Thought you were talking about me until I read the ‘foreign teacher’ line.
Totally true beautifulspam. For all my current faults, I was an EVIL person when I worked at the Automobile Association dispatching yellow vans. (Won’t admit to some of my antics when I worked on as a secretary in the anorexics/dipshit suicides ward in a private mental hospital).
People’s motivation in working at almost any job is rarely to do it to the best of their ability to benefit the customer, is it? I respect that.
Thanks buttercup. I hope you weren’t TOO mean to the suicides
I hear what you’re saying. I’ve worked shit jobs too, and I don’t expect service with a smile from anyone.
But I DO expect the office staff at shida to take me seriously when a massive cash payment and my visa status are on the line. They treat everything like a McDonald’s order.
Thank god for this topic. It’s the only thing keeping me sane. The office staff is incompetent and my teacher has no idea how to run a classroom. Imagine 2 hours of listening to the teacher ask the class questions only few people know how to answer. Her teaching style is to go through each word in a chapter. First she says the word and then make a lot of sentence patterns that don’t even contain the word. It’s frustrating because I at least expect the teacher to give a few good examples.
I suppose my only hope is to change classrooms and pray that I don’t get an even worse teacher.
Why not say right out, “Could you please give an example?” And say it repeatedly…every time you want an example. It’s kind of like being married no matter how nice your husband is, you just can’t expect him to look at the house and figure out what needs to be cleaned up, but if you say specifically, “Honey, would you mind putting those dishes in the dishwasher?” usually he’ll do it. But you have to ask EVERY time.
At least that might get you more of what you want from your teacher. Be polite, but be irritatingly persistent.
As for the admin, I’m in Taipei at the moment, and staying just a block from Shita. Anyone who wants to “discuss” anything with the admin or anyone else there, I’m happy to go in with you. Just PM me. Can’t promise it will make things better as opposed to worse, but if you really want to express yourself (or try some sort of strategic end-run to get things to happen the way you want them to) we can give it a shot by circumventing their English shortcomings.
My teacher (beginners lever) has been excellent. In my first week, I have FINALLY learned the bpmf and corrosponding pinyin and I have a good understanding of how they really work. She moves at exactly the correct pace for me (and the other classmates) and always gives several examples in sentence form. If I ask questions (all the time) she stops and explains and doesn not let me get away with writing or pronouncing anything improperly. As well as just practicing the bpm, I have been practicing writing the characters and can write about 25 new characters as well. It’s something!
Anyway, I was worried that I was going to get some teacher that would berate me for not speaking mandarin after 2 years here and make me feel like shit (happened to an old friend of mine-he quit).
No matter how strict the teachers are, surely the ultimate goal is for YOU to learn something!
You say ‘surely’ …
But are you sure?
Can they not have other ultimate goals (make money, have a secure and easy job, feel the power of a teacher in a Confucian society)? Wouldn’t a student learn ‘something’ anyway - with no teacher? And is strictness the issue - or something else?
I have been very very pleased with the quality of instruction, especially compared to bullshit Chinese buxibans like TLI or the Pioneer Language Center. In the summer of '04, I walked into TLI and told them I wanted a class that would focus on reading and writing and they said “you can’t learn to read and write before you learn how to speak.” I bought it at the time, because I was intimidated by characters, but after being at Shi Da, I realized they were full of shit. Just a money maker - “yeah, we’ll teach you Chinese and you don’t even need to bother with the reading and writing.” Sounds good to westerners who have never studied before. Have you ever heard of studying a language without being able to read or write it?? Is that worth paying TLI $NT15,000 for 3 months? (compared to Shi Da’s 18,000)
Office antics aside, Shi Da is an excellent place to learn Chinese. Students are tested weekly, typically have 2 ting xies and most teachers give a fair amount of homework. It’s also unrelenting - the testing never stops, the ting xies never stop, and so, you keep learning if you keep up.
I’m now onto my 4th lao shi, and she’s good in her own way. I think they all have different styles. It’s not a place for people that want Chinese classes crafted to their liking - at those places it’s much harder to learn because, like someone else said on this thread, it’s a business. They just want you to keep coming back, so sure they’ll coddle you. The question is, do you want to learn Chinese or FEEL like you’re learning Chinese? (like many of the Taiwanese students who are studying English here)
When I started at Shi Da, my ting xies were a disaster and I struggled with the tests too, because I hadn’t had the reading and writing practice, before, but within a month, i was up to speed, and at this point, 9 months later, I’m ahead of the game.
I would recommend it to anyone who wants to seriously study Mandarin and doesn’t have the time or money to invest in the Tai Da program.
Office antics aside, Shi-Da is an excellent place to learn Chinese. Students are tested weekly, typically have 2 ting xies and most teachers give a fair amount of homework. It’s also unrelenting - the testing never stops, the ting xies never stop, and so, you keep learning if you keep up.
I’m now onto my 4th lao shi, and she’s good in her own way. I think they all have different styles. It’s not a place for people that want Chinese classes crafted to their liking - at those places it’s much harder to learn because, like someone else said on this thread, it’s a business. They just want you to keep coming back, so sure they’ll coddle you. [/quote]
This is more like what I was trying to say… I’m sure there are some bad teachers at Shi Da, as bad teachers exist. I fail to see what relevance a sadistic bastard in Gansu has to do with this discussion. Nor do I really think an article about corporal punishment in Taiwan schools is relevant, Shi Da students at worst are unable to learn because of a rigid/nonsensical teaching environment, not beaten (at least, as far as I know!). Sure, these articles might show some evidence of cultural difference in teacher’s roles, but it’s kind of like bringing up the various teacher/student sex scandals as defense for an argument that American teachers are culturally inclined to pedophilia. Doesn’t make sense to me.
Anyway my point was that part of being a student in another country involves adjusting to some difference in teaching style. And in the situations where a teacher is on some kind of “Confucian Power Trip,” well… is it that hard to change classes? Not trying to downplay the fact that people have bad experiences, but I also don’t want anyone reading this board that hasn’t been to ShiDa to think the whole school is run by ancient fire breathing dragons. Because that’s the impression I was under before my class actually started…
And it’s true, you can learn a lot without going to school. But I know I could never memorize these characters without a slightly overbearing Laoshi pushing me along the way… I’ve found that the addition of some rote memorization along with more flexible usage practice has actually vastly improved my learning. As Confucius said… “Study without reflection is a waste of time ; reflection without study is dangerous.” or however you want to translate it…
Feel I must defend TLI here.
The previous speakers obviously need a “strict” mother figure to lash them through their studies.
Some students are perfectly able to study reading and writing characters in their own time and concentrate on speaking in the classroom. TLI is like any other school including Shi Da, and has good teachers and bad ones. If u get a good one you are lucky. My TLI teachers are excellent.
Get back to studying those characters for tomorrow’s big exciting “test”.
wooooooooo
[quote=“Etheorial”]I have been very very pleased with the quality of instruction, especially compared to bullshit Chinese buxibans like TLI or the Pioneer Language Center. In the summer of '04, I walked into TLI and told them I wanted a class that would focus on reading and writing and they said “you can’t learn to read and write before you learn how to speak.” I bought it at the time, because I was intimidated by characters, but after being at Shi-Da, I realized they were full of shit. Just a money maker - “yeah, we’ll teach you Chinese and you don’t even need to bother with the reading and writing.” Sounds good to westerners who have never studied before. Have you ever heard of studying a language without being able to read or write it?? Is that worth paying TLI $NT15,000 for 3 months? (compared to Shi-Da’s 18,000)
[/quote]
Actually, this sounds pretty reasonable to me, but then I only have a Ph.D. in teaching Chinese, and I guess I’ve got a few years of studying Chinese behind me (and teaching it, too). In fact, I would choose such a program over a “four-skills-all-at-the-same-time-damn-the-torpedos” approach. And yes, I’ve studied at Shita, TLI, Pioneer, CLI, the former Flag, and so on.
[quote]Office antics aside, Shi-Da is an excellent place to learn Chinese. Students are tested weekly, typically have 2 ting xies and most teachers give a fair amount of homework. It’s also unrelenting - the testing never stops, the ting xies never stop, and so, you keep learning if you keep up.
[/quote] Quite. The testing never stops. The tingxies never stop. What does a “ting xie” test, other than how to write characters by rote? I am not aware of teachers ever giving a “ting xie” without having given the passage to students first, so it’s not a test of whether you know which character goes where; it’s rote memorization. Test, test, test…does anyone ever take responsibility for whether students have mastered the material, or is it simply “You study more, huh?” if someone doesn’t score high enough to suit? Student’s fault in all cases.
But gosh, tingxies are easy to grade, aren’t they?
God forbid a student get a class crafted to his liking…he might feel motivated to learn and he might be able to learn efficiently.
So you can now be given a passage in Chinese ahead of time and copy it out when the teacher reads it out loud. Um, that’s nice. But most people who write Chinese these days do so with a computer – both native speakers and pros who are not. It’s nice to be able to write if you are so inclined, but you need to recognize that there is a limited amount of time in life, and while some people may want to take the “artistic” approach to learning Chinese, others need to focus on their specific goals and take the most direct route to achieving them, even if this doesn’t fully coincide with what the very traditional Ministry of Education and folks at Shita think is “real Chinese learning”. Guess I’m a failure in the “real Chinese learning” department, but my accountant doesn’t seem to think so.
I’m not saying Shita is necessarily good or bad for all – I’ve commented on this in the past. But at the end of the day, most Chinese programs in Taiwan are very, very similar. You might as well pick for schedule, personal reputation of teachers you can get, price, or location. Back in the old days Shita was the only game in town; now that’s not so, but still Shita has not shown me much in the way of progress in learning Chinese. They were giving “tingxie” as the primary means of testing back when I was at Shita in 1984. What does that tell you about their willingness to keep current on language learning methods? I don’t see any of the schools teaching using the methods current in the 1990s for English teaching. Why not? Chinese is a language; it is not anything special unto itself. Sometimes it surprises me that they even let students of Chinese use ball-point pens instead of brushes, given the insistence on tradition.
Couldn’t agree with you more.
At the end of the day it really is down to the individual teacher as to how well you will progress.
At TLI I have a schedule fully catered for my needs and goals. I also strongly advise students to get out of group classes as soon as possible and start 1 to 1 classes. I really believe (as long as you have other opportunities to speak - which you should - you’re in the country!) that 4 hours of 1 to 1 is better than 10 hours of group classes. What do other people think about the whole group class v’s 1 to 1 class?
I’d be interested to hear your comments.
Did a year and a half at Shida and a year and a half with a 1 to one teacher; 5 hours a week, with a big stretch in the middle when I was being a lazy beast. Shida actually suited me quite well. The best teacher I had was Fan laoshi who actually co-wrote the second AV Chinese book. Rote-learning was good for me at first. I think part of language learning is just programming auto-responses into your brain wiring.
Now I have a really good teacher who prepares loads of interesting material for me; DVDs, newspaper articles, etc. I wouldn’t dream of giving that up and going ‘back’ to school.
This was my route, but I really do agree with ironlady’s position on studying the four skills together. I see it so often in English teaching in Taiwan also; children who speak no English learning ‘phonics’. It’s moronic. Ting xie tests are crap; completely pointless.
I actually have a basis for comparison as I have also studied Thai, where I didn’t go to school at all. My tones are crap in Thai and find it much more difficult than Chinese. The main benefit of Shida for me was that my teacher wouldn’t accept bad pronunciation. Although I’m not perfect, I have a decent basis.
Anyway, I could write loads of thoughts about this but it’s all pretty subjective stuff…
It’ll always be subjective, because people are so different as individuals. It’s really what works for you. Some folks may find Shita to be just what the doctor ordered; others would not. But it saddens me to think what they COULD be doing in the line of getting people competent in Chinese, compared to what they are doing now. The whole “drilling patterns” thing is an approach called “audiolingualism” which was big in the 1960s. (That’s how I learned Chinese; I’m not saying it doesn’t work, only that there are things that usually work better and faster).
At least Shita is only teaching to the tingxie test; if there was some sort of standardized year-end test for each level, and that was the only thing that mattered to the teachers, God help us foreigners. Forget I said that; they may take up the idea…of course we could then go to a special “pass the Shita Chinese year end test” buxiban on the side so we’d pass.
Fan laoshi is the oldest teacher at Shi-Da, she has been teaching there for 30+ years and I think teaching in the exact same way each year. She did amazing thing for my listening skills since she was talking most of the time. I think that was in part due to the fact that there were 8 of us in the class, she never let one of us get away with saying a wrong word/tone but for the most part we didn’t get to speak much.
I disagree with the incompetence of Shi-Da being put off to cultural difference, since when is record keeping a cultural difference ? Even small community colleges in the US do a better job of dealing with the students than the staff at Shi-Da. Changing classes is a bit of a joke IMO, I did change my class this semester and when I went to one class that had only 6 students the teacher would not let me join because she “didn’t have enough energy” to teach 7 students. I stopped by the office to ask if they had opend any new classes and asked one of the ladies what would happen if none of the teachers would let me join their class, their answer: pray. Yes I pay 18000NT and then pray to get a class, 5000 years of culture at work.
I have been at Shi-Da for about 10 months and as others have pointed out your teacher is the difference maker. I had one teacher who was a student at Shi-Da, the guy prepared before each class actually had a sylabius and went out of his way to point out areas in the book that applied to China but not Taiwan. Of course that teacher is teaching at a college in US now, after taking a slight detour in Chia brushing up on simplified characters and pinyin. My other great teacher is teaching Chinese in Japan right now. Great teachers seem to get high paying jobs in other countries and don’t stick around.
Shi-Da is slowly changing, they are reviewing book 1 and book 2 and will update both. There are new classes based on listening to radio, one of the teachers uses a projector/computer in her advance class.
snafu, maybe it was a personality thing; I liked Fan laoshi which makes all the difference.
ironlady, yes, audio-lingualism has always worked well with my lizard brain… It’s sad because teaching Chinese would be so interesting if the teacher took risks and moved forwards, and tried to develop. It must be heartbreakingly boring for them to churn out that old crap again and again 'til retirement. ‘Organised eclecticism’ is the way I try to teach English. I don’t always get it right, but it gives the learner options and a sense of responsibility for their own learning tha following the same pattern again and again does. If you have a ‘method’ (by which I mean a systemof steps for each class) how can account for student failure? The cognitive dissonance produced just leads to a hostile culture of blaming the student/teacher.
If Shida wanted to be at the cutting edge of language teaching, they would invest in training, hire consultants, etc. They probably won’t do that as there is no business reason for them to do at at this stage.
Yes! I dropped out at about the end of book 2. This English girl was in a class full of Japanese students. Guess who wasn’t exactly blazing a trail with 60-odd characters a week?
no matter how nice your husband is, you just can’t expect him to look at the house and figure out what needs to be cleaned up, but if you say specifically, “Honey, would you mind putting those dishes in the dishwasher?” usually he’ll do it. But you have to ask EVERY time.
Forget I said that; they may take up the idea…of course we could then go to a special “pass the Shita Chinese year end test” buxiban on the side so we’d pass. 