Do you prefer monolingual or multilingual classrooms?

[rezaf]

Yes some of those classmates could barely speak Chinese(comparing to me and a French classmate ) which was probably because of locking themselves up with HSK books at the library. I think Asian students can really do wonders when it comes to studying for exams but in my experience westerners usually go for more moderate methods and probably would focus more on speaking.

edit:but all in all it was a very good year full of creativity and hard working students who raised the bar for all of us.

[xiaoxiaocao]

Out of curiosity, what approach monolingual/multilingual do you take with classes at your school and why?

I think that at beginner level a multilingual approach is favorable. That is assuming of course that you have a teacher who can accurately and clearly explain concepts in the student's native language. It's so important to get the basics correct right from the start as it is very hard to go back and correct ingrained ''bad habits'' at a later date.

Something else I think important is input/output ratio. Obviously someone who is only in China for one-two months will want to spend as much time speaking (output) as possible. For longer term students (6mths-1year) going heavy on Chinese input initially may be a better way. There seems to be a time around the 3 month mark where things ''click'' and all that input (even though you might have not used a lot of it up until now) suddenly becomes accessible. For these longer term students output can come a little later.

Some people are also really good at studying purely for tests and getting by with very little sleep!

Edit: I am writing from a 1-to-1 classroom perspective not group classes.

[roddy]

I think that at beginner level a multilingual approach is favorable.That is assuming of course that you have a teacher who can accurately and clearly explain concepts in the student's native language.

I think it's no coincidence that a lot of the 'Only use L2' theory comes from TEFL teachers who, generally speaking, don't speak the L1 of their students and therefore couldn't explain anything in L1 is they wanted to. Personally (and I haven't taught for years) I think a teacher who knows what they're doing should be able to explain pretty much anything they need to teach, in terms the students can understand, in L2, without resorting to any L1. BUT, it can take a bit of extra time, and may involve a lot of miming, picture drawing and running around making funny faces. But you can get there - look at all the grammar books and dictionaries written in simple English for learners - you just need to do that constantly, on the fly.

[xiaoxiaocao]

You get so many different kinds of people, personalities and backgrounds coming to study and everyone is different. The good thing about 1-to-1 classes is that these individual personalities and methods can be catered to.

and may involve a lot of miming, picture drawing and running around making funny faces.

Sometimes I walk past a classroom and it sounds like there is a party going on inside.

[roddy]

That's a sign of a very good teacher. Or a very bad one. But at least you know they're not mediocre.

[jkhsu]

I remember that those Vietnamese students and the Koreans who got high scores would go to the Library everyday after the class and would study until about 10.

I was going to say that hard work after class is the main contributor to one's improvement in Chinese, not the fact that a lecture happens to be monolingual.

Monolingual classes offer an additional immersion element but it also takes away another important element: the association of the Chinese language to one's own native language. Yes, you can read textbooks and dictionaries (and maybe baike.baidu.com, etc.) but a teacher / tutor who is an expert in both languages can sometimes offer a deeper level of understanding. I do have to point out that few teachers fit this profile. If a teacher is just going to tell me what I can find in a textbook or dictionary, then that teacher is not providing any additional value in speaking my native language.

A personal example: I was doing a lot of song translations and realized that many of the lyrics are "poem" like. Often times, using all of the online dictionary resources didn't get me the real meaning. I can certainly try to use my limited Chinese to describe what the lyrics (which are in more difficult Chinese) mean. However, a really good translation (not literal) using English would provide me another level of understanding (this is where the really good teacher comes in). Having that definition in turn, helps my Chinese because I can immediately understand a difficult concept or phrase by association. This is something that kids can't do because they may not have learned the concept in their native language yet.

[imron]

but it also takes away another important element: the association of the Chinese language to one's own native language

I'm of the opinion that this is an important element to take away. Ideally, you don't want to have an association with your own native language as then everything you do ends up going through a translation layer. It's far better to just think and react completely in the second language, and a monolingual environment encourages this.

Obviously it takes time to develop this, and you need to start out with smaller things before working on to more complicated ones (crawl before you can walk before you can run etc), and this makes things seem slower at the start, but I think that ultimately it encourages a better mind-view of the language. Without that mind-view, your second language often tends be more like your first language, but just using the words of the second one.

[roddy]

Sounds to me like you're trying to understand material that's too difficult for you, with inadequate dictionaries. No wonder you want someone to explain it to you.

[OneEye]

I'm all for monolingual classes. I've never taken a course that wasn't monolingual (I self-studied before moving to Taiwan), so I don't have a comparison, but I have watched people at my school start from scratch and improve dramatically in 3 months. I'd believe old HSK 8 after a year of class, if a person studied with that goal in mind.

However, I agree that hard work is more important. That and opportunity for using the language, which should go without saying. A class in-country will be much more beneficial than a class elsewhere, no matter what the language of instruction.

[Guest realmayo]

Can't see anything wrong with multi-lingual classes to start off with, but then after six months doing everything in Chinese -- when I studied in a Chinese university it was all in Chinese and no one had any problems. One advantange is even in a boring class you're still involved. But: the teacher has to be good and prepare well: there were plenty of younger teachers who didn't prepare, and therefore when they had to explain a grammar point or indeed vocabulary, they couldn't easily do it using a level of Chinese which the students could understand, and consequently spent a lot of time struggling to explain basic stuff. This wasted lots of time and also made us think they were amateur and lazy. The experienced teachers had prepared (or were by now completely used to speaking dumbed-down Chinese) and therefore had no problem explaining everything they needed to us well and with no fuss.

Then again, I can imagine situations where a teacher would think it beneficial to use English -- as long as that happened in a clear "now I'm going to use English for five minutes because ......" context, rather than constantly adding crutch-support explanations in English alongside the Chinese, which I don't think would be so useful.

[rezaf]

@jkhsu: Well most of us were not like them and had a more moderate approach. Altogether we got pretty good results in that class and we were lucky to have two teachers who knew how to teach and explain everything we needed at that point all in Chinese. One of them was pretty fluent in English but would never use it for teaching us. Probably we never talked about complicated Chinese poems or history and our class was more like a kindergarten party but whatever it was we had fun and after a few months all of a sudden we realized we could conduct all kinds of conversations and debates about daily topics in Chinese without even knowing how we had got there.

[Guest realmayo]

Also, and I certainly don't want to pick a fight with imron here, but I can't help but wonder if there really is evidence out there for what he says in his last post. Well actually, imron talks of the benefits of a monolingual environment, which of course is certainly of benefit after a student gets beyond an elementary level, but I wonder if there's any reason to be so confident that a monolingual classroom for the first six months or year is any better than a multilingual one.

[xiaocai]

Do we just have to choose one or the other? As an adult learner I would prefer a program which contains both monolingual and multilingual sessions, and the ratio will gradually shift from one end to the other over time. Of course the basic knowledge of a language can be mastered through self-study (or you would be very lost in a monolingual setting if you know absolutely nothing about the language), but I would think that proper instructions from well experienced tutors in our own languages will be very beneficial as some bad habits we may make or wrong impressions we may get at the beginning of learning a new language can be hard to get rid of later on.

Reading through the post again, it seems that I basically just repeated what xiaoxiaocao has said, never mind then...

[WestTexas]

I don't see what's the harm in explaining more complex grammar points in L1. If you explain them in L2 the students might not understand, or they might think they understand but actually have some mistakes, not to mention that explaining in L2 is going to take longer than explaining in L1. They could take 5 minutes, explain in L1, then have the students drill the new grammar. That seems better to me.

[Guest realmayo]

When it comes to pronunciation it's hard to see how you can be taught good pronunciation from the outset in a monolingual classroom. My experience in a Chinese university was that the teachers didn't bother all that much with pronunciation (excluding tones).

[roddy]

By the time you're explaining complex grammar points, the students should be able to understand an explanation in simple English (and I'd like to ask Hofmann what complex subjects he's explaining to beginner-level students, and why isn't he teaching them something more appropriate to their level). Although to be honest you don't necessarily explain it as such. You demonstrate, you elicit, etc, etc. You're more likely to do the actual 'explanation' bit as a recap at the end of the class. There's no English tense you can't draw on a blackboard. Might it be slightly more efficient in Chinese? Quite possibly, but you lose the opportunity for the students to listen to English they can understand and figure out how to do something new, and that's a valuable thing. You also reduce the extent to which the classroom, and the teacher, are 'English only' environments. There's a place to apply L1, but it's a small and limited one, and I'd say it's safer for the teacher to delegate it. If some students aren't grasping instructions for an activity but some are, give the faster ones the nod to explain it in L1. If you're struggling to explain a bit of vocab and one of the students bursts out a decent translation in L1, point and nod, then get on with things.

I'm also dubious about the idea that the place for L1 in the classroom is at the early levels - seems like that is setting a bad precedent, and you're talking about the level at which it's easiest to draw or mime vocab. For what it's worth, I've taught elementary classes without even opening my mouth - I used the board and mimed, the students did all the talking. If I can get by without L2, I see no need for L1.

There's a whole toolkit of things teachers can do to get around the problems not using L1 in the classroom throws up, and that's a large part of what TEFL training (and hopefully any TxFL course) imparts.

[imron]

but I can't help but wonder if there really is evidence out there for what he says in his last post.

I don't have links or knowledge of any studies in the area, but plenty of anecdotal evidence.

I agree however that a monolingual environment also plays an important part.

[jkhsu]

I'm of the opinion that this is an important element to take away. Ideally, you don't want to have an association with your own native language as then everything you do ends up going through a translation layer. It's far better to just think and react completely in the second language, and a monolingual environment encourages this.

I agree with this statement in general but not in the context of my post. There are two reasons why I want to know the precise translation in English: (1) To confirm what "I thought I knew" in Chinese is actually correct and (2) just to know it for translation purposes. I've always been impressed by good translators who intrepret for corporate and government meetings. Using the right word or phrase to convey the same thought in another language at a moment's notice is not something any bilingual person can do.

Does anyone here think a class for professional translators of Chinese <-> English should be (1) completely conducted in Chinese or (2) a beginner level class? Here's a sample class from UCLA Extension (note that the requirement is fluency in both Chinese and English).

Let me clarify that you do not need to take translation classes or be a translator to learn Chinese. I just wanted to illustrate that there are different levels of understanding, especially for those of us who are fluent in at least one other language.

Also, the question that this post is asking is which environment do you prefer. It's not asking in which environment do you think someone can pass an HSK level the fastest. Personally, I like my lectures to be focused on things around the language and the knowledge that the professor can share that's not in my textbooks. Many US universities with good Chinese language programs have professors who have Ph.Ds in Chinese literature, etc. teach the beginner level classes. I just randomly picked two: Middlebury and Stanford. I can see insightful discussions centered around the history of the language and characters from the very first class in this type of environment vs. the teacher drawing stick figures of people saying 你好 in a monolingual only classroom.

Now, after the lectures, I'd go to a study session where hopefully a native speaker (TA or tutor) goes over the textbook (and lecture) and helps students with pronunciation all in Chinese. I then spend my own time reading, reviewing vocab, etc.

Also, I'm not disagreeing with rezaf or anyone else who thinks a complete immersion environment where you're forced to learn the language will get you results the fastest. That's pretty obvious. I just don't prefer that and don't think I'd get the knowledge around the language, especially the associations to my native language, that I'd get in a multilingual one.

[roddy]

There's research supporting both sides I think (it's only social science after all, you can expect definite answers). Search for L1 in the classroom, stuff like that. I think a lot of the support for L1 usage is as much about showing respect for the students' culture as because it's more efficient.

[Silent]

There are two reasons why I want to know the precise translation in English: (1) To confirm what "I thought I knew" in Chinese is actually correct and (2) just to know it for translation purposes.

I feel there's is no way to achieve this by translation only. Sure for 'simple' concepts that map nicely there's no real issue. Words and expression that are not very well defined and/or contain cultural values translations may even be deceptive. A simple example: 车=car. I think few would have a problem with this translation, but 车has a broader meaning than 'car'. Just think about the 牛车, 摩托车 and 自行车 all are qualified (maybe not very commonly) as 车, but would not be qualified as a 'car'. And this is something which is fairly well defined.

I think direct translations should be avoided where possible as it would risk that concepts are mapped incorrectly. Direct translations maybe handy for very simple translations, but would hamper you on the more complicated ones. I once wrote a story myself and later tried to translate it to English despite it being a fairly simple story I failed miserably. Not because I couldn't translate the words, but because words didn't match very well, I had used two slightly different dutch words to convey some contrast but that map to the same English word, I felt some things I could not translate as I saw no way to tranfer the cultural values embedded, parts were written with the expectation that the audience has certain knowledge when translated to English the audience changes and one can not assume anymore that the expected knowledge is available, there were sentences with multiple meanings where I saw no way to express the same meanings in one English sentence. To me it was much easier to just write a new story about the same thing in English and just forget about the original story.

I think a good translator, at least of more literary works, is not translating. A good translator reads and writes the same thing in the target language without regard to the original choice of words etc but only to convey the same ideas and values.

Also, I'm not disagreeing with rezaf or anyone else who thinks a complete immersion environment where you're forced to learn the language will get you results the fastest.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. If it takes a lot of time and effort to explain things in L2 that could be explained in L1 very easily that will slow you down. I think it's more a matter of finding the right balance between L1 and L2. L2 is prefered for immersion, L1 should be kept to a minimum, but most likely has a role specially at the earlier stages of study.