each, and how it worked for us.

We all seem to agree that it will depend on the individual, the class structure, the experience one has, and a number of other factors. The interesting question is how much teaching and how much self-study, at which point, and what it looks like.

When it comes to language learning, I think that basics are better done with a flexible and motivated teacher and a good textbook (it's way too easy to mess things up at the early stage) but, ultimately, languages require lots of interaction, lots of exposure to native materials (books, movies, music, conversations), and this boils down to doing things on your own as often as you can. Even among sinologists, you can see a huge difference depending on how much time they invested in reading, talking, listening to media, etc.

Of course, if we compare a degree in sinology with the "CNN method", the classes win. But if we compare a once-a-week evening class to a motivated guy/girl with a pile of books and willingness to look things up, I'd go for the latter.

[yersi]

.

[Scoobyqueen]

from my personal experience of having attended university classes in China, in fact the teachers very rarely correct mistakes made by students.

I have only ever taken one-to-one lessons and any of my comments relate to that type of teaching.

[DrZero]

I've noticed that some people seem to think self-study leads to "gaps" in one's Chinese. That carries the assumption that formal classroom study would not leave "gaps". I think that's a hugely erroneous assumption.