Strategies for working with a tutor

[gaoshancha]

I'm looking for some strategies and advice on working effectively with a language tutor. I am lucky to have a Chinese tutor who I can meet with weekly and try to speak Chinese. My speaking is certainly very poor, and after a few sessions I feel like the progress is not quite headed in the right direction. Certainly one issue is my personality, I'm a quiet person by nature and not very skilled at the art of conversation in my own native language.

 

Specific issues:

• Taiwan pronunciation: It's not that I am accustomed to listening to Beijing television, I am just having a hard time catching words due to zhi=>z, ch=ci, shi=si syllable pronunciations that are common in Taiwan.  I am sure I will eventually get it when my brain can forge the synapses or what not that connect what I see in print with what I actually hear.  Otherwise I have no problem with the pronunciation.  What happens is that I end up over-thinking about what I am hearing, and I lose pace then and get all messed up.  Are there any listening resources I can utilize, such as audio recordings in the car, to better train my ear? I don't intend to solely focus there, but being that my only opportunity to speak Mandarin is with a Taiwan native, I'd like to maximize that experience.
• Resources for lesson materials: I have some textbooks, but the dialog material is so short and the topics are really not of much interest.  What are the best materials to bring and prepare with for working with tutors?  Last time I printed off maps and tried practicing directions, which was OK but turned out to be much easier and we quickly got through it.  I'd love to be able to sit and do free chat, but 1) my speaking ability is not just there yet, and 2) my tutor has a tendency to go off on tangents in Mandarin at 100 km/h if I don't reel it back in.

 

[abcdefg]

I replied to your previous post here:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/44451-getting-more-out-of-language-exchange-while-still-a-beginner/#comment-339588

 

Especially if you are shy, the teacher needs to be urging *you* to talk more, not listen to him go off on long-winded tangents.

 

Would add that once a week is probably not enough to be of much value in improving conversation. Two sessions a week would be *more* than twice as good. (An exponential increase in benefit.)

[gaoshancha]

Thank you for your input.  I did not see the message that apparently pops up requiring approval for all messages on this board.  No offense to the moderators, but that seems kind of weird?  Did my account cause some type of flag to be set off?  That is why I posted again in a different thread...I didn't realize that I needed approval to post on the board for my first post.  I had thought my browser lost my original input...but on the second post I realized that there was an approval message warning.

 

I should stress that my tutor is a kind volunteer who gives me an hour of her time each week and not a paid tutor.  And my tutor is not a trained linguist either, but a professional outside of Chinese education/teaching. I talk about it in the other thread, but finding a hired tutor where I live is quite hard. I will try though to find a tutor that can do another hour....completely agree!  More time is better.  In just the few weeks I've been doing just an hour a week, I find my listening has actually improved somewhat.  Or perhaps it had regressed and is starting the rebound.  Either way, good news I suppose!

[gaoshancha]

Ah, I see.  It looks like my first post had to be approved, and after that, it appears I can respond and the posts are automatically accepted immediately.  Makes sense, some time of Bot defeating mechanism perhaps?  

[abcdefg]

I should stress that my tutor is a kind volunteer who gives me an hour of her time each week and not a paid tutor.

 

Then your expectations need to be very low and just be grateful for any benefit from these sessions at all.

[imron]

Yes, all posts by new members require approval by a moderator, in order to prevent spam.

Once someone has made a certain number of posts this limitation goes away.