what would you want to learn most in your first year Chinese class?

[fayemerritt]

Hi, my name is Yuedong Merritt. I am a Chinese teacher in USA.

I am going to develp a communication oriented first year Chinese online course. I have been thinking and thinking hard. What to include? What's most important and relavant to first year students? I don't want to recreate junk stuff as other textbooks already have. I want students like you, really motivated, not by grades, to feel, wow, i really learned so much from this class, all very useful. Could I have some of your input? I would be very grateful if you could give me some of your thoughts about what first year Chinese course should offer to students who really want to learn the language to communicate and function.

I developped the first semester of first year Chinese in 2000, because i was so sick of the textbook i was using. Very proud of my on line course for a few years. Now I look around, i found lots of better textbooks are available now, such as Integrated Chinese, New Practical Chinese Reader. But, I am not sure what you think about them. If they are still a waste or not. I used New Practical Chinese Reader two years ago, and my students seemed not too happy about it. And I want to build a course that is really no junk, everything essential and must cover. What do you think you would love to learn in your first year Chinese class if you attend such a class again? I target the second semester of my first year Chinese as the preparation for students to work/study and live in China, totally happy about what they have learned from this first year class.

And please keep in mind that this is totally online class. So students and I interact through forums and chats and emails and possible phone calls.

Please write me back at faye.merritt@gmail.com. Thank you so much! Looking forward to your reply.

[stephanhodges]

I'll reply here, so that the information gets captured in the forum for others. I hope you can provide a good summary of what you end up doing. (I'm doing adult education classes once a week. I've been doing it for about 1 1/2 years).

These are my opinions. I'm assuming you're teaching college level or higher.

If I had to start over...

#1) Pronunciation is very important to me. Based on a lot of reading, my opinion is that your students will need a lot of listening exposure, which requires them to differentiate between sounds. They should NOT be asked to speak for a long time. As soon as speech begins, the personal memory of one's own voice overshadows the ability to remember the correct pronuciation. So, you should start providing a lot of recordings for download.

Because you need to get feedback, to see if they understand, and also to drive a requirement to understand, I would ask for students to respond in their native language at first, and then you can repeat the answer in Chinese.

Search the forum on other discussions about this, and other people's opinions

#2) Build your vocabulary with a lot of repetition. By the time you have 250-350 words, you should (as the teacher) be able to talk to the student for at least five minutes in Chinese, WITHOUT using anything outside of the core vocabulary. This is part of the approach that the Defense Language Institute takes, btw. (I don't know if they start this at 250-350 words, however. I just made that number up as sounding reasonable

#3) One key to talking for a long time with few words is grammar, IMO. It should allow more variations in sentences, etc.

#4) Be current and leverage other internet resources too. Perhaps you want to partner with ChinesePod to develop materials around some of their recordings? (Just one idea). There's a lot of things that they don't do as far as classroom suitability, so there's a lot of room for improvement there.

#5) Relative to #1, I would require them to start doing a larger amount of written exercises with correct pinyin. Spelling tests (you can do these without requiring them to respond orally). Have them all use Dimsum or Wenlin or Word (with the tone macro available on mandarintools.com). All three allow pretty good "basic" word processing with tone input.

#6) Choose a good book for reference. "Beginners Chinese" is pretty good for a one year (slow/Adult) course. The "Intermediate Chinese" is not a good book to follow up with, however. It seems like there should be another textbook in between. I also like the Barron's book, but it goes a little fast for beginners. It would make a good second book.

#7) If there was a way to do a TPR approach (google it), I would encourage that. My daughter learned Chinese that way, and it was impressive.

[fayemerritt]

your feedback is very helpful. appreciate that.

[stephanhodges]

IMO = "in my opinion"

Please google the phrase TPR, you will get a lot of information. The first link tells you everything. Example: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=TPR

(It's not "Texas Public Radio")

[mind_wander]

fayemerritt,

As I am Asian-American, I understand the types of difficulties for first year students. Also, be updated with current students activities. Here is a good example, there are alot of people playing World of Warcraft, but "what Chinese pinyin, can't read them because it isn't your own native tongue." It is hard to play when someone is typing in another language when Asia is getting more into the game.

Tell them, if anyone is playing online gaming who is not a native speaker. Best advice, if you want to advance on your chance to win the game by understanding the correct sentence grammer of the Chinese. If you can master this game, then you can also master Chinese Mandarin. This, might able to keep people interested, get more incentives to understand why it is important to learn.

Sam

[fayemerritt]

since i don't know what game that is either. thanks a lot for your input. Any thought on topics that are a must for first year chinese? For the second semester Chinese, i am thinking about topics like how to get to China (plane tickets, passport, visa stuff, customs office), how to approach Chinese people and make friends with them(girl friend, dating), how to tell stories of your life(naration, so you have something interesting to say with your Chinese friends), how to be a good guest in a Chinese family, what to do when you get sick, mailing some stuff to your home. Any other topics that should be covered. The purpose is to prepare the students very well for their visit in China after this sememster.

[yorkie_bear]

It may sound a little trivial, but I LOVE learning about food and the different dishes that can be ordered.

[fayemerritt]

at least the big categories on the menu. Cold dishes, hot dishes, soups, drinks. Western food menu has always been very confusing for me: side dish? main dish? appetizer? i was never confident what i was supposed to order.

thanks for you input. I need more topics that you would love to include in your first year study. Any body?

"For the second semester Chinese, i am thinking about topics like how to get to China (plane tickets, passport, visa stuff, customs office), how to approach Chinese people and make friends with them(girl friend, dating), how to tell stories of your life(naration, so you have something interesting to say with your Chinese friends), how to be a good guest in a Chinese family, what to do when you get sick, mailing some stuff to your home. Any other topics that should be covered. The purpose is to prepare the students very well for their visit in China after this sememster."

[fayemerritt]

Here are a few very funny jokes for you. Thank you for your input. (These jokes are for native Chinese speakers. If you have any question, i will explain to you.)

1. 实习时碰到三个自己教的女生，一排很脆生地叫“老师好”，我当时居然也就回了一句“老

师好”，事后觉得再无颜面立讲台之上了。

2.

我大学的时候，有一次下课回宿舍，不知道为什么我宿舍的门怎么也打不开了，我一怒之下

一脚把宿舍门踹开，进去以后突然发现不是自己宿舍，原来自己多上了一层楼……最糟的是居然还有一个翘课在宿舍里睡觉的家伙被我惊醒，吃惊地看着我……

3

大哥弄了一支甚重的双筒猎枪在家里，每逢大嫂发脾气，大哥总是二话不说，就到旁边擦枪去了。大嫂直吓得面无人色，一场内战还没开始，便结束了。

　　我忍不住问大嫂：“大哥敢杀了你？”

　　大嫂说：“哪里，我是怕他自杀

4.

火车上，一男一女萍水相逢，可是问题在于他们共处同一个卧铺车箱。开始当然很尴尬，但是很快，疲劳还是使他们各自睡着了，男的睡在上铺，女的睡在下铺。

　　半夜，男的醒来，把睡在下铺的女的叫醒：“对不起，可是我在上面冻死了，能不能麻烦你给我再递一条毯子上来？”

　　女的看着那个男的，眼光流动中，对那男的说：“我有个更好的办法，让我们假装是夫妻，怎么样？”

　　男的一愣，但是随即答应：“好啊，太好了，我真没想到！”他明显有点兴奋得不知所措，“那么现在我们怎么做？”

　　女的在铺上转了转身，面朝车箱壁，说：“你TM自己不会去拿呀！”

[mind_wander]

Fayemerritt,

About the second year, I am currently writing up an 10pg on Best Places to travel in China, it also includes plane tickets, process to enter the country, and tips. Some hidden between fact or fiction about China's government. Although, I am in the US, it is nice to write about China's best areas to travel.

As for War of World craft, you can search on gaming forums, there is should be a forum with Chinese pinyin translation into English. I am both native English/ Chinese mandarin speaker, as I lacking some reading skills.

Sam

[yorkie_bear]

How to bargain for things in the market

How to stand your ground when sbdy pulls a fast one on you (sorry, just been reading all those 'scam stories')