Well, it’s been a sum total of three days in the Chinese education system, and my patience is pretty thin. Apparently, I am not alone.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s completely normal (in Chinese universities) to conduct classes teaching Chinese to non-Chinese speaking people (i.e. foreigners) almost exclusively in Mandarin, but it really isn’t “working for me”.
The system for teaching (this has been verified by a number of other students) is roughly as follows:
- Students are assigned roughly 30+ new words per day (to learn meanings, pronunciation, Pinyin and Hanzi),
- Students must read ahead and learn new words/new module material in advance of each class (which is tough if you don’t know how to pronounce the words),
- Teachers don’t bother to explain (except in Mandarin) the meaning of any of the course work in classes unless asked directly – troublesome when trying to understand grammatical connotation,
- Students are expected to be able to recognise both Chinese Pinyin and Hanzi (characters) for all words,
- About half of the coursework is in Hanzi (characters) alone – i.e. no Pinyin,
- Many slides are in Hanzi (characters) only – some Pinyin, almost no English,
- The majority of the text books are in characters (some Pinyin available, and only English translation for words/vocab – not grammar)
Responsibility for learning correct pronunciation, grammar and translation (e.g. into English) is almost solely the responsibility of the student, to be done in advance of classes. It makes you wonder what the point of having teachers is!?
I realise this sounds a bit far fetched, but I assure you it is a reality. One teacher refuses to write English on the whiteboard, another does (in the course of explaining something unrelated to the module being studied) and neither will explain what we are actually learning/studying in English – frustrating!!!
It’s something of a mystery to me how they could possibly expect students with only a small amount of prior experience with any Asian language to survive at all – this is supposed to be the elementary class! I mean, the whole point of taking the classes to begin with is to learn the language, so it seems like a perfect contradiction to teach the classes 99.5% in native Mandarin.
One teacher explained that using English in class might disadvantage non-English speaking students. It must be said that in my current class, the only non-English speaking students (all two of them) are both Korean and therefore have a sizable advantage since their language shares a large number of Hanzi, and they are already used to speaking in tones.
Anyways, after a disruptive day in class, it has been decided that it might be best for me to figure out a better way of picking up the language. Toni is going to continue in the course, but I honestly don’t have the “after class” time to commit to keeping up with the class (given the bizarre teaching methods).
We’ll see how it all unfolds tomorrow.
Sounds absolutely ridiculous! Maybe after this massive learning curve it gets easier? I heard that this is how some people in Asian countries learn English as well. I guess the proof is in the pudding if people can end up learning this way, but maybe they are doing all the work outside of class and the classes are pretty much useless? Although that does sound like typical uni teaching – you learn all the stuff on your own and the classes are just there to tell you what will be in the exam.
Good luck!
It’s funny because it’s a foreign language class there’s that whole "I don’t understand what the teacher is saying" aspect – which is hard to pick up outside of class (i.e. all the in-class directives are in Mandarin). I imagine it would be like walking in on a Comp Sci class without a basic understanding of mathematics or programming concepts.