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How do you fix a boring Chinese course?

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IN THIS LESSON
ID: 1498 Upper Intermediate
Foreigners everywhere are working hard at learning Chinese. Unfortunately, many of those sincere students find themselves learning from boring, poorly designed material. In this lesson we take a look at this issue from the angle of the school and the teachers, who are asking each other: what can we do to make these Chinese classes more interesting?
Tue Sep 14 2010 | John, Jenny
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Detailed Vocabulary
Each lesson has it's unique vocabulary and will provide you with definitions and recordings so you can practice the pronunciation. You will also be able to grasp the core material of a lesson at a glance. Here we're showing you the Simplified Chinese version.
SIMPLIFIED PINYIN ENGLISH  
反映 fǎnyìng to report
教材 jiàocái teaching materials
语法点 yǔfǎdiǎn grammar point
编 biān to compose, to write
今天老板很生气，有学生反映上课太无聊，要求退学费。
jīntiān lǎobǎn hěn shēngqì ，yǒu xuésheng fǎnyìng shàngkè tài wúliáo ，yāoqiú tuì xuéfèi 。
Boss is really angry today. Some students have complained that the classes are too boring, and they're demanding that their tuition be returned.
哎，主要是我们用的教材太无聊了，学生都没兴趣学，特别是欧美学生。
āi ，zhǔyào shì wǒmen yòng de jiàocái tài wúliáo le ，xuésheng dōu méi xìngqù xué ，tèbié shì Ōuměi xuésheng 。
Agh, the main thing is that the materials we use are too boring. None of the students feel like studying; especially the Western students.
就是。对话都是按照语法点编的，很生硬。有些话平时我们根本不那样说。
jiùshì 。duìhuà dōu shì ànzhào yǔfǎdiǎn biān de ，hěn shēngyìng 。yǒuxiē huà píngshí wǒmen gēnběn bù nàyàng shuō 。
Exactly. The dialogs are all written according to grammar points – they sound forced. Some of those expressions we would never say in daily life.
中高级教材偏重阅读理解，大概是为考HSK服务的吧。对提高口语帮助不大。
zhōnggāojí jiàocái piānzhòng yuèdú lǐjiě ，dàgài shì wèi kǎo HSK fúwù de ba 。duì tígāo kǒuyǔ bāngzhù bùdà 。
The upper-intermediate materials stress reading comprehension, which is mostly for taking the HSK. It doesn't do much for one's spoken language.
Natural Dialogues
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