汉教英雄会: Chinese Language Teaching Idols (Self Promotion)

[LuDaibola]

9 hours ago, Chong said:

 I saw you here https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/bnRf8BvwLEodZTJWJiSW8A  

Voted.

 

Thanks, Chong.  This link worked for me.

 

BTW, I was telling my husband about this contest yesterday and he was very surprised that non-Chinese are teaching the Chinese language in China and I had to agree that this is strange.  Am I getting it wrong?  If not, is this a common thing?   

[abcdefg]

Quote

Here's the link to that QR code page, presume it's not uniquely generated each time: http://wx8267d8592f34fed1.wx.mvote.cn/opage/dba3acd2-811d-1e02-344e-7368be67eca4.html

 

 

@Jim -- It worked this morning. It's the easiest way so far to cast a vote. Just scan the QR with your phone. 

[艾墨本]

@Jim Thanks for setting that up! that's great and makes this all very easy.

 

Sorry I've been so slow to respond. It's been hard to keep up with even the bare necessities these last few days.

 

I appreciate everyone taking the time to do this. it's been making a huge difference.

 

@abcdefg Yes, an easier system would be great. It seems they changed it to be easier to cast the vote on the second day, doing away with the "follow us" requirement. Not sure if anyone can verify that. As for further campaigning for this, I have to keep me head focused on the other tasks. The first round includes recording a video that I'll be editing which means I need to start learning how to use iMovie, and then I'll be doing a five minute 汇报 for the judges as well as a round table discussion about what being a good teacher even means. Oh and then I also have to create a "performable" lesson plan to do on stage with real students should I make it to the last round. This includes planning literally every second so the production team can prepare the full set.

 

There a lot more as well and my head is spinning from it all.

 

Oh, and then I also have a roughly 8,000 character thesis proposal that is due in four days and that I'll be presenting the week after the competition... @imron Thanks for helping me find a few papers for that as well!

 

I often think of this community as my Chinese learning support community, and I'm leaning on ya'll hard at the moment. Thanks for holding me up!

 

 

On 6/14/2018 at 7:25 PM, LuDaibola said:

BTW, I was telling my husband about this contest yesterday and he was very surprised that non-Chinese are teaching the Chinese language in China and I had to agree that this is strange.  Am I getting it wrong?  If not, is this a common thing?   

 

Yeah, there are a few Chinese teachers in China that are non-native speakers. It takes a high level of Chinese and the pay isn't high but it sure is fun. The major advantage being a deep understanding of what it takes to learn Chinese and the tools available to do so. It's a shortcoming that no amount of class time learning about how to teach Chinese can make up for.

 

Also, copying @Jim's link here again. You can vote for five people every day: http://wx8267d8592f34fed1.wx.mvote.cn/opage/dba3acd2-811d-1e02-344e-7368be67eca4.html

 

[LuDaibola]

9 hours ago, 艾墨本 said:

The major advantage being a deep understanding of what it takes to learn Chinese and the tools available to do so.

 

Yes, that makes perfect sense to me.  Good on you.

[Angelina]

It would be nice if you could share your thesis proposal, or at least share some tips on how you managed to write it. 

 

Good luck with everything!

 

 

[艾墨本]

Well, the competition finished more than a week ago but busy with finals （still am） and doing my thesis proposal. But back to the states and completely off schedule for sleep, so some middle of the night writing sounds good to me！

 

I finished the competition in 3rd place! I was very happy with that, seeing as my original goal was to make it to the top 32 and finished in the top 6! (one first places, two second, and three third place trophies). The big surprise was I learned that I am now able to directly apply for teaching jobs (本土老师) at Confucius institutes without doing the Hanban exam. So cool!

 

Overall it was a great experience, though terribly exhausting. I lost a lot of weight during the process and I was already terribly thin. Everyday was a battle for extra minutes of preparation, and it became apparent that those that battle for additional minutes were also the ones who moved on (with some very surprising exceptions). While it was a competition, it was first and foremost a TV show. This made every contestant all the more nervous with every second being recorded and the knowledge that our audience was all of China. But at the same time, because it was so competitive, it pushed me to improve in so many ways. For the non-native speakers, the biggest challenge was simply doing the task in Chinese and as such every day was working with our assigned tutors to improve our Chinese and learn the necessary language for each section.

 

I am stoked I got to participate and met many new friends, all of whom are exceptional individuals. Regardless of how the competition unfolded, it became apparent that anyone that made it to this stage was incredibly talented. Some strengths played out better for a TV show while others didn't do so well. After all, "performing" was a big part of this competition and those who were great teachers but bad performers, didn't necessarily do well.

 

From a Chinese learning perspective, I've never seen so much improvement in my pronunciation. While the improvement has yet to make it into my freely spoken Chinese, the confidence that with preparation I can produce well enunciated Chinese has done wonders for my confidence as a Chinese speaker and my "Chinese (language) identity."

 

I feel like there is a lot to unpack from this and I'm at a loss for where to start and what would be most interesting to hear. East China Normal University did a write-up focusing on the students from our school. (https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ghXnJqsO_zi7gfm50cIgEQ)

 

It includes a "比赛感悟" that we were asked to write. I'll copy mine here as well.

 

参加汉教英雄会夏令营，我有两个主要的收获。第一个是新朋友。第一天开幕式，我发言时说了“首先我们都是人，其次我们都是老师，最后我们才是选手，但是做选手是暂时的，做朋友是一辈子的。”现在回头看全比赛的过程，我最看重的是我新交的朋友。我跟这些朋友一起经历熬夜、成功之乐、失败之伤。但是因为我们可以在一起同甘共苦，我们在短短时间内发展了这么好的关系。我感觉我认识了很多新的知己。只有这些朋友才真正理解这次比赛对我的影响。

 

第二个是我新学到的知识和能力。在第一轮比赛中我学会了编辑简单的视频；第二轮比赛让我学会了怎么用汉语辩论，怎么表示认同和反驳别人的观点；第三轮，我学会了怎么保持平常心。最后这一点在走下舞台的那一时刻，最容易忘记的但恰恰是最重要的。即，比赛不是最重要的，更重要的是做一个好老师，只有在失败中，才可以学会如何面对失败。在这个方面，我为我自己感到骄傲。在我离开舞台时，我没有忘记尊重我的对手，尊重评委和老师们。

 

I did get interviewed my 人民日报 and was featured on their publication as well as in a couple of 孔子学院's 微信公众号:

http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/page/2018-07/06/09/rmrbhwb2018070609.pdf

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/3hqTFVGVdknwVc1q_dJi6A

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/XoH6VbX6XRFFH60HODePaA

 

I also uploaded my 3 minutes speech during the opening ceremony to google photos. It can be watched here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/nKvHxM4eHk2tAzB16

 

Edit: @Angelina I'm currently uploading the 16 minute video of my thesis proposal to my google drive. I'll send you a link once done. The first six minutes are the presentation followed by 10 minutes of feedback. Based on sharing the video with a Chinese friend, the feedback wasn't too representative for how the process goes since my 评委 didn't have much knowledge about my research topic. They will usually ask slightly more poignant questions.

 

Edit 2: I should also mention that I finished in second place for total votes, which was the reason I started this thread. Ended up with 35,000, give or take a few thousand and was just a few hundred short of first place. Thank you all who helped cast votes for me. I got so many because, unlike most, instead of pushing really hard at fist and then tapering off, I just did a little each day under the assumption that it would slowly pick up pace, and it did. (kinda like learning vocab, yeah?)

 

Edit 3: @Tomsima Removed italics.

[Tomsima]

Great pronunciation in the speech, and congrats on third place. 

 

Side note: is it just me or is reading chinese in italics a really unpleasant experience 

[Lu]

On 7/11/2018 at 11:09 PM, Tomsima said:

is it just me or is reading chinese in italics a really unpleasant experience

It's not just you, it's everyone.

 

Ai Moben, congratulations on your achievement! That is awesome.