User Comments - alwingate

Posted on: Working Hours

Enjoyed cultural demo - dancing on the streets.  They are professionals, but I doubt they are getting paid to do it.  Yet, this is something that is not seen in the west - a demonstration, self forming which is serious entertainment.  It is nice to learn about the culture too.

Nice to see Ayric Queen again, though a bit subdued.  Potato Chips?  Source of disease.

Posted on: Working Hours

And here is what we get: read comments.

Posted on: Working Hours

For those of you who would like to hear a different opinion on pace of language in the light of modern teaching practices and I will send you a sample of what I think things should be like.  This is not a come on; nothing to sell.  It is just a sample of the way I think things ought to be but aren't.  

Focus is on:

Patterns

Lexical Chunks

A useful review

Collocation of ideas and expressions in a language focus.

Appropriate pace for Newbie and Elementary lessons.

Expansions that proceed from easy to difficult.

A policy on Pinyin vs Traditional characters for beginners.  

Of course, Jenny and Ken are the best teachers I have run into.  And, I have run into many including working in AK with the teacher of the year and over the years working in the same class room with superlative teachers.  Fantastic teaching is an art and just knowing a subject is not enough.  A good reader or analyst may not be a good teacher.  Jenny expressed the opitimum example of how pace should be handled early on, but lately has sped up her presentation for whatever reason.  Too bad.  Beauty and music of the language; hard to come by and easily destroyed.

It is nothing more than a podcast I have done to illustrate what I think is an improved approach to what is happening here at CPod.  

I want to reiterate that this is not a gimmick.  Think of this as nothing more than a statement of opinion in the form of a demonstration.

I think Chinese Pod has several weaknesses in its approach to the teaching of languages which have become learning obstacles for me.  So, to remove the frustration I have structured some lessons on my own as a demonstration of what I think could improve lessons here.  Generally, there is a lot of entertainment value in CPod, but a lot of resources are spent in being hip, slick and cool; however I would like to see some resources put into improving a number of things in the Expansion Section as well as the add on's such as flash cards and the like.  We would  say about teachers that looked good, were smart but for whatever reason could not teach that they were all fluff and no stuff.  Much here falls in that category.  It is entertainment not education.  Does anyone listen to Movie Madness?  Please!  Boring.  The bottom line is this: How well is CPod doing at teaching the Chinese language?  To me, there is a lot of room for improvement which generally falls on deaf ears.

However, it appears successful. Perhaps that is the name of the game.  It is the way of the western world - all fluff and no stuff.  Sad to say.

Posted on: Working Hours

There are quite a few broken links both in the vocabulary section and also in the Dialogue and Expansion sections.  I can proof read these for you guys for a small fee.  No trouble.  Just go through the lesson.

Posted on: Seoul

I rank this lesson as a one due to poor Expansion level content and listless reading of content.  Though when I clicked one star it said I give it three stars.  Far from a three.

We are not all of the new generation of floaters, so perhaps a little consideration in our direction is warranted.  Far too many frivolous topics/bar scenes/beauty pageants... I am a non-drinker, not a high frequency item to throw dice in a bar and call someone a faker.  Content has gone into the gutter.

Posted on: Seoul

Maybe real elementary students should be called advanced Newbies and Newbies called Pre Newbies and those just starting out from scratch...Newfers.

Posted on: Seoul

Elementary now more difficult than intermediate.  TESL approach in Intermediate needs revamping in my opinion.  
Are there any true elementary students on this site?  I feel like I am the only one. 

Posted on: Seoul

I finished the lesson -- just barely. No joy here.

Lost the music of the language; lexical chunks what are they; Beijin-Juar- just learned something else the other day; don't feel successful; lesson was very lengthy; wanted to throw my computer out the window; not developmental; she dreamed of consciousness...

-- The Joy of Learning by Al Wingate

Posted on: Seoul

我不想跟人家一样。
(I don't want to be the same as other people.)

Cut-and-paste is a wonderful thing  is it not.

I just want to comment on that particular sentence which is in the expansion section. Bottom line: the words were said way too fast and were slurred together. The expansion moderator is my teacher. I listen to her as I would a teacher. Now keep in mind we are talking elementary. Literally, that is first through sixth grade. Now that may be an acceptable rate of speech for an intermediate or advanced who have the vocab neatly tucked away in their minds. But, remember that some of these phrases the elementary student are hearing for the first time. So it is very important that the words are heard accurately. I know that some people when speaking speak at that rate. But this is a learning situation and is in my opinion it should be dealt with in that fashion.

This whole thing about what is elementary is a useful discussion. I want to be as successful elementary student. I am not a newbie. Newbie lessons are fun because they are easy. But the quote that I gave you above is a party stopper.

I have always felt that a good teacher removes as many learning obstacles as possible. There will always be learning obstacles because we all are so different.  So it is a challenge for the teacher always.  But, the rate of speech is always something to keep in mind.

In elementary school textbooks the highest level of the curriculum from the standpoint of sentence structure are two sentences together.

I notice that quite often in the expansion section of the elementary lesson there are two simple sentences joined by commas. Maybe this is necessary or maybe it is a convention of the Chinese language. But in most cases a simple period would do between sentences.   It is a curiosity that the sentences are structured that way. I don't know why this is. So I said all that really too asked the question why are so many commas used in the expansion sentences of the elementary lessons? I rarely see that many commas in written English language. I haven't check out the posts here, but there probably are not too many structures like the ones I have been mentioning.

I like Chinese pods' fresh look. I have not looked at the substance of the site but the cosmetics are delightful.

This lesson for me was difficult due to the complexity of the expansion sentences. Ray says that it was a nice and easy lesson. I am wondering if he is referring to the dialogues because in that sense I would agree with them. But for me, this lesson was very challenging and at this point I have been unable to finish it due to time constraints.

I do have a concern that the comments made in this section to  may come from more advanced students. This could be misleading to the staff -- both internal and external,  since I am sure that discussions are made about each lesson and its effectiveness. So if an advanced student says this lesson was easy the staff might think -- "we need to make these lessons harder."

So I'd like to make a gentle reminder that you are dealing with elementary students and think of them as students who are in perhaps the fourth fifth or sixth grades.

Posted on: One-on-One Basketball

Standuke.  Please don't apologize for your values.  Cultures are being corrupted daily with crude language as well as other societal maladies. 

It got so bad- the language- I could not take my children to a baseball game because of the extremely crude language.  You think second hand smoke is bad?  Try some of this air pollution on for size.

And in this the Jihadist extremists are correct.  The culture of the west is a corrupting influence.  It is what happens when there are no rules.