ese in a way I never expected. I can only attribute this to the way the program I attended teaches and promotes the language. Most important in my transformation was my awesome teacher Xu Laoshi and her obvious love for the Chinese language and for teaching. Of course the class did not start out all this way. To me she has a distinctly old school Chinese nature about her although she is only 26. Unlike many Shanghai female youths, she is does not immediately smile or laugh and she has a loud and sharp voice much like a drill sergeant. Our first day with her left us all rather uneasy as she made it very clear that she would not accept anything but our undivided attention. She did not know how much we had learned from the previous elementary 1 (beginner’s) class so she went through a basic review which left her clearly annoyed and disappointed. My class at this point was down to only guys (from the previous class) and me. The only thing I can attribute this behavior to is perhaps because she got some fair warning about how rowdy our group of guys could be from Leo, the very laid back previous teacher. After only a few days, she started to warm up to us and us to her. She was a wonderful source of knowledge not only for difficult grammer points and Chinese character etymology, but also for Chinese culture, history, and literature. She made a point of having each of us give many many examples of important grammar phrases everyday so that they came ‘naturally’ to us. We gave mini speeches about topics such as the weather in our home town, what our life in Shanghai is like, our favorite hobbies, and what kind of clothes we have in our wardrobe. This kind of repetition and direct memorization is the way the Chinese learn and succeed as has been shown over and over during the Beijing Olympics. Being American, I realize I am often lazy and desire immediate results. I only hope I can continue to make progress as I try to study Chinese now on my own.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Good bye Mandarin House
It is with great sadness that I leave my month of intensive Chinese at Mandarin House. I have developed as a conversationalist in Chin
ese in a way I never expected. I can only attribute this to the way the program I attended teaches and promotes the language. Most important in my transformation was my awesome teacher Xu Laoshi and her obvious love for the Chinese language and for teaching. Of course the class did not start out all this way. To me she has a distinctly old school Chinese nature about her although she is only 26. Unlike many Shanghai female youths, she is does not immediately smile or laugh and she has a loud and sharp voice much like a drill sergeant. Our first day with her left us all rather uneasy as she made it very clear that she would not accept anything but our undivided attention. She did not know how much we had learned from the previous elementary 1 (beginner’s) class so she went through a basic review which left her clearly annoyed and disappointed. My class at this point was down to only guys (from the previous class) and me. The only thing I can attribute this behavior to is perhaps because she got some fair warning about how rowdy our group of guys could be from Leo, the very laid back previous teacher. After only a few days, she started to warm up to us and us to her. She was a wonderful source of knowledge not only for difficult grammer points and Chinese character etymology, but also for Chinese culture, history, and literature. She made a point of having each of us give many many examples of important grammar phrases everyday so that they came ‘naturally’ to us. We gave mini speeches about topics such as the weather in our home town, what our life in Shanghai is like, our favorite hobbies, and what kind of clothes we have in our wardrobe. This kind of repetition and direct memorization is the way the Chinese learn and succeed as has been shown over and over during the Beijing Olympics. Being American, I realize I am often lazy and desire immediate results. I only hope I can continue to make progress as I try to study Chinese now on my own.
ese in a way I never expected. I can only attribute this to the way the program I attended teaches and promotes the language. Most important in my transformation was my awesome teacher Xu Laoshi and her obvious love for the Chinese language and for teaching. Of course the class did not start out all this way. To me she has a distinctly old school Chinese nature about her although she is only 26. Unlike many Shanghai female youths, she is does not immediately smile or laugh and she has a loud and sharp voice much like a drill sergeant. Our first day with her left us all rather uneasy as she made it very clear that she would not accept anything but our undivided attention. She did not know how much we had learned from the previous elementary 1 (beginner’s) class so she went through a basic review which left her clearly annoyed and disappointed. My class at this point was down to only guys (from the previous class) and me. The only thing I can attribute this behavior to is perhaps because she got some fair warning about how rowdy our group of guys could be from Leo, the very laid back previous teacher. After only a few days, she started to warm up to us and us to her. She was a wonderful source of knowledge not only for difficult grammer points and Chinese character etymology, but also for Chinese culture, history, and literature. She made a point of having each of us give many many examples of important grammar phrases everyday so that they came ‘naturally’ to us. We gave mini speeches about topics such as the weather in our home town, what our life in Shanghai is like, our favorite hobbies, and what kind of clothes we have in our wardrobe. This kind of repetition and direct memorization is the way the Chinese learn and succeed as has been shown over and over during the Beijing Olympics. Being American, I realize I am often lazy and desire immediate results. I only hope I can continue to make progress as I try to study Chinese now on my own.
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2 comments:
Yes, very sad how lazy our culture has become. Today we see so many children getting anything and everything they want; so much so that the houses often have toys and play things in every room of their homes!
It is easy to understand why we want things immediately without having to work for it!
Are you going to take another - higher level class? Or is this it?
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