Peggy Teaches Chinese Online… If you like her video support her by rate and commenting on her videos. She welcome any suggestions on how to improve.
Well she did drill a lot…
It seemed more like an English grammar lesson.
Perhaps she could use more Chinese… a lot more Chinese… and no English… (besides I fear that the majority of the English speaking population doesn’t even knows what a pro-noun is).
Use TPR.
Thanks Doc. I will let her know
sorry what do you mean by TPR
TPR: Total physical response (body language).
When I’ve taught to classes of complete beginners, most vocab needed to be reinforced with actions…
For instance instead of just saying stand up over and over again - actually do it and coax students to do the same (just an example).
There are a few different schools of thought regarding language teaching, the one that I’m most familiar with insists that the target language and the language the teacher uses should be the same…
Sounds difficult but that’s what real language teachers have to do.
Yes, that normally means becoming a walking pantomine for the sake of beginners, but it’s not so bad… just as long as you stop TPR-ing after class, otherwise people will stare.
Make it obvious what you mean by using objects, movements and overall context without too much recourse to translation. It means that you almost never talk about grammar. If you teach “This is a book” you can translate “This is a book” to “Zhe shi yi ben shu” and do a little gesture to indicate “thisness” and then one to indicate “isness” (I’d do a buddha lotus pose or whatever it is called - thumb touches middle finger) then one finger to indicate “one” and then hold up the book to indicate book. Repeat with pencil, pen, (this is a pen this is a pencil) and then make a quizical expression (hold up the pen) and ask “Zhe shi yi ge bi ma?” Answer “shi” and then hold up the book and ask “Zhe shi yi ge bi ma” and shake your head and say “Bu Shi” etc.
Don’t say 1st, second, third …tone over and over. It is a good chance to teach yi, er, san, si shengdiao.
Good Point Bob. I guess she is targeting beginners but I have sent her a link to this forum to see whats is been said. I think she has to find out who her audience are before choosing to use more or less Chinese.
First of all, well done for taking the time and making the effort to do something like that. The more non book-based Chinese learning materials, the better!
Just a few observations/suggestions:
Peggy talks too much. The learner also needs to know English to understand the lesson. Think about how it can be done with no English and less ‘filler’ talking.
What’s there at the moment is a lecture, not a lecture, not a lesson. The teacher is there to model and correct. If she modeled a basic, well contextualised SVO sentence, she wouldn’t have needed English as the meaning would be clear from the context. It would be useful to get a ‘student’ in the video to model the target language in a mini-conversation.
Translation isn’t the best way to do it: the use of time is very inefficient. Almost five minutes on basic pronouns? The pace is very slow, yet the teacher talks very quickly. There is no tangible outcome to the class. What is the learner able to do by the end? If you got a complete beginner to try and recall that 48 hours later, there’d be little chance of them doing it.
Avoid saying ‘x means y in English’. You are being a speaking dictionary, not a teacher.
Also, watch your hands, Peggy! If you are using your hands to consolidate tones, you can’t wave them around while speaking English, or fiddle with your hair. Everyone has these ‘presentation’ tics though. 
It’s good to put yourself out there for feedback, though. You look like you really like what you’re doing. Good luck! 
Wow! Great response guys. Today is my first day on Forumosa. I’m happy you find the time to respond. I just asked Peggy to sign up and join the discussion.
Hahaha! I didn’t notice until Buttercup pointed that Peggy is fiddling with her hairs.
I’m no master of Mandarin but I’ve always been told and always saw in my books that 們 is neutral tone in 我們, etc.
There’s been a good deal of great advice already.
It might be worth considering doing shorter and more varied shots instead of one long shot. It would add visual interest and also enable to reshoot shots which need improvement. There was one place in particular where Peggy stumbles over what she is trying to say.
Yes, how about getting a dialogue going?
Possibly set up some kind of scenario?
I think this clip just shows what can be acheived with a little bit of effort, even though it is aimed at Japanese people studying English:
[quote=“bob”]“Zhe Xinyi ben shu” “Zhe Xinyi ge bi ma?” Answer “shi” “Zhe Xinyi ge bi ma” “Bu Shi” etc.[/quote]wrote a short response on why I thought this proved that teaching grammar & sentence structure (and characters instead of only pinyin) is important … then I realized the stupid auto-corrector changes “shi4yi1 (是一)” to “Xinyi” for some reason. Not even close! Stupid technology! Anyway, carry on…
I’d go from there to wo + de = my, ni + de = yours. Zhe shi wo de shu. Zhe shi wo de shu ma? Shi. Zhe shi wo de bi ma? Shi (nod). Zhe shi ni de bi ma? Bu (shake head). Zhe shi wo de bi ma. Shi (nod) etc.
Then, wo (hand on chest) ni (point at camera) wo (hand on chest) shi (buddha pose) ninde (explain that de makes “you” “yours”) laoshi (say teacher). wo shi ni de laoshi (do “all” the gestures).
ni shi “wode” laoshi ma? (quizzical expression) Bu (shake head) ni (point) bu (shake) shi (buddha) wo (hand on chest) de laoshi. Wo shi “ninde” laoshi.
Ni (point at acamera) shi wo de xueshang ma?
Xiang xiang (point at head - “think” expression).
“xuesheng” shenme (say what) yisi (say meaning) “xuesheng”.
Wo shi ni de laoshi. Ni bu shi wo de laoshi. Ni shi wo de xuesheng ma? Xiang Xiang… Dui! ni shi wo de xuesheng (say you are my student). Wo shi nide xuesheng ma? Bu. Etc.
She should use this kind of method to teach real people and find out how many repititions it takes for people to actually begin answering questions. The same number of repititions should be done on the video.
She should “emphasize” the tones vocally, and she should move her body (first - raised eyebrows, second - move her torso up and right, third - dip up and down from the knees, fourth some sort of abrupt downward motion) while doing the other gestures to indicate meaning. She should encourage her students to move along with her.
Every class should beging with dajia hao. Jintian women yao xue…
Essentially what she should be doing is asking herself what she says over and over again in English. Whatever it is she should teach and then say over and over again in Chinese. It is amazing how many quite professional programs don’t make that leap. For example, they tell you to go to page 13 whatever but never teach “fan dao di shi san ye.”
I would “not” teach beginners characters for at least a year. Then again I don’t “know” characters either so…
Or the students could just get a book. Less hassle. 
A link to Peggy’s Channel www.youtube.com/peggyteacheschinese
Use correct pinyin. It is really important.
You are showing good guts and gumption here but you don’t know much about language teaching. That much is obvious. Sorry.
For me it would be interesting to give advice and see what you can do with it. If I can see that you are following my advice I will continue to give it to you. If you don’t I’ll quit reading this thread. A lot of people here would probably do the same thing and many could give better advice than me.
The whole notion of teaching via web cam is really interesting and I look forward to seeing how it develops. You will have to quit using so much English though or sincere students will tune out.
(Btw, I made the same mistake you are making. I learned how to talk about English grammar in Chinese and actually taught that way for a while. It was a mistake. If I use Chinese at all now it is maybe 2% of the time. Much more than that is too much. It will take you awhile to understand that perhaps but in the end you will or you will never be much good as a teacher.)
Hey guys,
This is Peggy. First of all, thank you all for taking so much time writing down all the suggestions and comments. I will be shooting two new vidoes this weekend, I will make sure it’s short and not too many English. As for the whole teaching style, I still haven’t come to one that would be the best for everyone yet, I believe this would take some time to figure that out.
Thanks again!
Peggy
It “has” largely been figured out.
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Use correct PinYin
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Decide what you want to say every day, for example “hello,” and teach the Chinese equivalent. Never say “hello”. Say ni hao.
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Build enough context around what you are saying so that your students have a chance to guess what you are saying. This is easy to do sometimes, not so easy at others.
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Put people through the language circle with almost every item. If you teach “This is a book” ask “Is this a book?” “Is this a book or a pen?” and “What is this?” “What is that?”
Ask for a response and then give the correct one so people can feel that “they” are “doing” something. By doing the language circle enough times you can provide enough repitition without it feeling like merely repitition. -
You are in a stcky wicket with regard to gestures and tones. Sometimes you will want to indicate the meaning of what you say with gestures, sometimes you will want to indicate the tones, and sometimes you will want to do both. Since you will indicate meaning with your hands you will need to use other body parts to indicate tones. (Unless you are ambidextorous.
) You might want to do everything twice. Once to indicate meaning and once to indicate tones. If I were in your position I think I’d end up mixing it it all up and that might be the way to do it. Anyway, encourage your listeners to move and speak. If you teach “wo” for example you should encourage them say “wo” and to dip there entire bodies up and down (from the knees or hips) as they say it, while at the same time touching their hands to their chest.
This might seem like a lot of hassle (and crazy too) but it has the advantage that your students will actually learn what you are tring to teach (always nice,) and since in most cases nobody is expecting perfection out of each other you can just have fun with it while you learn how to incorporate these ideas into your teaching style.