Seeking participants for a small research project.

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***STUDY IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS TO ALL THOSE THAT HELPED!***

As the title suggests, I'm currently seeking participants for a small research project I'm doing for my Chinese Phonology class (華語語音教學研究). If you're looking for a few tips on how to improve your Mandarin Chinese pronunciation or just wanna help out, than please take 15 minutes to participate!

Who can participate?
If you meet the follow criteria please feel free to participate in the survey.

• Non-native speaker of Mandarin Chinese
• Have recognition of at least 300 basic Chinese characters

How do I participate?
If you would like to participate in the survey please download either the traditional or simplified file from the Google Doc folder I've created. Having trouble access the doc? Email me (see below) and I'll send you the file.

After you've finished you can either upload your document (if you have a Google account) or email it to me. My email is  gaojian85 (at) gmail (dot) com. 

What you should see when you open the link.

In order to participate you must have access to the following programs:

• Microsoft Word (or a program capable of opening a Word doc.)
• Audio Recording Program

If you have any questions or concerns please leave them in the comments below. 非常感謝！ 

Of course, your participation will remain anonymous and be used for research purposes only.

Classes are over but the lessons carry on.

Tweet Two weeks ago my friend and student left Taiwan (for now), returning to America to take a teaching position at UW-Milwaukee. While our last lesson certainly had elements of a typical language class, or at least our typical language class, it was more about asking what's next? Instead of spending two hours introducing new grammar patterns and new vocabulary, we decided to take a break from the Chinese and develop a plan for moving forward.

We spent time discussing short-term and long-term goals, and more importantly how to execute them. Rather than simply looking for end results, we tried to break tasks down into the smallest conceivable parts. Once we had the parts we put them all together with deadlines, expiration dates, and expected outcomes. It was awesome!

Ever since that last class I've been thinking a lot about the role of teachers, especially in the field of foreign language. While some teachers might take pride in how many chapters of a book they taught, or how many grammar points they covered, I left my last class simply hoping that, over the course of 14 months, I'd giving my friend a few tricks and insights into becoming a more independent language learner. I hope that my student left Taiwan knowing how to make her own decisions about what is considered critical, "must know," vocabulary. I hope they better understand the power of context in all forms of communication, and how to use this skill to learn even more. I hope my student learned that there are plenty of ways to talk about (and around) something, even when you don't have the word you're looking for.

These skills, to me, are far more important than me sharing every little bit of Chinese that I've learned over the past six years. Because, let's face it, there is never enough time to teach someone everything (especially when there is so much we don't know ourselves). We should, however, do everything in our power to make sure that students have the necessary tools to go on learning once the bell rings and class is over.

I truly believe that my role as "teacher" is about so much more than simply teaching Chinese. My goal, rather, is about making sure that my students don't make the same mistakes I made; to inspire (at least a few students if I can); and to provide the tools necessary to carry on once class ends and they step into the real world. I don't want to be a teacher, I want to serve as a guide. A guide who walks with students on their own path to self discovery. And I hope for my students sake that I lived up, at least in some way, to this lofty goal.

Actually, I take it back. I don't want to just be a guide... I want to be a guide that knows when to step aside and says "now it's your turn to teach me."

A Good Joke

Tweet This morning I pulled 《幽默漢語》( Chinese Humorous Stories) off the shelf and opened it for the first time ever. I really need to better understand Chinese humor, and I figure this is as good a starting point as any. I was drawn in by "不安" (Uneasiness), a joke about a thief. It goes like this:

法官：你在偷人家珠寶時，不感到心裡不安嗎？
小偷：先生，老實說我當時心裡是很不安，因為我擔心偷倒的是假貨。

Brilliant right? The book is actually quite good. It has a bunch of vocabulary I've never seen before, and each "lesson" is only a few lines. Heading to breakfast I started tossing around the idea of memorizing a bunch of these jokes. You know, add a few icebreakers to my "routine"... anything to help get me past the "Your Chinese is great! How long have you been living in Taiwan" part of meeting people. But then, I thought, when was the last time I heard anyone tell a joke? It's been longer than I could remember.

The gods must have heard my plea. The minute I finished eating, the breakfast shops owner walked over and asked me if I wanted to hear a "冷笑話" (cold joke). The joke went a little something like this.

There were two ants, a mother and her son. One day as they were looking for food and found a nice pile of shit to feast on. As they were eating the son looked up to his mom and asked, "Mom, why do we always have to eat shit." The mother looked up from her meal with scorn as said, "child, you know you're not suppose to talk about that sort of thing during dinner!"

WOW! 超冷. Now it was my turn. I cleared my throat, and began to tell the story of the thief and his uneasiness. In my excitement I forgot the fact that the thief was talking to a judge. I forgot the the whole "珠寶" part, and totally butchered the tones on “假貨." Basically, my joke sucked hard. After I corrected the tones and added the whole "talking to the judge" thing, my audience got it, and even laughed (I think they were giving me face), but I felt like a fool.

And then it dawned on me, telling a good joke is no easy task. The delivery has to be perfect, you can't mince words, and you certainly can't mess up the punch line.

I think learning to speak a language at a near-native level is very similar to telling a good joke. There is a difference between being able to simply say what you want and talking around what you want. There is a difference between hearing "I know what you mean, but we usually say it like this," and simply saying it how a native speaker says something. And there is certainly a difference between "not sounding like a foreigner," and "sounding like a native."

As I learn Mandarin, it is nice to be reminded of what it takes to tell a good joke. I might be able to talk about a thief feeling uneasy about something being fake... in front of a judge (almost forgot that part)...

But that is still a long way from delivering a perfect punch line.

Eight New Words

Tweet I just finished reading a New York Time's article about the latest greatest iPad. In the spirit of this blog I read the article in Chinese. Armed with my PeraPera popup dictionary I was ready for whatever wacky words the NYT Chinese translators were ready to throw at me.

I enjoyed the article and what it had to say about the propensity of tech companies to release new products every year. I also enjoyed the commentary about what this could do to the industry, especially since most large tech producers are all aiming for products that are more-or-less similar in design and feel. As a language learner, however, I had to quell the urge to "learn" everything I didn't already know from this single article. Instead, I asked myself what was important, and what kind of language would actually help me talk about similar topics with my friends?

In the end, I would estimate that I used the popup dictionary on roughly 50 Chinese words. Out of those 50 words, I decided that only eight actually fit the "talk about similar topics" criteria. They are:

矩形- rectangle
計劃性淘汰- planned obsolescence
更新- replace (I didn't know it was pronounced gēng)
營銷策略- marketing strategy
高端產品- high-end goods
款- version of software, device etc.
把戲 - trick
壽命- life span (who knew it could be used for inanimate things like phones?)

As for the other 41 I had to look up... maybe I'll learn them the next time they appear, but for today I can say with certainty that I learned eight new words. And that's good enough for me.

Teaching update 10/28/12

Tweet For the past year I've been working with a student on their Chinese in those spare moments of life. This person also happens to be a good friend, which can make it hard for me to go into total teacher mode. Especially since I keep class prep to an all time low. Recently, however, my student has found new inspiration and has been working hard on a full summary and presentation of what she has been doing in Taiwan for the past two years. She is a P.h.D. student so much of her life has been filled with research and collecting data for her case study. 

Unlike the past couple of months where casual conversation filled most of our class time, this month has been filled with a lot more task based learning strategies; or learning by doing. Similar to my own classes at NTNU, I had my student create a 大綱 outlining what she wants to cover in this presentation and why. The outline was all done in Chinese, and we have been slowly expanding the idea into something bigger during every class. The goal isn't to turn her presentation into something it isn't, which is why she is basically writing the entire thing herself. I feel like my mantra for this project is "the easier the better" in regards to what she is trying to say in Chinese. While I've suggested some useful grammar patterns and vocabulary along the way, this is totally her project. Like my own classes I've been taking online, my role is more to make sure that what she is saying simply works and makes sense in Chinese more than anything. 

While this might not be the best way to acquire new vocabulary or sentence patterns (expect in specific scenarios) I feel that it is a much better representation of what my student has actually accomplished during her time here in Taiwan. Not only in Chinese class, but in life in general. The coolest thing about this for me, as a teacher, is simply that I get to help her figure out the best way to tell that amazing story to others. I don't expect her to sound like 大山, especially given all the things she does in Taiwan that simply can't have a Chinese focus, but I do know that after we finish working on this project together she will be understood... and for second language learners that goal needs to come first.