Advice for independent student working with tutor

[martin_r]

This is a plea for advice.

I've taken the plunge and and gotten myself a language exchange partner to talk to via Skype. I think it will be really useful for me (beginner, 5000 miles from China and no teacher), but I need advice on how to make it work. The English end is definitely going to work. I would describe my partner's English as advanced and we can talk about anything that interests us both. We get along well. I enjoy the chat and I'm learning lots about China. I can help him with the occasional language tip and the practice is bound to help his English.

The challenge might be getting the Mandarin part of the session to work. I don't yet have enough Mandarin to hold up a real conversation, but I want to keep English to a minimum. He's a smart guy but i can't reasonably expect him to lead me the way a trained teacher might. My ideas so far :

He sends me links to suitable simple reading matter and vocabulary lists for me to study in advance so we can discuss and he can quiz me.

I prepare short 'essays' to read out - we can then discuss and improve on them.

We find a suitable textbook that we can both access and he helps me work my way through it - or just uses it as a guide to pitch his Mandarin at the right level.

I'm really keen for this to work. I like the idea that any word I learn today could be part of a real communication tomorrow . It's a world away from my school French experience - "one day this could be useful if you ever pass your exams/get fluent/meet a French person". Also, in other languages I could keep going just by reading lots, but with the Mandarin script being a long-term project, I think I really need the live conversation to keep momentum going.

So, any suggestions anyone, on the right way to do this, and what pitfalls to avoid? Has anyone else been there - how did it go? Is there a good blog on language exchange partnerships out there somewhere?

[abcdefg]

If your language exchange partner's English is much better than your Chinese, you are wise to make careful preparations in advance of the lessons or else they will always turn out great for him and nearly useless for you. That's just how that transaction seems to invariably work out in real life.

He sends me links to suitable simple reading matter and vocabulary lists for me to study in advance so we can discuss and he can quiz me.

I prepare short 'essays' to read out - we can then discuss and improve on them.

We find a suitable textbook that we can both access and he helps me work my way through it - or just uses it as a guide to pitch his Mandarin at the right level.

The ideas you listed for structuring your language exchange time are all good ones. I once did something like this using the Chinese Breeze readers. We both bought a copy (cheap.) I would prepare a chapter ahead of time then read it for my teacher and he would correct my pronunciation. After that we would talk about the content (in Chinese.)

This is pretty similar to your “option one” above.

I found that if we let the hour just "free flow" it turned out to virtually be an English lesson except for a few tidbits about Chinese culture and daily life (usually delivered by him in English.)

You will find other answers to your question already on the forum. It is something many of us have asked at one time or other.

[Meng Lelan]

He's a smart guy but i can't reasonably expect him to lead me the way a trained teacher might.

The major difficulty with language exchange is your partner is not a trained teacher. Being smart is not the same as being professionally trained in foreign language pedagogy. Search carefully through the forums here for threads relating to language exchange and you'll see that in many cases the language exchange becomes exclusively English tutoring for their benefit.

[wushijiao]

We find a suitable textbook that we can both access and he helps me work my way through it - or just uses it as a guide to pitch his Mandarin at the right level.

This is the way I would go, since, as Meng Lelan points out, without being trained, the person is unlikely to know how to meet a learner's needs. But at the very least, textbook authors should be more aware of what a learner's needs are.

For example, you could structure it like this:

1) 20 minutes reviewing a chapter/section of textbook (performing dialogues, reviewing vocab and exercises, having the person correct your pronunciation...etc)

2) 5 minutes of substitution drills based on exercises and dialogues.

3) 5 minutes of making new sentences with new words used in unit, or free talk

I'd also suggest that you try to be up front and very clear in communicating what you want. I'd just tell the person that your happy with talking in English and that you're learning a lot about Chinese culture from him, but that you also need focus and structure to make your half work.

[renzhe]

We find a suitable textbook that we can both access and he helps me work my way through it - or just uses it as a guide to pitch his Mandarin at the right level.

+1

What is your Mandarin level right now? How did you achieve it? Are you still studying in a class, or are you planning for this to be your primary learning avenue? Unless you are a very experienced language learner, who has taught himself several languages, you will almost certainly want to follow a textbook course, if only to give you structure, vocabulary and reading material.

Check the Textbook subforum for some recommendations. Working without any textbook or other course is not likely to work.

[valikor]

OP has stated that he is a beginner and is self-studying.

The recommendation to buy a textbook sounds excellent to me. I spent 7 months self-studying in China, only recently starting to take actual classes. I would have gotten nowhere without a textbook (besides memorizing a bunch of vocab words without understanding how to use them!).

I also have had the same problem with Chinese language partners. So, the only suggestion I can offer (aside from many of the great ones already presented here) is that you prepare a lot for each session (and, as said before, be very structured). Having one lesson (or section of a lesson) that you will discuss together per meeting is probably a good idea. If you have prepared a lot for each chat, you will be able to throw a bunch of sentences at him and have him correct you. Don't move on until you understand very well. Thus, you will avoid the mistake that I've made (and continue to make!) which is that I try to study too fast, and only gain an approximate understanding of vocabulary and grammar, and then move on.

This means that my passive skills improve quite quickly, but I still can't actively use (write or SPEAK) Chinese well at all.

Oh, and in terms of the structure, it will be much easier if you start off the right way in the beginning. If you get in the habit of having fun conversations which DO NOT benefit you, it will be harder in the future to say "Okay, we've talked in English too much, I'm not learning as much as you!" You can just tell him, "Okay, from 7:30 to 8:00 we will work on Mandarin"

[abcdefg]

I agree with other members that, in your situation, a textbook is the way to go. The Skype exchange I did was just a supplement to a comprehensive course with a real live teacher. I was mainly interested in improving reading and conversation skills.

I really think you would be better off paying some money for an experienced teacher. I'm really not sure it will work with a "volunteer" for all the reasons already mentioned. If you want to do it anyhow just for fun and to sort of "dip a toe in the water" there's no harm in that; but I would not go into it with unrealistically high expectations.

The recommendation to buy a textbook sounds excellent to me. I spent 7 months self-studying in China, only recently starting to take actual classes.

@Valikor, you must be made of real stern stuff to have been able to stick to a self study program that long. I don't think I could have managed that. My hat is off to you.

[martin_r]

Thanks everybody,

I'm really clear now about this now. So far, after a two or three long sessions, it's been much as you all say, no doubt just the way things go if one partner is fluent and the other lets it amble on. I'm going to suggest following Wushijiao's advice, or if that's too formal, settle for working through some easy text together. Otherwise, I'll just regard it as a pleasant diversion and not let it eat into valuable study time. I realise a professional tutor would be ideal, (same applies to my music and Weiqi) but I'm on an economy drive just now.

You asked about my current level, renzhe - I'm definitely a beginner. Halfway through the third Pimsleur audio course and just starting to learn the script. I've got lots of other audio material to go on with (FSI,Chinesepod,MT...). I've also loaded the FSI beginner's vocabulary (1000 entries) into an excel spreadsheet with a flashcard/multichoice trainer programmed in VB， so I regularly dip into that. I also have some textbooks to look forward to: Living Language Mandarin, Teach Yourself Mandarin Conversation, Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar. I have studied other languages but this is my first non European, tonal, non-alphabetic language so it's a leap, but fun.

Thanks for all the advice and sorry if I've dredged up a tired old theme and stuck it in the wrong place - I did search for previous conversations, but must've used the wrong criteria - still finding my way around here.

谢谢

[renzhe]

In that case, definitely try to follow a good textbook for structure.

Trying to find a beginners' course are a local university or similar might also be worth a try. They are often affordable, and available at the beginner level. You could still profit a lot from such a course, much more than somebody more advances, and it would do wonders for your pronunciation.

Teaching yourself Chinese is doable if you have enough language learning experience, but it's still good to get pointed in the right direction in the beginning to avoid some ghastly pitfalls that will make an already challenging task more difficult.

[roddy]

So how has this been going?