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Studying Putonghua/Mandarin in China?

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  1. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiaque:
    But I'm looking into Chinese University here.

    One thing that really worries me is I'll (as a CELTA holder) hate he teaching method. I just can't take it if they put pinyin on the board and expect it to be read outloud, like a teacher in HK did.
    if you're referring specifically to CU here with your fears of pinyin, my guess is that they're well founded. i mean, not necessarily the fear itself but your association of that method with CU. I took their first-semester, full-time Canto class and it was all romanization based, with no characters. which i actually think was a good approach but if it's not what you want to do than you wouldn't have liked that class.
    I don't know for sure that they use the same approach for mandarin but that would be my guess.

  2. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Loblaw:
    if you're referring specifically to CU here with your fears of pinyin, my guess is that they're well founded. i mean, not necessarily the fear itself but your association of that method with CU. I took their first-semester, full-time Canto class and it was all romanization based, with no characters. which i actually think was a good approach but if it's not what you want to do than you wouldn't have liked that class.
    I don't know for sure that they use the same approach for mandarin but that would be my guess.
    I think using pinyin instead of characters is OK (though I'm interested in reading and writing, too). What I didn't like in a Cantonese course I've taken is that the teacher lacked pedagogic skills. She would simply put a conversation written in pinyin on the board and say "Now read this" to us, but to me learning to speak is about getting sounds in your ear, and transferring that knowledge from one modality (written to speech) is quite difficult and wastes time when she could have first spoken the phrases herself and presented the spoken conversation orally. She was also quite bad at drilling and scaffolding and, to me, wasted too much time going on tangents about "Hong Kong culture" (like how the bride changes dress up to 3 times at a wedding), which I wasn't interested in in this language class. Time was simply too precious and there can be another course for things like that!

    These are basic teaching skills (to adult learners) that you learn in a CELTA course, but I don't think many of the Hong Kong teachers have an equivalent (even at universities!). I've heard there is a similar teacher training program in Beijing.

    Does anyone know what it is and how to look out for a school that has teachers qualified to teach a foreign language?

    By the way, I'll take this opportunity to say again how much I enjoy the Memrise app for drilling in this way. They've got a new Mandarin course that includes videos of locals speaking the phrases (with the pro account -- highly recommend upgrading). But I've spent a lot of time with it over the years and now I would like to spend some time in China to help bring it all together and start to become a productive speaker.

  3. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiaque:
    Looking for a break from HK, and I'm not on a "HK salary" so definitely not looking for private lessons here, plus I want the daily immersion. But I'm looking into Chinese University here.
    I purposefully left out the quotation marks - I was referring to very average HK salaries here. When I studied in Taiwan in 2013, my monthly total was ~21k HKD (9k private lessons, 5k tiny but decent flat in Taipei proper, rest daily expenses plus one flight home). But we generally went through the material they would cover in 12 weeks in the group class within one month. So basically even if group tuition was free, paying for private lessons for a month free up two month where I could be back in HK working. _If_ you factor in that you want to get somewhere with your Chinese, private tuition is more effective even if you're on a 25k salary. Of course, if you simply have two months off and want to spend them somewhere cheaply, the other way might be better. But keep in mind that most programs are on a 10-12w schedule - 2 months wont be enough.

    Don't underestimate how much more practice you get in a 1-on-1 setting vs in a group. Yes, you'll have a brain freeze after three hours, but you speak more, interact more, get to ask more _and_ the pace is indeed your pace, rather than the pace of the sleepiest party animal in the group.
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  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiaque:
    Is Keats only for a 16 week course? I'd just like a 1 month summer course.
    no - you can design your own course. Call them
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  5. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by er2:
    I purposefully left out the quotation marks - I was referring to very average HK salaries here. When I studied in Taiwan in 2013, my monthly total was ~21k HKD (9k private lessons, 5k tiny but decent flat in Taipei proper, rest daily expenses plus one flight home). But we generally went through the material they would cover in 12 weeks in the group class within one month. So basically even if group tuition was free, paying for private lessons for a month free up two month where I could be back in HK working. _If_ you factor in that you want to get somewhere with your Chinese, private tuition is more effective even if you're on a 25k salary. Of course, if you simply have two months off and want to spend them somewhere cheaply, the other way might be better. But keep in mind that most programs are on a 10-12w schedule - 2 months wont be enough.

    Don't underestimate how much more practice you get in a 1-on-1 setting vs in a group. Yes, you'll have a brain freeze after three hours, but you speak more, interact more, get to ask more _and_ the pace is indeed your pace, rather than the pace of the sleepiest party animal in the group.
    Thanks for the input, it's an interesting idea. Sometimes though it can be nice to speak with other learners, plus it gives you someone to do things with outside of class time (if you're visiting the city).


    Do you have specific suggestions other than CCU? Were the teachers well qualified (to teach)? Did you do one-on-one there?

  6. #16

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    @East_coast do you have personal experience with the school? Or know of someone who does? (Could PM me if you prefer.)


  7. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiaque:
    I think using pinyin instead of characters is OK
    Look at it from another angle:

    You won't be able to read a newspaper anytime soon (and why would you anyway) but the character, even without planing to read anything, are more help to have a visual representation of a sound.

    Not sure about you, different people face different problems, but one problem for me is that everything sounds sort of the same. A character can help to make something stand out.

    The SCMP had a while ago an article of the language school below in or near Beijing. It's foreign owned, that means there is a 3% chance that they want you to learn something and not just get your money. For other schools it's more like 0.03%

    (Reminds me that I met a Beijing girl last year in HK that did a Master in linguistics and planed to go back to BJ to teach 外公人)

    Chinese Language School China: Beijing, Shanghai, Chengde | LTL Mandarin School

  8. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by flameproof:
    Look at it from another angle:

    You won't be able to read a newspaper anytime soon (and why would you anyway) but the character, even without planing to read anything, are more help to have a visual representation of a sound.

    Not sure about you, different people face different problems, but one problem for me is that everything sounds sort of the same. A character can help to make something stand out.

    The SCMP had a while ago an article of the language school below in or near Beijing. It's foreign owned, that means there is a 3% chance that they want you to learn something and not just get your money. For other schools it's more like 0.03%

    (Reminds me that I met a Beijing girl last year in HK that did a Master in linguistics and planed to go back to BJ to teach 外公人)

    Chinese Language School China: Beijing, Shanghai, Chengde | LTL Mandarin School
    Yes, I enjoy learning the characters and trying to decipher the written language. Pinyin itself to me doesn't tell me much, as I'm terrible with phonetics, though I have a good ear! I'll look into that school.

    By the way, that's just the kind of point I was making before -- a linguist is NOT a foreign language teacher, and that's so often a problem when the two are seen as interchangeable qualifications.

  9. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by Elegiaque:
    @East_coast do you have personal experience with the school? Or know of someone who does? (Could PM me if you prefer.)
    Sent you a PM

  10. #20

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    All right, I think I am going to go with Keats, as it seems to be what I'm looking for. My concerns are that the environment looks a bit cramped and perhaps the staff are becoming a bit burnt out.

    Another option that looks quite similar but a bit newer is the Chinese Language Institute in Guilin, which would also be closer to home should I wish to come back for a weekend break.

    https://www.studycli.org/seminars/

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