Studying Chinese in US schools vs. in Chinese schools (in Beijing). My thoughts.

[hidden12345]

Are you telling me that such an important grammar point, that "给 is sometimes a verb and sometimes a preposition" -- are you telling me you don't NEED a teacher to tell you this and all you have to do is memorize the sentence???

That's exactly what I'm telling you. When you first began using English to communicate with the world around oh way back when, you didn't know what the hell the subjunctive mood was or how to distinguish the difference between a verb or a preposition, even if you could use them properly. You don't NEED to know any of this stuff. Of course, once you reach an advanced level, knowledge of it can serve to make you even more powerful -- but you, my friend, are a LONG ways away from that stage.

I don't even think you should "make sentence" either. You need to be constantly cultivating a feel for the language, which entails tons of listening, even if you understand nothing, and active vocabulary building. Because words have usage rules and, in the Chinese language, those rules are complex precisely because they are very unsystematic, you can't really learn words per se in isolation -- you can later, of course, after you have built a solid foundation in which you can substitute words in and out of sentence patterns that you have ingrained into your skull via rote memorization -- but for now, you should simply be memorizing entire chunks of simple sentences; with a loose English translation to associate with each new sentence unit. Stop expecting your teachers to hold your hand like a pampered little child. If you do want to be treated like a child, however, you should stop questioning grammatical rules that aren't very logical to begin with, and thus, do not lend themselves very well to explanation; and instead think about how you can be using these memorized pieces of language (ie., sentences) to get what you want, like cookies or a toy or something.

[gato]

(And, by the way, after 4 weeks in Beijing, I only learned YESTERDAY that "到" was both a verb and a preposition. This is because I referred to a Columbia University textbook that I just received in the mail]...)

Was this not taught in the one semester of Chinese that you took at Columbia? Maybe the teaching at Columbia isn't as great as you say it is.

Anyway, the teaching in China and back in the States each have their pluses and minuses. Schools in China aren't just a cheaper version of schools in the U.S. for obvious reasons. A motivated student should take advantage of the best of what the local conditions have to offer (perhaps more practice with conversation in China and clearer grammatical explanation in the States) and supplement the shortcomings with books and other resources. If you do a search on this forum, you'll find a number of recommendations for grammar books in old threads.

Edited July 4, 2009 at 01:44 PM by imron
edited language in quote.

[xiexieniii]

Was this not taught in the one semester of Chinese that you took at Columbia? Maybe the teaching at Columbia isn't as great as you say it is.

It was taught in the first semester at Columbia (which is why I found it in their book...). But at this school in Beijing, it is not at all mentioned in the book and was not mentioned by our regular teacher. (If it was mentioned, none of the students understood it for obvious reasons.) And so, for many weeks my classmates had been thinking that "我给你做饭" means "I will give you made-food". A sentence like this needs to be cleared up in the first week, not in the fourth week of class -- if we had a teacher to merely show us the real meaning of this sentence, students would have been able to utilize it much sooner (and would have been able to create even more sentences using the same/similar pattern).

You need to be constantly cultivating a feel for the language, which entails tons of listening, even if you understand nothing, and active vocabulary building.

I don't disagree with this. And that is exactly what listening to the audio CD on repeat is for, and what watching Chinese TV programs are for, and hanging out with your Chinese friends are for, and what going out into the market and bargaining down prices is for. That is language education, obviously -- but you don't have to pay tuition for that. Now, when I enroll in a school, I'm not asking for a hand, a cookie, a toy or whatever. I'm asking for a good instructor who can create a solid lesson plan, and teach a foreign language in a very efficient way. Yes, after 5 years of completely living and working in a foreign environment with nothing but a dictionary on hand is another way to acquire a new language. And, if I had several years to spare, I would not mind sitting back, going with the flow, and just slowly...gradually picking up the language in the same way that I slowly...gradually picked up my parents' native tongue (Cebuano). But right now I need a better teacher than the "going shopping and watching Chinese movies" (free) teacher. I know good teachers exist -- they are just not among the 5 I have learned with so far.

abcdefg, I am pissed off, because I gave up opportunities at other schools back home to learn Chinese, thinking that enrolling in a school in Beijing would be the best possible choice. I was hopeful at first and most certainly gave the school (and other private tutors) a chance -- however, at this point, I feel I have wasted a lot of time and energy making the trip here. Things may change later once I find a good teacher, but right now I am completely disappointed, drained, and exhausted.

Edited July 4, 2009 at 10:59 AM by xiexieniii

[xiexieniii]

roddy,

My mistake -- I did not mean to convey the idea that it was impossible to learn a foreign language without an English-speaking teacher. What I do mean to convey that it is not the fastest and most efficient way to learn a foreign language (2 years with an English-speaking teacher vs. 6+ years with a non-English speaking teacher or no teacher at all).

[HarryCallahan]

Perhaps you're expecting a bit too much too soon. I know you said you did have some prior experience, but the course you're in seems to be a beginners course.

The beginners course I attended started with pinyin - initials, finals, correct pronounciation. You sit in class chanting "aoooo", "ouuuuu", "uuuuu" etc

Then you move onto "ni hao ma?", "wo hen hao, ni ne?", "ni jiao shenme mingzi?", numbers...

It's usually pretty basic stuff in the first few weeks. After all it's Chinese, it's tonal, they use strange little pictures for characters, there's a few thousand of them! People take a year or more to get good at it right? Well you can't expect too much in the space of 4 weeks.

But, I've been there and understand your frustration.

(Tip, search for the "Chinese Breeze" thread on this site. Those books are very basic and give a good broad exposure to the various language constructs and uses of common terms. Don't understand something then ask and learn and move forward.)

[gato]

Maybe you should switch to another school.

Both Beijing Language Institute (BLI) and Taipei Language Institute have gotten good reviews from others on the forum.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/12888-tli-or-bli-or-taiwan&highlight=bli

TLI or BLI or Taiwan?

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?p=107076#post107076

Advice on Intensive Chinese programs in Beijing this summer

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?p=152442#post152442

BLI (Beijing Language Institute)

Tuition is probably comparable to what you are currently paying at Chinese Language Education.

[xiexieniii]

I had heard of BLI, but I got the impression that it was on the pricey side. And at this point I am afraid of getting another semi-English-speaking teacher at a school where I will pay even more tuition.

I should mention that (out of the four teachers I had seen) there is one very good teacher at CLE, and I would've loved the opportunity to take private lessons from her -- but unfortunately she is already very busy with other classes. And in general, the teachers at CLE are very nice and have the best intentions for their students. However it was not what I was personally looking for.

Perhaps I'll create a new thread later about CLE (the good and not so good) for future users.

[muyongshi]

What I do mean to convey that it is not the fastest and most efficient way to learn a foreign language (2 years with an English-speaking teacher vs. 6+ years with a non-English speaking teacher or no teacher at all).

I really disagree with your assessment here. I've spent three years learning the language after just 2 years I got an eight on the HSK [i know it doesn't test speaking but my speaking is better than anything else]. Of all my study, less than 2 months of it were done with an "english speaker" and even then I asked them to not try and use english. Granted my book was in English so I did have the input, but that is all I wanted. The rest of my learning experience has been me listening to how people say it, thinking about the implications, looking at in the books, practicing and the result: I don't know grammar, but I very rarely mess up on my spoken chinese in sentence structure and have very little miss-usage because I believe I learned a feel for the language. What feels right and not a bunch of grammar points.

Also, when we had a student come from the states that had learned for 4 years [compared to my 1.5 at that point] I was better understood than he was because of that feel for the language. Our teachers were so surprised by this fact as well, to the fact that they would when he was not around talk a lot about how different his chinese was for having studied that long.

Point being, that your analogy of 2 years with a english speaker and 6+ without, is to put it bluntly, a load of BS. Don't get me wrong, I feel for your frustration but I truly believe that the way you are looking at this situation is all wrong.