My Progress 2013/14

[pprendeville]

I've noticed recently that I am very inconsistent with my study. When I first arrived here I was doing 5 or 6 hours of study a day. In hindsight I was probably overdoing things. This effort slackened off recently and went from doing too much to too little. I've formed some bad habits and got lazy with my Chinese after doing a week of mainly finishing a business project 2 weeks ago which I need to submit in stages. I'm really going to have to address these issues over the holidays and need to get into a good routine.

I've also realised that the teaching methods are very old school here in classes. Lots of repetition which sucks the life out of me. I know repetition up to a certain point is necessary but our 口语 class is all about learning off dialogues and the worst thing is we learn both speakers lines and recite them on our own, not with a partner. It had made me feel that unless I was able to regurgitate the material I wasn't any good. Also, there's was never any reviewing which I find a bit disheartening as it feels like every class something new is being introduced. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. Teachers seem more interested in finishing the book. Quantity over quality. I wonder do other universities adapt the same approach or are there schools that do something like 3 weeks of learning followed by 1 week of reviewing back to 3 weeks and so on. Anyway, I need to quit finding excuses and get on with it.

On a positive note I think its good I have recognised these weaknesses now and not in 3months time. I need to get out of this rut and focus more on following while at the same time not completely neglecting my schoolbooks:

- Reading Chinese readers more. I am almost finished reading The Secret Garden although I haven't contributed much to the other thread which Marguerite started for which I feel rather guilty. I'm finding these novels really interesting and purchased The Monkeys Paw and The 60 Year Dream also. Usually with my tutor we go over The Secret Garden which involves me summarising the chapter and picking out things of interest. I feel I've improved because on Chapter 8 I realised that 李叶 has matured a lot since her arrival (displayed by her ability to so soothe 文思远 when he was having a hissy fit, something she used to do quite often). Recognising this would have bee beyond me a few weeks ago so it's a confidence booster that I'm at least improving comprehension skills.

- I'm watching 海绵宝宝 everyday. Granted it's probably the same 2-3 episodes per day but my comprehension is improving constantly. I have downloaded 10 episodes in total and my goal is to understand 70-80% of the content of these episodes by next summer. Actually, another weakness of mine is that I try to do too much too soon and then end up giving up when I might be on the cusp of moving onto the next level. Definitely a case of the tortoise and the hair. My good wife wrote out the whole text for the 1st episode yesterday. It's brilliant stuff I think. So I read ahead, then watch and the difference this makes is huge. Lots of pausing but I'll take it slowly.

- I have a lot of Chinese Breeze books and I meet up with a class mate once a week and we chat about the contents of whatever chapter we've read. Interesting as we're not as inhibited as we might be with Chinese person.

- Another weakness and this is probably my biggest is my writing skills. I write really slowly, mainly due to having to check characters here and there so it's something I need to put much more effort into, again, over the hold where I'll have the time. I was reading a really good blog called Chinese-breeze.com and it inspired me. He set himself a goal of doing a minimum amount of study per day and building on that for 1 month. It's well worth a read for any newbie.

[abcdefg]

...and the worst thing is we learn both speakers lines and recite them on our own, not with a partner.

 

Three years ago I had a teacher that required word for word memorization of both parts of all textbook dialogues like this. She saw that as an essential part of the road to Chinese fluency. I asked her if she was really sure that was necessary for me, since our class was one to one and I was no longer a beginner.

 

I slept on it over night and asked her again politely the next day. But she was unable to budge an inch on that issue. So I fired her and had the school find me a different teacher a day or two later. The principal was not overjoyed, but to his credit, he complied.

[pprendeville]

Our teacher over the top pedantic on these things. A simple example would be that if you change the wording of a dialogue slightly but reflect the same meaning he will point out the mistake. Eg, 行不行，he will point out I should have said 好不好。This is fine for a few weeks but over a period of time it can really irritate after a while.

[gato]

Sounds like a pain in the pigu

[imron]

Three years ago I had a teacher that required word for word memorization of both parts of all textbook dialogues like this. She saw that as an essential part of the road to Chinese fluency.

That being said, doing a certain amount of this can be very helpful.  Repeating and drilling a dialogue a large number of times can help cement sentence patterns and vocabulary in your mind.  I certainly wouldn't want *all* my learning to be like this, but doing it a little bit can really give your language skills a boost and help you get rid of Englishisms in your language usage.

[abcdefg]

That being said, doing a certain amount of this can be very helpful.  Repeating and drilling a dialogue a large number of times can help cement sentence patterns and vocabulary in you mind.

The teacher might very well have been right in requiring that approach. Guess I will never know.

[pprendeville]

It's been a long time since I updated this. Lots of reason with the main ones being laziness and procrastination. I have become very demoralised with learning Chinese in classes here in Minzu. I feel it's draining the life out of me. This semester I went from class level 4 to level 5. I possibly could have gone into a level 6 class but I knew if I did I would have a good chance of failing exams. A week in Taiwan (place is heaven compared with Beijing, nicest people ever, period) plus family issues have lead to me missing lots of classes. I know improving means challenging oneself but I just can't bring myself to going to a level where I'm really out of my depth.

The way classes are taught just don't inspire me in the least bit. Lots of grammar being taught and then us being asked to give a sentence with x, give a sentence with y, give a sentence with z. Ahhh. Don't want to harp on about it but I need to cop to myself and start doing something about the situation I find myself in.

Ideally I would like to do my own thing with graded readers and using Heisig's "Remembering the Hanzi" but I need to sit exams which requires me to attend class unfortunately. I have discovered my foundation in character writing is quite poor and I find myself constantly forgetting or mixing up characters. The trip to Taiwan opened my eyes to the benefits of traditional characters in that they are very hard to mix up granted I couldn't read or guess many. I need to go and really make the effort to learn all the radicals really well and take it from there. I only have 3 months left here in Beijing and am really looking forward to leaving. I hate the place. In saying that, I probably haven't helped myself fit in very well here. Found it hard to keep any language partner and am to the most outgoing person either.

I hope to start using the Mandarin companion books more. They are a great resource. I find my comprehension is quite good at this stage as is my pronunciation by my speaking and writing leave a lot to be desired. Reading a few posts on here recently have inspired me to keep going and a quote from a friend recently who said "Chinese is a journey, not a destination" really hit home as well.