This Fall, more people than ever before will take Mandarin at universities in western countries. It seems to me that we are in a position to help these people. Let me explain.
Many of these courses are taught in the traditional way, with an emphasis on memorizing and writing characters, rather than on communicating in Chinese. However, to my mind, it is really only the spoken word that brings a new language to life. Hearing/using the new language in the context of what it is ultimately used for (communication) is necessary to gain a deeper understanding of it. If your freshman program is dry and academic, or, if you approach it just as a test you need to pass then don’t expect to do very well in it.
We could quite easily create some lessons to suit the needs of the freshman/sophomore this Fall. I’ve browsed some of the books that are commonly used in these programs and I already have quite a few ideas on the topic.
I would, however, really like to hear from you, Big Brain. Do you plan to take Mandarin courses this Fall? Which books will you use? What are your concerns? Tell us more and we’ll see if we can help out.
If you’re a sophomore, then I’d really like to hear from you too. Can you tell us something about your freshman experiences? Which books did you use? How did you find them? How could ChinesePod lessons help to build on those? What about your sophomore syllabus? Have you seen it? Which books will you use? Is there a listening component? What is that? Is Pimsleur widely used on these programs?
I hope our audio lessons help to bring some life to the study of Mandarin (and that the Learning Center helps you consolidate the new knowledge). Let us know what you need. We could start uploading lessons within a couple of weeks.
Ken Carroll
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{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, I’m taking Mandarin for the next five months at a private school. I will be using a combination of “Practical Chinese Reader Book”, Pimsleur, and “Hugo Chinese in Three Months”. The emphasis will be on spoken Chinese, and they will be using new styles of teaching which to me sound great. Interaction between students is stressed. I can’t go into much more detail, the results will speak for themselves.
I’ve just got to give a shout out to the hugo, “Chinese in Three Months”. Granted, it has absolutely nothing on reading and writing, it’s a perfect companion. I’ve found it to be easily one of the most helpful books. It focuses on communication, progresses at a great pace, and organizes grammar and sentence structure in a practical way.
at the university of texas, we also use the “Practical Chinese Reader.” no pimsleur, strictly that little green book. the only practice with spoken mandarin is a weekly oral quiz. the teacher asks each one of us a couple questions in mandarin about the week’s lesson text, and we answer in mandarin. other than that, we memorize around 30 new characters a week, a little grammar, and that’s that. most of those characters and words slip out of my head the next week.
my TA had the right idea though. when we had a little extra time in the class, she’d make a couple of us go to the front of the class. she’d give us a little scenario, and we were supposed to act it out (in Mandarin of course). not surprisingly, the words and phrases that we used stayed in my head. we could say something stupid like “你穿褲子嗎？” even though I’d never (probably never) ask this in real life, I still remember how to say “to wear” and “pants.”
for us who use “practical chinese reader,” maybe u guys could throw in some words from our book? not much else to suggest; it’s hard to critique such a great podcast.
Eugh! That horrible horrible book. Lesson after endless lesson of repetition. We had to do all of the exercises. The propaganda was funny after a while though…
Most colleges around here have moved from _The Practical Chinese Reader_ to _Integrated Chinese_. Dr. Xie’s site has a lot of resources and links for PCR volume 1 (and may have similar stuff for others that I haven’t looked at).
My second year course is starting _A Trip To China_ in a few days. The first year we used PCR I and some of II. We would do about 25-30 new words per week. The PCR audio tapes were available if we wanted to use them. Listening component was asking and answering questions with the instructor and things like pairing up with classmates using supplemental questions. Without learning the vocabulary before lessons started made listening much more difficult.
I’m not sure how ChinesePod could best supplement formal textbooks, since there are so many in use. I once saw a set of flashcards with high frequency characters and words. On each card there was reference to the chapter that introduced the character in PCR, IC, and about 5 other common texts.
To follow up my last incomplete thought, I’m not suggesting ChinesePod do the same as the flash card publisher did.
Just sticking with high frequence stuff is enough for me. Many times I’ll learn something in CP only to cover it in class a week or two later and vice-versa.
I agree with Ma Ding the Zhang PengPeng books are the best of the all too many books I have.
Mike in Jubei
PCR has been replaced by “New Practical Chinese Reader”, which is supposed to be very good, and which is what I thought you guys were referring to. But if it’s the little green book, oh dear. I’ve been using it for extra practice because I have the tapes, taking its content with a grain of salt, and that works well for me. Apart from being hilariously out of date, it is constructed as the kind of text that a good teacher could do a lot with and a book-obedient teacher could do a lot of damage with. If you bother to read the bit in the front it’s designed be be used creatively, using only those parts required! but it sounds like that’s not being done. But when did a teacher ever read a preface that tells them what to do. The authors did a great job for their time and place. Transporting it 30 years into the future and then slaving through it like a religious text against the recommendations, isn’t fair on the authors or the students.
You know, it would be constructive to have some of the early texts from that book “translated” by Jenny into the real street lingo of today, for fun and to put the book’s quaint language into context. Maybe that’s what they’ve done in NewPCR, I haven’t read it myself.
Aunty,
You’ve surpassed yourself with insdights here, among others: “it would be constructive to have some of the early texts from that book “translated” by Jenny into the real street lingo of today, for fun and to put the book’s quaint language into context”
Ken Carroll
Thanks Ken. I enjoy scatology.
Aunty,
Sometimes you just say things so well.
Ken
I agree bringing a few out-dated lessons up to current times is a great idea.
As much as parts of PCR is out of date, is it really? Yes, I know it is, but I was quite surprised and please with how much this textbook overlaped with the Chinese Pod lessons.
Here are some of the texts in use for the upcoming Fall term. I found these on web sites of the University of California, California State Universities and community colleges in the Bay Area
Freshman texts: Integrated Chinese Level 1, New Practical Chinese Reader, Chinese Link, Colloquial Chinese, Practical Chinese Reader
Sophmore texts: Integrated Chinese Level 2, A Trip To China, David and Helen in China, Practical Chinese Reader book 2
There seems to be much more variety now than in recent years. 10 years ago, you could walk into almost any college book store and find the PCR text. A couple years ago, many had changed over to Integrated Chinese. Now it looks like Chinese Link is the up and coming text.
Guys,
This feedback really helps. It seems that the choice of textbooks varies. I’m wondertingwht it would take to get ChinesePod used on these programs. Any feedback on this?
James,
You’re well informed. Are you a student? An instructor?
Ken
From what I’ve been told there’s a rigorous testing and passing and trialling and more process for new text books. At least at my uni. They changed text books just after my first year, from the PCR to a BLCU textbook for later year and a red book with a name I’ve forgotten for first year. I doubt they’d want to change it again.
Ken, have you ever thought about marketing Cpod on CD? You could include the PDF files, lesson plans, maybe even grammar point. I would recommend making one MP3 disc and one audio CD (for car stereos). I work in technology and one thing I’ve learned is that people are lazy and afraid of computers. Podcasts are too intangible, people would much rather have a CD in their hands. CD’s are cheap and easy to create, so profit is without question. You could have a whole SERIES of CD’s (from newbie to advanced or Cpod:the first 100 episodes), and charge just as much as Pimsleur does for each (about $20). In fact, with over 100 newbie lessons that would be a good place to start. CD’s will draw traffic to the internet site, thus generating more revenue. Demo CD’s could also be sent to schools across America, giving Pimsleur a run for his money. This to me seems like a no-brainer. Heck, I would even buy one. I firmly believe that this should be Cpod’s next step, and that I should get 10% of all CD revenue. Just kidding.
Ken,
I’m just a student with a family and full time job. But, I probably looked into every nearby program before deciding on one and going back to school. Your question prompted me to recheck some programs I previously investigated. Considering that most previously used the PCR, I was surprised with how many changed books just in the last few years.
Panda,
Great idea, but I’ll have to give you the 10% as soon as I get my memory back.
Ken
HEY! That was MY idea! I posted it two days ago, so the 10% is mine, all mine, and I’m donating it to Ken’s typing lessons fund. So there.
By the way, what exactly is a Sophomore? Does it mean a second year university student?
Aunty,
It has 2 meanings:
- A 3 year old horse
- A student who has successfully completed a number of credit hours, usually in second year
I’m very interested in the horse.
Ken
within 24 hours of producing a CD, it will be available on dozens of street corners and dimly lit CD/DVD stores all over the big cities of China for 6 rmb
I have bootleg copies of DaShans’ CCTV shows…
ChinesePod needs to increase the stickiness of the site, and build reasons for people to continue to come visit regularly; I’m not sure I see a reason to visit the site as much if I have the CD. For the same reason, I think offering the ability to download the whole catalog via bittorent is a disincentive to subscribing and visiting daily.
I’d think you’d also lose the uniqueness factor – hard to get excited about (yet) another CD based learn to speak chinese course.
From a driving revenue standpoint, I’d rather see somethink like the ITunes 99 cent per song dowloaded model – for example, download lessons 1-10 for 99 cents; etc. Mp3s and podcasts are exploding in popularity; ITunes has had over one billion downloads allready. If one really wants a CD, (and a lot of studies suggest that CD’s are the next casette tape or 8-track), he or she can download to their hard drive and burn their own CD copy.
I’m also in technology, and I would think the fear of computer crowd is not ChinesePods core customer base.
Yeah, passive podcast delivery is evil, I say make them come here and download them like I have to, no more back door free rides, at least put your face into the site if you want the freebies!
BUT, I’d still like an official anniversary CD, the real thing with a label and Aric’s nicotine fingerprints all over it, not a bootleg and not one I’ve made myself. Call me sentimental.
I am working full-time and studying in my spare time. We are using Panorama – Approaching Chinese and although the book is good the teaching focusses 50% on learning the characters and then conversation. The characters memorisation does provide insight into the language but feels as though it is a lot of effort to develop communication skills.
We are using Integrated Chinese at the University of Minnesota, and I would love to see ChinesePod lessons that build on or somehow connect to the topics/vocab/grammer points in that series. I started my second year of class this week. By the way, Integrated Chinese recently came out with new editions of their books (1st level new editions came out last year, 2nd level came out this year). There are significant improvements with the new editions.
ldfs,
Maybe we can do something.
Do the other students on your program know about ChinesePod?
Ken Carroll
Ken,
I am working and taking Chinese in my off-time at Hawaii Pacific University; most schools in Hawaii use the Integrated Chinese textbook because it has some connections with profs at UH. I just discovered Chinese Pod and am using it to supplement my studies. I don’t think that many people know about CPod yet. I think to get CPod integrated with the classroom would be to cover the same types of subjects in a loosely similar format, but make your money with longer and more natural sounding dialogues, maybe showing alternate grammatical constructions that say the same thing or using synonyms for vocab words. The oral/audio portion of the IC textbook is very weak.
I also found a tutor on the CPod website that I have started working with twice a week on Skype. I have found that to be extremely helpful. I think you could do a lot to market “cheap” Chinese tutors to students in the U.S. with VOIP technology. At my school there is limited face time available for speaking with native speakers, so this is something that I would be willing to pay for. The convenience of being able to work from home is also a huge plus.