So I've finished two weeks of my intensive language study already and it's been simply exhausting. We have 20 hours of class a week which includes an oral conversation course, a newspaper reading course, a one on one research course with a professor, and a "one on two" course ( meet with a teacher and one other classmate to practice pronunciation, tones and language for everyday situations). The class sizes are super small (the oral conversation and newspaper reading courses each have 4 students) and I like the teachers for the most part.
But the load of homework for the classes has been overwhelming. Almost everyday we have a new list of vocabulary we have to learn and are quizzed on through dictation along with giving oral reports, performances and reciting dialogues. The hardest part for me has been the emphasis on handwriting Chinese characters in the courses. My oral and reading skills far exceed my writing ability. Since I have never taken a formal Chinese course before, I hadn't practiced writing Chinese characters very much. So I've had to spend a significant amount of time just writing out Chinese characters over and over again. I've been playing catch up when it comes to learning to write characters compared to my classmates who have all learned them through their college courses. It's so easy to forget how to write them by memory!
I do think my Chinese is improving but the daily deluge of homework and new vocabulary and grammar along with my efforts to learn to hand write characters can get in the way of practicing and reviewing the things I already have learned. Also, I have little time to even interact and chat regularly with my Chinese roommate.
Moreover, I've had a lot of long days of class and study that have already worn me out. I've been getting up at 6 am to study and finish homework before class and going to bed around 11 pm
Role reversal- language teacher becomes a language student
I've been thinking more about the my new role now as a foreign language student in China compared to my old one as a foreign language teacher. In some ways, my experience as a student here parallels that of my students at Guangxi University (GXU): being taught in a language immersion classroom environment, being subjected to a different style of teaching then one is accustomed, and large amounts of homework. Though there are also significant differences in classroom size (the smallest at Guangxi University were 20 students), little exposure to English outside of the classroom and probably less motivation to learn.
Despite the differences, being in this kind of position allows me to somewhat see things from my students at Guangxi University may have saw things. In particular: the constant learning of new vocabulary and the need to adjust to a different teaching style. My teaching style (based on my American education upbringing) diverged greatly from typical Chinese teaching practice. Traditional Chinese pedagogy is largely teacher-dominated where students learn to read, memorize, and regurgitate texts. While this can benefit the students' memory (which I was always impressed with as an instructor at GXU) and their ability to learn basic knowledge, I found that they had difficult applying that knowledge in innovative and creative ways. So I saw my role as an English instructor was to not only teach language structure, grammar and vocabulary but to get them to actively apply and use them. So my students had to adjust to the more active role I encouraged them to take as a teacher including preparing presentations and performances outside of the class as well as engaging in discussion and debates within the class.
In terms of my current Chinese studies, my previous experience as an instructor makes me more aware and critical of language teaching pedagogy while I'm learning in the classroom. In particular, though I do like my teachers, I think their teaching style (mainly the newspaper reading and oral conversation courses) can be somewhat rigid. Often in class we are just mimicking or repeating language structure and phrases that the teachers put forward and there is little open debate or discussion about what we are learning. While I find their methods of teaching us how to use language structure and vocabulary effective there is little space in class to actually apply the knowledge. It can be dull and repetitive at times. Though the pedagogy of the classes are largely communicative (in that there is a dialogue between us and the teacher), it's largely in a controlled, teacher-oriented form. I see it as communicative pedagogy with Chinese characteristics. Despite my criticisms, it's something I have to get used to as a student here.
Language pledge and immersion - reverse Chinglish?
Another aspect of the program that has been somewhat difficult is the language pledge. We can't speak any English in or outside of the class except for an emergency or talking with friends and family back home. The kind of sink or swim method, on the surface, seems to be a great way to improve your Mandarin but there are some draw backs to it:
- communicating with classmates who have significantly lower Chinese abilities can be very difficult and often requires me to simplify my language
- Since we are all non-native speakers, the Mandarin we use among us classmates may not be correct or we may be using what I see as "reverse Chinglish"
- Because my main interactions and environment are with non-native speakers, I can't absorb as much the colloquial expressions and structure of native speakers nor can I get regular feedback or corrections about the language I use (outside of the interaction with my roommate)
People in the West are familiar with Chinglish as awkward English translations of Chinese that is used on signs and t-shirts throughout China. Often I think this happens because Chinese try to directly translate Mandarin into English (which often doesn't work) rather than use idiomatic natural English expressions and structure. Reverse Chinglish for my classmates and I works the opposite way. Sometimes we try to directly translate English into Chinese to express ourselves rather then use colloquial Chinese expressions. I guess this is inevitable as a language learner but in an environment where we can only speak Chinese with each other, it can develop into a bad habit. We don't always have a native Chinese speaker around to help us express our thoughts in a more natural way in Mandarin.
It's weird though that we can express ideas with each other in reverse Chinglish because we know each others' implied meaning (because of shared language and cultural background) but a native speaker would definitely not understand. A good example of this was when I was talking to this girl from Vermont about her major. Her language level is a bit lower than mine and she told me in Chinese her major was, roughly translated, "electric art." What she meant to say was "graphic art and design" but I understood her implied meaning.
But the load of homework for the classes has been overwhelming. Almost everyday we have a new list of vocabulary we have to learn and are quizzed on through dictation along with giving oral reports, performances and reciting dialogues. The hardest part for me has been the emphasis on handwriting Chinese characters in the courses. My oral and reading skills far exceed my writing ability. Since I have never taken a formal Chinese course before, I hadn't practiced writing Chinese characters very much. So I've had to spend a significant amount of time just writing out Chinese characters over and over again. I've been playing catch up when it comes to learning to write characters compared to my classmates who have all learned them through their college courses. It's so easy to forget how to write them by memory!
I do think my Chinese is improving but the daily deluge of homework and new vocabulary and grammar along with my efforts to learn to hand write characters can get in the way of practicing and reviewing the things I already have learned. Also, I have little time to even interact and chat regularly with my Chinese roommate.
Moreover, I've had a lot of long days of class and study that have already worn me out. I've been getting up at 6 am to study and finish homework before class and going to bed around 11 pm
Role reversal- language teacher becomes a language student
I've been thinking more about the my new role now as a foreign language student in China compared to my old one as a foreign language teacher. In some ways, my experience as a student here parallels that of my students at Guangxi University (GXU): being taught in a language immersion classroom environment, being subjected to a different style of teaching then one is accustomed, and large amounts of homework. Though there are also significant differences in classroom size (the smallest at Guangxi University were 20 students), little exposure to English outside of the classroom and probably less motivation to learn.
Despite the differences, being in this kind of position allows me to somewhat see things from my students at Guangxi University may have saw things. In particular: the constant learning of new vocabulary and the need to adjust to a different teaching style. My teaching style (based on my American education upbringing) diverged greatly from typical Chinese teaching practice. Traditional Chinese pedagogy is largely teacher-dominated where students learn to read, memorize, and regurgitate texts. While this can benefit the students' memory (which I was always impressed with as an instructor at GXU) and their ability to learn basic knowledge, I found that they had difficult applying that knowledge in innovative and creative ways. So I saw my role as an English instructor was to not only teach language structure, grammar and vocabulary but to get them to actively apply and use them. So my students had to adjust to the more active role I encouraged them to take as a teacher including preparing presentations and performances outside of the class as well as engaging in discussion and debates within the class.
In terms of my current Chinese studies, my previous experience as an instructor makes me more aware and critical of language teaching pedagogy while I'm learning in the classroom. In particular, though I do like my teachers, I think their teaching style (mainly the newspaper reading and oral conversation courses) can be somewhat rigid. Often in class we are just mimicking or repeating language structure and phrases that the teachers put forward and there is little open debate or discussion about what we are learning. While I find their methods of teaching us how to use language structure and vocabulary effective there is little space in class to actually apply the knowledge. It can be dull and repetitive at times. Though the pedagogy of the classes are largely communicative (in that there is a dialogue between us and the teacher), it's largely in a controlled, teacher-oriented form. I see it as communicative pedagogy with Chinese characteristics. Despite my criticisms, it's something I have to get used to as a student here.
Language pledge and immersion - reverse Chinglish?
Another aspect of the program that has been somewhat difficult is the language pledge. We can't speak any English in or outside of the class except for an emergency or talking with friends and family back home. The kind of sink or swim method, on the surface, seems to be a great way to improve your Mandarin but there are some draw backs to it:
- communicating with classmates who have significantly lower Chinese abilities can be very difficult and often requires me to simplify my language
- Since we are all non-native speakers, the Mandarin we use among us classmates may not be correct or we may be using what I see as "reverse Chinglish"
- Because my main interactions and environment are with non-native speakers, I can't absorb as much the colloquial expressions and structure of native speakers nor can I get regular feedback or corrections about the language I use (outside of the interaction with my roommate)
People in the West are familiar with Chinglish as awkward English translations of Chinese that is used on signs and t-shirts throughout China. Often I think this happens because Chinese try to directly translate Mandarin into English (which often doesn't work) rather than use idiomatic natural English expressions and structure. Reverse Chinglish for my classmates and I works the opposite way. Sometimes we try to directly translate English into Chinese to express ourselves rather then use colloquial Chinese expressions. I guess this is inevitable as a language learner but in an environment where we can only speak Chinese with each other, it can develop into a bad habit. We don't always have a native Chinese speaker around to help us express our thoughts in a more natural way in Mandarin.
It's weird though that we can express ideas with each other in reverse Chinglish because we know each others' implied meaning (because of shared language and cultural background) but a native speaker would definitely not understand. A good example of this was when I was talking to this girl from Vermont about her major. Her language level is a bit lower than mine and she told me in Chinese her major was, roughly translated, "electric art." What she meant to say was "graphic art and design" but I understood her implied meaning.