I thawt I saw a tumbleweed

Yeah I know what it can feel like being behind in schedule :). Maybe this could be dialogue. No worries I never have had the chance to listen to every single chinesepod lesson and I spent a lot of time listening to the same podcast over months to make sure it sinks in. My local Chinese class also gives me lots of homework :).

Well, more than just a missed show or two; I'd be here even if you all decided to take a well-deserved entire week off just to rest and rejuvenate!

Thanks, Vera, and don't worry about it, Chinese Pod is awesome enough to keep its appeal through a missed show or two!

Yeah, l haven't been hearing or reading much from the Chinesepod office Iately. l hope everything is OK.

好像星期六没有

哦，请问。。。 请问有问题吗？ 。。。请问怎么样？

Flo,

Thanks. Since the early 80's I have been an advocate of computers in the classroom for students as early as kindergarten (no reason why kindergarteners should now know how to program; I was heavily influence by Seymour Papert's "Mindstorms" ). Yet in this age of mass distraction / multi-tasking / attention deficit I am getting a new appreciation for the old ways. (Or at least old American ways. For 3rd graders I hope they are getting as much exposure to techniques like "total physical response" as they are to screen time. )

Regarding Americanized kids rebelling against traditional Chinese teaching methods, I would not blame the kids for being "Americanized" but advise the teachers to consider how to meet the kids where they are. Many Chinese teachers have no formal background in pedagogy, (volunteers, God bless them) and rely on teaching the way that they were taught. As an example, they are teaching things such as written Chinese to students who are not "native" speakers, whereas the teachers' own experience as children was of going to school already knowing how to speak Chinese.

Good luck with the project!

We do this once a week for 2 hours on Saturday afternoon. Then maybe the children can continue on to learn Chinese in the public school. Some schools already offer it as a foreign language.

You can imagine the challenge we are facing since Saturday afternoon is the time for birthday parties etc. and Florida is a vacation state. Then of course we are teaching americanized children who resist the traditional Chinese method of teaching.

I teach 3rd grade so the website I will be creating is for them and also for the parents. I do not think Berlitz and Rosetta Stone are suitable for them because they are young and need strong adult supervision.

I will discuss the website when I get to do it!

pretz,

laziness and ignorance would be the two main reasons. But I am getting a bit better. I am starting to realize I need to wean myself off of solely relying on learning sites and go for more "in the wild" Chinese. thanks for the pointers.

podster, just curious, but why you haven't branched out into incorporating other online sites like the Chinese versions of China Daily or BBC News, or Chinasmack.com or the other Chinese online content into your language learning?

Flo,

Interesting project. I used to use Rosetta Stone, and I always thought it would be best as a review module for some classroom based instruction, even though it is presented as a self-contained immersion package. I know Berlitz was doing something in cooperation with Rosetta Stone, but I have no direct experience. Is Orlando Chinese School a weekend school or is it full week, half day immersion, or what? I think both Rosetta Stone and Skritter have some good discounts for schools. Most of my on-line study is with CPod and Skritter, which are linked, but I don't know if CPod has educator discounts. Please keep us up to date on how the website goes. You will probably get some feedback from the community here, some of which may actually be useful ;).

You enjoy the interaction. I would do that too if I had more time. We just had a meeting at the Orlando Chinese School and we are being encouraged to use more computer in our teaching. I see its value particularly in using clips to introduce Chinese culture and in using games for to learn new words and in putting them in the right sentence order. I plan to get a laptop, create a website and work on these goals for the next school year.

I like to listen to the Cpod staff chat about random stuff. Occasionally I learn something about China or the Chinese language from their unscripted remarks and it is entertaining. This kind of show seems to be less and less a part of the Cpod format, though. First the cutback on upper level lessons. Now, it seems the weekend shows are going. I used to be able to count on Cpod the provide four or five interesting to listen to shows a week. Now, it is down to one or two. (a UI and sometimes an advanced lesson). The intermediates are getting progressively more formulaic, and the elies and newbies achieved cookie cutter blandness long ago.

(I still have 20 or so media lessons to go through, and I will have completed the archive.)

I actually haven't done most of the back lessons. I think my pleasure in using Chinesepod is participating in the discussion and debate that follows each new lesson in the week immediately after it is posted.

It is true that, if I want more advanced/media lessons, I should simply go to the archives, and, tada, there they are. I think I don't do that because it would be starting a task that seems overwhelming. It seems simpler, and more fun, and more like I'm part of an on-line community, to simply try to keep up with all the lessons (intermediate and up) as they are posted, and to try to master each one.

And I completely understand (and support, albeit grudgingly) Chinesepod's decision to focus on the other levels, seeing as it seems the majority of users are seeking the lower levels.

I just wanted to get my vote in, so that my voice would be heard should they reconsider their decision!

I am not sure, but the higher levels may require more work than the lower levels, so therefore, maybe they are more taxing in terms of preperation time and cerebral energy. If that is true (and I don't know if it is), then maybe it does make sense that there are fewer of these lessons because they require more labor than the easier lessons, meaning that they are more valuable.

Don't misunderstand, I don't mean to marginalize your consideration, but I simply want to offer a different perspective.

This is not a problem for me yet as I still need maybe 2 years to complete all the Advanced and Media lesson. I will cross the bridge when I get there.

Just in case Chinese Pod gauges interest by our comments here, I want to say that I also gain the most from the Advanced and Media lessons, and that it matters to me that they are showing up less and less often.

Yeah, my feeling exactly. It is so strange not to see a lesson of some type on Saturday.

'but I eventually gave in.'

I'm like that with some words, otherwise you are left just talking to yourself.

Never. I'm old school and they were "shopping centers" to me, but I eventually gave in.

out of interest, how often do these strip malls have a sign somewhere saying "strip mall"?

'The malls in China are all vertical, with 8 or 10 levels and no parking lot. At least I have never seen an American style mall there.'

There are a range of reasons why different patterns of shopping evolved - the city planning law and codes has had an impact (on shopping at least.)

In Australia we have your shopping malls, in fact Australians made some inroads into the US; not sure how they are currently going. What makes them malls (although we also call them shopping centres, or boringly 'integrated' shopping centres, is single ownership. This contrasts with strip shopping which is all in separate ownership. In between we have arcades, which might be like your 'strip malls' - these tend to go between streets and are pedestrian only. They are usually one owner as well. Much shopping just follows the main roads - the old English 'high street' idea. In Sydney strip shopping can go for many kilometres on one road - eg. Parramatta Road.

I think in China the 'vertical' ones (say 8 stories) you refer to are usually called department stores (these have also changed their nature over the years.) But there are American style malls as well, larger and usually just 3 or 4 levels, large developments by a single developer, with car parking, but mainly served by metro and buses. But in China strip shopping is still king, for the moment. I think I will just ask people what they think these things are called in China.

A strip mall is a line of connected shops each with an entrance to the outside (facing the street or parking lot). We called them shopping centers in the 60's but then came the Malls. Malls have the walkway and shop entrances indoors and are usually larger with twists and turns and multiple stories. The term strip mall came into use to differentiate the little strip malls from the major malls, which continued to get bigger and bigger. Many cities also have a "strip" of road along which there are many businesses and shops. Like "the strip" in Las Vegas. Language does what language does, and often it is sparked by the media.The malls in China are all vertical, with 8 or 10 levels and no parking lot. At least I have never seen an American style mall there.

Strip mall is a term that doesn't make sense to me. In Australia we have broadly three types of shopping : strip shopping which lines main roads , local shopping centres, and the shopping mall.

Strip mall seems to be unsure about what it is, an oxymoron.

yeah, not quite the same as a strip bar..

I don't recall Qing Wen going awol before, but it could just be a technical glitch. I don't know.

Hi Mark. I looked up photos on Google. We have them too - everywhere - but we just call them Shopping Centres.

Has Qingwen gone AWOL before?

mr_trendy, in this case "strip" refers to the architecture. The stores are all in a line, kind of like a strip of paper. Kind of like a blank strip of paper recently.

Please promise you'll keep your shirt on too, Onslow.

I'm surprised I haven't heard this term before. I usually at least recognise Americanisms, even though I might not know what they refer to.

Indeed. Keep your shirt on. 不是脱衣服的地方。 而是 一条 的意思。