tutoring ideas for advanced (HSK 6+) CSL learners

[大块头]

Language exchanges have been instrumental in developing whatever fluency I possess today, but it's gotten difficult to find partners who are willing and able to provide the sort of high-resolution feedback I need to improve. Online exchange platforms like Lang-8 (RIP) and HiNative are OK for writing, but the quality and detail of the corrections sometimes aren't that great. I've convinced myself that I can overcome these issues (and save myself a lot of time) by throwing some money at the problem and hiring a tutor.

 

How does the following plan sound? We all have different 短板, but are there any tutor-assisted study methods that other advanced students have found useful?

 

1. I'll spend a couple hours each weekend writing an essay on a topic of my choosing. I'll randomly select a few grammar patterns from the HSK 3.0 proficiency standards that I must use in the essay. My tutor will then edit this essay with Word's track changes feature, adding comments explaining each edit.
2. Later in the week we'll meet via Zoom for an hour. I'll ask them any questions I may have about the essay, then I'll do an improvised speaking exercise. Such exercises could include describing something that's difficult to explain without gesturing or visual aids (e.g. "how to tie your shoes", "how to play chess") or they could involve thoroughly describing a complicated video or image (e.g. commentating an American Ninja Warrior highlight reel). After we meet my tutor will review a video recording of our meeting and send me a list of speaking errors with time stamps.
3. As my tutor becomes more familiar with my Chinese ability they'll create Anki flashcards meant to prevent the writing or speaking errors I tend to make (e.g. "Is this word typically used as a noun or verb?", "Would you use 既 or 即 in this sentence?"). Writing good flashcards is a skill, so they'll initially need a good amount of feedback from me.

[mungouk]

Given that HSK levels 7-9 will be upon us by the end of the year, this is a very good question.

 

If you're already at HSK 6 does this maybe imply that further progress means academic study rather than language "tutoring"?

[大块头]

1 hour ago, mungouk said:

If you're already at HSK 6 does this maybe imply that further progress means academic study rather than language "tutoring"?

 

At this point I like to think I can talk or write about most topics I'd typically encounter, but I'd definitely fail a Turing test and be outed as a nonnative speaker for communication tasks that are longer or more difficult (e.g. the shoe-tying example). I plan to find a tutor with a STEM degree (or better yet, another engineer in my particular field) because I'd like to focus on technical writing skills that would be professionally useful, but I still have work to do on other more general fronts.

[Apollys]

On 6/4/2021 at 10:08 AM, 大块头 said:

After we meet my tutor will review a video recording of our meeting and send me a list of speaking errors with time stamps.

 

So you're planning on asking your tutor to review an entire one hour discussion to listen for pronunciation errors?  I think this is a bit impractical in reality.  Perhaps make a recording specifically for your teacher to critique pronunciation (this is what I did a couple years ago and it worked really well), or just have your teacher make notes during the lesson of your mistakes.

[大块头]

4 hours ago, Apollys said:

So you're planning on asking your tutor to review an entire one hour discussion to listen for pronunciation errors?  I think this is a bit impractical in reality.

 

Not just pronunciation errors, but also grammar and usage errors. It would perhaps be impractical to ask for a comprehensive list of every mistake, so I'd ask them to only spend about an hour and a half to make a single pass through the video and note the most glaring errors. I'll update this thread after our first few sessions to describe any issues we encountered.

[abcdefg]

On 6/4/2021 at 12:08 PM, 大块头 said:

How does the following plan sound? We all have different 短板, but are there any tutor-assisted study methods that other advanced students have found useful?

 

Not sure I'm advanced, but I do have a good deal of experience with tutors. One thing I've learned is that it usually works best to find someone who is qualified and motivated and then try to build a true collaboration with him or her. Ideally I hope to inspire the teacher to use his/her own creativity in helping me learn. I try my best to encourage and reward that. 

 

When I go in with too fixed an idea of how I want things to run, it can come across as excessively rigid and backfire. On the other hand, the teacher cannot read my mind and know my needs unless I express them. Requires a delicate balance and often it needs additional fine tuning as the process unfolds. 

 

In my professional life, before ever dreaming about learning Chinese, I was responsible for doing most of the hiring and the firing for my hospital department. Finding a tutor has required a softening of that skillset. 

 

Sometimes I open with something along the lines of, "Why don't we try this to get things started?" And then I make my proposal, but I don't lay out the whole plan at once. I try to leave part of it flexible so as to take advantage of my tutor's strengths as I discover them. No tutor is equally good at every task. 

 

Best of luck in your quest! 

[Giuseppe Romanazzi]

I wish the following list of teaching methods that have been very effective in teaching foreign languages (my personal experience is only with Chinese, Italian, and English), together with a lot of enthusiasm, speed, vigor, volume, clearness, joy, smiles, gestures, praise, praise, and praise, can help you and your tutor too.

It is suggested to use around 4 different methods each hour.

 

English:

1. Communicative approach (standard)
2. Communicative approach (15 seconds)
3. Communicative approach (using pictures)
4. Educational exercise (balloons)
5. Rassias method
6. Advanced Rassias method
7. Educational exercise (scarves)
8. Stress ball
9. Personal language manual
10. Audio education (CD, MP3, etc.)
11. Video education (short films, movies, DVDs, etc.)
12. Muted movie
13. Black screen
14. You are the actor
15. What next?
16. I watch, you listen to
17. Narration
18. Native language subtitles
19. Foreign language subtitles
20. Freeze
21. Behavior and appearance
22. Thoughts and feelings
23. Cultural comparison
24. Words counting
25. Echo reading
26. Humor
27. Sounds and signs
28. Mind map (Tony Buzan)
29. Mobile mind map
30. Total physical response
31. Advanced total physical response (Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Pachelbel, etc.)
32. Music dictation
33. Read and write
34. Flash cards
35. Most common words
36. Your own stories
37. Reading and pronunciation
38. Word association
39. Universal language generator
40. Spaced Repetition System
41. The never ending story
42. Community language learning
43. Creative genius
44. Tactile method
45. Grammar translation method
46. Idioms
47. Mozart effect
48. Mr. Bean

汉语：

1. 交际法（标准）；
2. 交际法（15 秒钟）；
3. 交际法（使用图片）；
4. 教育性锻炼（气球）；
5. 听说教学法（教育专家约翰•拉西亚斯）；
6. 高级听说教学法；
7. 教育性锻炼（薄软绸）；
8. 重音球；
9. 个人常用语手册；
10. 音频教育（光碟、MP3 等）；
11. 视频教育（短片、电影、影碟等）；
12. 默看；
13. 扮演角色；
14. 预见；
15. 黑屏；
16. 你听我看；
17. 叙述；
18. 原文字幕；
19. 中文字幕；
20. 定格；
21. 行为与品貌；
22. 思想与感情；
23. 文化比较；
24. 单词数；
25. 回音阅读；
26. 幽默；
27. 发音与拼法；
28. 思维导图（托尼•布赞）；
29. 移动思维导图；
30. 全身反应法；
31. 高级全身反应法（韦瓦第、海顿、莫扎特、巴哈贝尔等）；
32. 音乐听写；
33. 看写；
34. 闪卡；
35. 频率词典；
36. 故事、日记、日志；
37. 阅读与读音；
38. 词际联想；
39. 通用语言生成；
40. 逆向积聚操练（皮姆斯勒法）；
41. 永不结束的故事；
42. 群体语言学习教学法；
43. 创造力天才；
44. 触觉法；
45. 文法翻译法；
46. 成语；
47. 莫扎特效应；
48. 憨豆先生。