Ooh IronLady- if you’re still on, I’d love any advice you can give. A friend of mine has agreed to tutor me in Chinese for an hour a week. She was worried because she didn’t have any books to teach me with, but I told her I didn’t want to go that route anyways.
My plan is something like this- have a simple conversation, practicing the same sorts of patterns with different things added in, sort of as you’ve talked about before, and after we work out most of what we’re saying, record it, in small segments, on my phone. Then whenever I’m walking to and from the train station, I can listen to it again and again, so that by the next week, I will have it down. My analytical mind also wants to write the conversation in bopomofo + characters because I love learning from visuals or from reading.
What would be your advice, if I’ve got an hour a week of undivided teaching time from a native speaker? How should this time be spent? How would you change my above plan?
Depends on your level.
But what you’re describing is not what I do or coach, so I can’t really be of much help. You’re basically talking about pattern drills (substitutions into a grammar pattern), and you’re saying “in the end” you’ll work out what it means. That’s precisely backwards to what I do. Someone else might have better advice for someone who likes what you like, as there are a lot of analytical people on the boards who have managed to learn Chinese (because they’re analytical, for the most part).
I’m not trying to intrude on the question, but why don’t you rather get yourself a short easy comic strip in Chinese if you are a beginner or maybe a comic book and let your teacher practice the text with you in a conversation. Then instead of listening to the same boring thing over and over you can read something that is fun and funny. In a comic strip you would need maybe two or three patterns and a few words and you can practice them by letting your teacher explain the meaning, and then altering the statement slightly and ask you comprehension questions to see if you understand where the sentence changed. For example, Pete likes Taiwan Beer. Lin likes Asahi. Who likes Taiwan beer? WHich beer does teacher Lin like? Which beer do you like? Do you like Asahi or Taiwan beer? etc and then just read the comic or the joke. Heck I think I’m going to start a thread about something like that right now.
How good is your Chinese already?
One thing I found helpful, and immediately useful, was practicing how to deal with certain situations. I used to like to go to McDonald’s, so one session we spent the whole time practicing what to say at McD’s, and going over and over listening to what they would be saying to me. I got a vocabulary list, and we practiced every scenario we could think of. Then I went to McDonald’s, and of course was hit with something we hadn’t practiced, so the next class we practiced that scenario as well.
Then we had several sessions of ‘taxi driver’ language. The same thing - we’d go over what we thought they’d say, practice dealing with it, getting the vocab and sentences needed for me to deal with taking a taxi. Then when I took a taxi, I’d note things we’d miss and we’d practice that next session.
[quote=“bababa”]How good is your Chinese already?
One thing I found helpful, and immediately useful, was practicing how to deal with certain situations. I used to like to go to McDonald’s, so one session we spent the whole time practicing what to say at McD’s, and going over and over listening to what they would be saying to me. I got a vocabulary list, and we practiced every scenario we could think of. Then I went to McDonald’s, and of course was hit with something we hadn’t practiced, so the next class we practiced that scenario as well.
Then we had several sessions of ‘taxi driver’ language. The same thing - we’d go over what we thought they’d say, practice dealing with it, getting the vocab and sentences needed for me to deal with taking a taxi. Then when I took a taxi, I’d note things we’d miss and we’d practice that next session.[/quote]
I found when studying English that it is useful to keep notes of words in certain sets or situations but very difficult to remember them if you learn all at once. For example I think it is more useful to put eye under a body parts word and then learn it in the context of I was riding on my bike and a bus was in front of me. Something went into my eye and it hurt. That way I think it is easier to remember eye than if you try to learn ten body parts at once.
I guess different people learn differently.
Thanks guys! I love the comic book idea, TL. I think I’ll do that then ask my teacher to read it aloud (into my phone) because the thing I really struggle with is remembering the sounds and tones. And Bababa, that’s exactly what I’m going for! For example, this is what we did today:
Where are you from?
你 從 哪 裡 來？
ㄋㄧˇ ㄘㄨㄥˊ ㄋㄚˇ ㄌㄧˇ ㄌㄞˊ？
You from where come?
America California
美 國 加州
ㄇㄟˇ ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄐㄧㄚ ㄓㄡ
How long have you been in Taiwan?
你 來 台灣 多 久 了？
ㄋㄧˇ ㄌㄞˊ ㄊㄞˊ ㄨㄢ ㄉㄨㄛ ㄐㄧㄡˇ ㄌㄜ˙？
You come Taiwan how long luh(like an emotion-happy)
Three years.
三 年 了
ㄙㄢ ㄋㄧㄢˊ ㄌㄜ˙
That’s a long time! Can you speak Chinese?
很久了！你會不會講中文？
ㄏㄣˇ ㄐㄧㄡˇ ㄌㄜ˙！ㄋㄧˇㄏㄨㄟˋ ㄅㄨˋ ㄏㄨㄟˋㄐㄧㄤˇ ㄓㄨㄥ ㄨㄣˊ？
Long time luh! You are able not able speak Chinese?
(Ku bu kuyi is like, could you please do this? Where hway bu hway is like are you able to do this?)
My Chinese is really bad, I’m so embarrassed.
不好意思！我的中文真的很差。
ㄅㄨˋ ㄏㄠˇ ㄧˋ ㄙ˙！ ㄨㄛˇㄉㄜ˙ㄓㄨㄥ ㄨㄣˊ ㄓㄣ ㄉㄜ˙ㄏㄣˇㄔㄚ。
I’m embarrassed! My Chinese really(truly) very bad!
No, it’s really good!
No this is all I can say, these are the only words I know.
我只會說這些。
ㄨㄛˇㄓˇㄏㄨㄟˋㄕㄨㄛ ㄓㄜˋ ㄒㄧㄝ。
I only speak those.
This is a conversation that I have, oh, everyday. I’ve been dying to know how to say, basically, “this is all I’m able to say” because everyone’s always insisting that my Chinese is awesome because I’m damn good at guessing the above conversation. Anyways, my Chinese is truly embarrassingly terrible given how long I’ve been here. It’s time! I’ve got to do this!
I’d love to hear anyone else’s experiences of what works and what doesn’t.
[quote=“NonTocareLeTete”]Ooh IronLady- if you’re still on, I’d love any advice you can give. A friend of mine has agreed to tutor me in Chinese for an hour a week. She was worried because she didn’t have any books to teach me with, but I told her I didn’t want to go that route anyways.
My plan is something like this- have a simple conversation, practicing the same sorts of patterns with different things added in, sort of as you’ve talked about before, and after we work out most of what we’re saying, record it, in small segments, on my phone. Then whenever I’m walking to and from the train station, I can listen to it again and again, so that by the next week, I will have it down. My analytical mind also wants to write the conversation in bopomofo + characters because I love learning from visuals or from reading.
What would be your advice, if I’ve got an hour a week of undivided teaching time from a native speaker? How should this time be spent? How would you change my above plan?[/quote]
Sorry IronLady, I was writing that just as my train was pulling into my destination station so I think I was pretty unclear. I wasn’t trying to say that this is what you’d do in a class (though I can see why you’d think that from what I wrote). I just wanted to know if there’s a way I could introduce a ‘comprehensive input’ element into it, what would that look like? Is there a specific activity you could recommend? My understanding of CI is pretty limited, but the ideas behind it (from what I’ve heard from you) seem pretty sound. Having taught English both in Taiwan and internationally for a number of years, I’ve had to deal with a lot of fossilized errors and I think these are a direct result of the way languages are taught. Anyways, like I said, I saw the CI post moments before my train arrived, and I thought, I have 10 min between the class I teach and the tutor session, if IronLady can give me some tips maybe I can use them while learning— but now I realize it’s probably a bit simplistic to think I can introduce an ‘element’ of CI.
I am pretty analytical and for some reason I just can’t seem to trap the sounds of Chinese in my head- seeing symbolic representations of the sounds and hearing them- repeatedly- seems to be the only way I get it.
Are you responding to the subject line of the post? I think it sounds pretty dirty too. It was split off another post. I didn’t give it that name.
shit am I the only one with my mind in the gutter here? ChewDawg, please tell me this is what your emoticon was about…
Are you responding to the subject line of the post? I think it sounds pretty dirty too. It was split off another post. I didn’t give it that name.
shit am I the only one with my mind in the gutter here? ChewDawg, please tell me this is what your emoticon was about…
[/quote]
You can edit the subject of your first post to change the title to something else, if you like.
At your level (if those are new and difficult sentences for you), what you’re doing is a totally traditional approach.
The problem is, I can’t train you to train someone else in one board post. Especially since most teachers in Taiwan find the notion of CI rather strange. They may say “What a good idea” but they go right back to what they know methodology-wise, like the woman at the gate of the technical school I taught at years ago, who would each week ask me whether or not I wanted that vile flavor powder on my paper cone of indescribable fried stuff, and I’d say no, and she’d pause, then shake it on anyway, telling me, “Zhe4yang cai2 hao3chi!!” (But it’s only good this way!)
Your sort of case is the sort of thing that makes me shake my head and wish I were in Taiwan to open a buxiban. But no hope of that. :s
At her level, what would be a CI approach? Take the first question - “Where are you from?” - and go through all the permutations of it, plus the answers, while the student just answers the teacher with ‘yes’, ‘no’, and the name of some country?
Like: (Teacher has the basic form and all vocabulary glossed on the board.)
T: Where are you from?
S: America.
T: Yes, you are from America. Is your boyfriend from Japan?
S: No.
T: Are you from Japan?
S: No.
T: Where is Obama from?
S: America.
And so on. So one class hour might be taken up with only that one basic sentence?
And then session 2 they would do a quick review of the above, then go on to do the same type of work with “How long have you been in Taiwan?”?
I still disagree with the idea that you need one sentence or one “set” of words to be successful.
Where is ABC from?
that is great.
But adding who is from xyz?
And how long have you been in abd or how long has acd been in abd is better since it gives more in more context.
Generally you would start with an item. An item contains vocabulary and structure. For example, the item I start zero-Chinese beginners with is “xiang3 chi1” (“feels like eating”). We establish who feels like eating by asking a lot of “no” questions (“Does Sponge Bob feel like eating?” “Does Bill Clinton feel like eating” etc. etc.) until we find a personage that is pleasing to the group.
Then the item is “J-Lo feels like eating”.
We know that the choices that were rejected do NOT feel like eating. So we can compare/contrast the information we know.
Does J-Lo feel like eating?
Does Bill Clinton feel like eating?
Who feels like eating?
Does J-Lo feel like sexually harassing White House interns? (we introduce a “shadow” item here that is of interest to the student or on the curriculum, so as to compare/contrast activities).
Does Bill Clinton feel like sexually harassing White House interns?
Who feels like eating?
Who feels like sexually harassing White House interns? (okay, actually we’d probably use “dancing”, “reading a book”, “seeing a movie” or something more useful. Unless it really was Bill Clinton in the class, then it would be useful vocabulary for him.)
Who feels like sexually harassing White House interns?
The above takes a good 15-20 minutes or more, because of a) the slow pace required to make this comprehensible, b) the fact that the teacher is going to answer all his/her own questions in complete sentences (but the student should NOT be forcing output of answers beyond very short answers – all the overachievers want to give full sentences and it really doesn’t help), c) the fact that the teacher will do what we call “3-fers” on all negative answers (say the right answer, reject the wrong answer by restating it in a full sentence, repeat the right answer again).
This is also assuming that the above questions are asked in an unpredictable order. You don’t want the dreaded “sí, no, José, taco” effect when everyone can anticipate the answers. That takes more practice than you’d think, because you also have to concentrate on not using any words that the student hasn’t had and not asking questions that cannot be answered using the information “on the table”.
Then – add a single detail. For a beginner, I add “where” most often. For this structure, you can also add “what”: What does J-Lo feel like eating? You will use another person/character for contrast here, since Bill Clinton isn’t into food and you need someone who feels like eating pizza, not shuijiao like J-Lo wants. Same drill: use all the question words thus far (who? where? what?), all three grammatical forms of yes-no questions in Mandarin, etc. You would also insert some responses that are natural (like “no way!” or “definitely!” or whatever) depending on the processing speed of the student. If the student is having difficulty, back off of the “extras”. If the student is a fast processor, use the extras to keep interest high while still banging away on the basics. The brain needs the repetition even if the student feels like s/he “knows” the materials.
If the student cannot easily, fluently and correctly produce the language in the lesson, more repetition is needed. It’s up to the teacher to keep that interesting enough that anyone would sit there for it.
You would also make sure to put in some “you” questions – avoiding the student not being able to handle conversation. In Chinese, with no verb conjugations, this is not a very big problem.
If you are doing this right, it easily takes an hour. Most new teachers to CI get through this in about fifteen minutes, then wonder why “it doesn’t work”.
By the end of this lesson, the student knows – really has control of – this stuff:
Statement word order
Question word order – all three forms of yes-no questions in Mandarin (you have to be careful to use all of them, not just stick “ma*” on the end)
Negation
Position of locational complement (location has to go first in Chinese)
I’ll caution you, though – this sounds really easy when you write it out. I train teachers in this all the time. They get up full of confidence to try it out, and they all end up either going way too fast, forgetting what questions they can ask, using words that aren’t “in bounds”, or whatever. It takes practice to be able to ask repeated questions naturally in unpredictible order without going “out of bounds”, while making sure to use all the structures you want to use, and keeping the “facts” straight compared to the other 10 classes you’ve got going (though slips of the tongue are good opportunities for students to correct your facts).
Most teachers are full of enthusiasm at training, then find that it’s not that easy when they get back on their own, plus there aren’t any materials, they don’t know how to pick effective “items” to use, and there aren’t any readings available. So most of them fall back into the textbook. 
I have yet to find a Taiwanese teacher who was able to really “get it”, despite my best efforts to train tutors and teachers I’ve had in the past. They were willing, but for some reason, it just didn’t make sense to them.
[quote=“E04teacherlin”]I still disagree with the idea that you need one sentence or one “set” of words to be successful.
Where is ABC from?
that is great.
But adding who is from xyz?
And how long have you been in abd or how long has acd been in abd is better since it gives more in more context.[/quote]
You can add more ideas, but you have to be very controlled about how many. Most teachers want to add too much. Many students want to have too much added. It leads to the sort of imperfect command of what has been “covered” that we typically see with the average language center student. There just isn’t enough repetition of things – particularly structures – to allow the brain to generalize and form a rule that can be unconsciously applied to form or decode language in unexpected contexts.
A student taught CI from the start can truly, fluently and unconsciously use all the language he’s had since the beginning of class (absent maybe the language from the most recent session). We typically give all unannounced tests, and they can cover anything that has ever been done in class as an item. If there is no long-term acquisition going on, what’s the point?
[quote=“ironlady”][quote=“E04teacherlin”]I still disagree with the idea that you need one sentence or one “set” of words to be successful.
Where is ABC from?
that is great.
But adding who is from xyz?
And how long have you been in abd or how long has acd been in abd is better since it gives more in more context.[/quote]
You can add more ideas, but you have to be very controlled about how many. Most teachers want to add too much. Many students want to have too much added. It leads to the sort of imperfect command of what has been “covered” that we typically see with the average language center student. There just isn’t enough repetition of things – particularly structures – to allow the brain to generalize and form a rule that can be unconsciously applied to form or decode language in unexpected contexts.
A student taught CI from the start can truly, fluently and unconsciously use all the language he’s had since the beginning of class (absent maybe the language from the most recent session). We typically give all unannounced tests, and they can cover anything that has ever been done in class as an item. If there is no long-term acquisition going on, what’s the point?[/quote]
I could agree more but I lack the language to do so.
T: You are from America.
S: Yes (or nod).
T: Are you from America?
S: Yes.
T: Yes, you are from America. Is your boyfriend (pause and point to words which have the translation next to them) from America?
S: Yes.
T: Yes, your boyfriend is from America. Ah! Your boyfriend is also from America. (write, pause and point when the “also” comes up).
[What you need now is someone who is NOT from America.]
T: Is Ma Ying-jeou from America?
S: No.
T: No. Ma Ying-jeou is not from America. He is from Taiwan. He is not from America. Are you from Taiwan?
S: No.
T: Right! You’re not from Taiwan. You’re from America. Who is from Taiwan?
S: Ma Ying-jeou.
T: Right. Ma Ying-jeou is from Taiwan. Is Ma Ying-jeou from Taiwan or is he from America?
S: Taiwan.
T: Right! Ma Ying-jeou is from Taiwan. He’s not from America. How ridiculous! (throwaway epxression to keep fast processor from getting too bored–establish meaning and move on). Is your boyfriend from Taiwan?
…
This can be a lot more fun with an irreverent student who has a sense of humor, and chooses to talk about someone fictional or made-up. I had a student who was an ex-Mormon who loved to talk about our fictional creation, “Professor Smith”, a professor of Noseology (yes, we said that in Chinese) at the University of Eastern Taiwan, who constantly organized seminars that no one came to, and who was selling his magical underwear on E-bay to fund his search for an assistant who could speak Mandarin and English and type as well. Poor Professor Smith had an entire, very difficult, life after just a few sessions.
Note how much the teacher is talking – the student needs to hear correct language, not produce language (which is usually incorrect anyway at this point). “Conventional wisdom” says this is bad teaching. Language acquisition says otherwise.
I also wouldn’t start with this item since the use of “shi” is a little tricky in Mandarin. I prefer to teach proper negation (using “bu” plus the main verb instead of saying “bu dui” or “bu shi” to everything as many teachers teach – that grates on my ears) from the start, by modeling the “yes” and “no” responses a few times before inviting the student to give the (one- or two-word) answer.
Bob qu4 Taidong ma*?
(hand gesture to wait)
Qu4 (nodding). Bu2 qu4 (shaking head.) Qu4 (nodding). Bu2 qu4 (shaking head.)
Bob qu4 Taidong ma*?
pause and wait for answer. Repeat model if student is confused.
This is not fully exploiting all the structure we can exploit from the statement “You are from America” and the shadow items (Obama, your boyfriend, Japan). We need the “yes” question (seems obvious but it’s not if you’re a beginner) “Are you from America?” We need to use all the forms of the yes-no question in Mandarin. We need “who” questions. It may be that you just didn’t write it all out (it’s a lot of typing) but if you start typing out a TPRS circling session, it’s amazingly long.
[quote=“E04teacherlin”]
I could agree more but I lack the language to do so.[/quote]
You seem much more comfortable discussing this kind of idea in English than I am doing training in Mandarin. :bravo: I always feel totally awkward and am sort of waiting to make some awful usage error that will throw the entire audience into helpless laughter (or worse).
Are you responding to the subject line of the post? I think it sounds pretty dirty too. It was split off another post. I didn’t give it that name.
shit am I the only one with my mind in the gutter here? ChewDawg, please tell me this is what your emoticon was about…
[/quote]
Yip, it was a response to the title. My mind is always in the gutter
I’ve got to go back and read through all of this again carefully, but what if we introduced something like this?
I find some pictures of celebrities, friends, etc. Perhaps just open up my facebook photos.
We start with the America thing. maybe throw in some other countries. Click through the photos. She’s asking me the same sorts of questions again and again, but it’s meaningful, because she’s asking about my friends. “Is he from America?” “Oh, he’s not from America. Is he from South Africa? He is from South Africa. But is your boyfriend from America? He’s not from America? Is he from South AFrica?” and so on…
Since my long suffering tutor (I know she’s long-suffering because she’s also my student, and has been for a long time.) is not trained in CI, would an activity like this help? Having visuals/cues to help her remember to continue to use the same patterns?
I might just try it…
I do wish you’d open your own buxiban IronLady- why’s it impossible? I suppose it would be in Taipei though, which wouldn’t be too good for me…
Are you responding to the subject line of the post? I think it sounds pretty dirty too. It was split off another post. I didn’t give it that name.
shit am I the only one with my mind in the gutter here? ChewDawg, please tell me this is what your emoticon was about…
[/quote]
Yip, it was a response to the title. My mind is always in the gutter [/quote]
Oh, good :discodance: I mean, not necessarily good that your mind is always in the gutter, but good that I’m not the only one.
You can try that way, but what will probably happen is that a) she’ll go “out of bounds” (introduce too much new vocabulary or structure that is not known), b) she’ll go too fast, or c) she won’t be able to think of what questions to ask. To most people, asking questions is about the meaning. To a CI teacher, it’s about repeating the focus items in unpredictable ways. To the CI student it should be about the meaning. You don’t really have to worry about having it be “meaningful” to you because you’re motivated. Meaningful stuff is really only needed to keep squirmy people sitting still long enough to hear language they can understand. 
This whole technique really doesn’t make sense to most people. It takes them awhile practicing the questions in order until they can ask them in random order, and if they’re asked in order, YOU can anticipate them, so that doesn’t work too well. We train them with a chart on asking questions in order, then out of order, then teach them how to pick items and how to add details/fish for the next part of the narrative/conversation/story, and keep reminding them over and over to slow way down and always do comprehension checks.
If you can talk my husband into letting me open a buxiban in Taiwan, I’m all over it, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. Man, would that be fun. :aiyo: