Culture and TCFL
Here’s a revealing article about how Mandarin is being taught in New Zealand. It opens with this line:
‘Confucius say getting Kiwis to learn Chinese is like banging head against brick wall.’
It continues:
‘Confucius Institute director Nora Yao says the aim to make New Zealanders China-literate sometimes seems impossible.’
One problem here lies with expectations. Too many people are drinking the ‘30 million’ kool aid. The true global demand for Mandarin is nowhere near the numbers that the Chinese government has bandied about. That myth has created some totally unrealistic expectations, like, perhaps, the one that NZ schools might suddenly, and en masse, embrace Mandarin into their core curricula in the space of a few short years (or in this case, one year).
But here’s another take on the reasons for the slow adoption from a NZ high school principal.
“We can’t find the time to fit it into our busy curriculum, and also it’s not easy finding a teacher who is proficient in teaching Mandarin”
I think the principal is closer to the mark. Miss Yao sees it as a lack of interest on the part of the Kiwis, not of anything to do with the teachers/purveyors. I somehow find that a weak argument. It may be coincidental, but in my experience, struggling teachers almost always blame the students for the problems. (I trained/observed teachers for 12 years.) Is it the congenital laziness of the New Zeland public, or is it teachers/methods that are at fault? My guess is, the latter.
Even with the best intentions, Mandarin teachers who rely on traditional methods will struggle badly in western schools. What’s worse, they oftern fail to figure out why western students are so unresponsive to their hard work. I’ve seen it happen. It is painful and unrewarding for all concerned. It can lead to the cancellation of Mandarin programs before they ever take off, because teachers think the students are lazy and students think the language is impossible. The problem will continue until there is a well defined discipline of TCFL. At the risk of sounding self-serving, they’d be better off for now using ChinesePod.
Ken Carroll
Tags: Chinese, Confucius Institutes, learning Mandarin, tcfl
February 26th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Oh my god, Ken, you could not be more right! My non-Asian son is in an excellent immersion Mandarin program in the US and we could not be more committed to helping him learn. But the boys in his class are constantly getting into trouble for anything that deviates from the “sitting quietly and absorbing Chinese” mode of learning. It is frustrating because these kids are trying so hard, but there doesn’t seem to be much understanding of the idea of differentiated learning. It’s not lack of interest or laziness, kids just can’t sit still for hours on end…
February 26th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I think one of the biggest obstacles to learning Chinese for many Westerners is simply that they have little or no prior experience of hearing it (or they discover for the first time that the Cantonese sounds they may have heard are not applicable here).
Apart from the differences in the two languages the difference in background between a Chinese person learning English and a Westerner learning Chinese is vast. Any system really needs to address this and allow the learner to bed in. One of my few minor criticisms of the CPOD podcasts is I feel the newbie lessons could do with a run through of the dialogue at full speed but having said that CPOD was one of the ways I started acquiring an ear for the language.
Mandarin to Westerners is not going to work anything like teaching it to Chinese speakers of other dialects (who almost certainly have got at least background exposure).
I don’t feel any schools in England would benefit from mandatory lessons at the moment, the kids are not going to get fired up, they don’t even have the Anime angle that Japanese has to enthuse a few. Lessons for kids as an option may work but what is going to make them choose them? Their parents may feel there will be a financial payback but on a large scale that is not yet proven.
What compelling reason is there for a non Chinese child to learn to speak it yet? Parents ambitions aren’t going to cut it in the West on a large scale (for better or worse our kids have largely broken free of that).
This actually makes me feel good in the same way that I read there is huge looming IT skills gap in the UK (most students these days qualifying in soft subjects like Creative Writing). As a Chinese speaking IT worker it looks like the latter half of my working life may be rosy
Come on, I know the music metaphor is often overloaded in many ways but would anyone seriously attempt to start teaching how to play Jazz to a bunch of people who had not one jot of experience listening to it? Would it be better to introduce them to the music first, then teach the ones who were still interested how to play it?
Maybe the Olympics will change things a little, increasing exposure surely will, I may have started observing the beginnings here http://friedelcraft.blogspot.com/2008/02/market-trader-chinese.html
February 26th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
bai3hui4,
I sympathize entirely. The ‘method’ for a Chinese teacher often goes far beyond analyzing the language. On a recent visit to a local school I saw posters on the walls demonstrating “How to listen” for the children. The diagrams pictured a smiling, rosy-cheeked kid, sat bolt-upright with arrows indicating to how his ankles, kees, elbows were all expected to be placed during his 8 hours of paying attention to the teacher. If this is part of the deal, very few westenr paents are going to biuy into it - and rightly so.
Chris,
Actually, your suggestion for the dialog at normal speed, even for newbies, is a good one. I’ll take it up with the guys today. I also agree that mandatory lessons for British school kids would amount to putting nails in Mandarin coffin, before the thing even got started.
Training and inducting Chinese teachers inbt othe western ways is already holding back the spread of mandari nas s world language, but solutions are few and far between.
And, btw, Chris, I can see that your Mandarin has come on really well - Chinese blog and all. I’m truly impressed.
Ken Carroll
February 27th, 2008 at 3:30 am
A few random thoughts, not trying to put a spanner in the works, just put things in perspective :
1) what have British (resp. American, French etc.) schools done in terms of language teaching for European languages that has demonstrably resulted in kids being able to communicated in more than one language?
2) is Chinese education (languages or otherwise) so bad that it has resulted in a disaster for the country, are the Chinese exchange students at such a disadvantage that they grab most of the PhDs in Western universities?
3) how fundamentally different is the Chinese language to a child than Italian for an English speaker or German for a French speaker? I am fully aware of the morphological, tonal, grammatical, and writing differences is being completely unrelated (to English) really an issue, again for a child who may not try to apply intellectual reasoning to communication?
4) you have conversations in English on this and other forums until the cows come home, and make sure learning is all fun, I’m all for it. But at the end of the day, I’d be interested to know how much perspiration (vs improvisation) did the likes of John Pasden to get to the level they’re at in Chinese (I’m talking about adults here). Conversely, how many CPod graduates have graduated in Chinese conversation through fun only (metaphorically, but I mean have demonstrated improved functional skills without any effort?
February 27th, 2008 at 3:32 am
sorry about the typos etc., I was a little too fast…
February 27th, 2008 at 5:45 am
@Goulniky
Good points, let me try to answer.
I don’t think European language education is done well in British schools at all but some kids do come out of it with functional ability, usually because they get fired up with the Romance of French or Spanish, or they get the travel bug at an early age. One of my sons likes German one French both are happy right now to watch material in these languages etc. and have a learning enthusiasm, both have encountered speakers of these languages and visited the countries where they are spoken, both have been able to interact with children that speak these languages, both already realise that simply getting a good grade in their examinations at age 16 will not be enough to speak it, both are willing to do the extra work themselves to get that ability (at the moment).
Undeniably many European teenagers can speak English pretty well (well I come across a fair few), I assume this is more down to culture and media exposure than education. The point I was trying to make is that In many countries Chinese does not even have that foot in the door.
Many European kids could easily tell that someone was speaking English, or German or French or Italian even without knowing what was said. Mandarin doesn’t have that either (if they have a feeling about what Chinese sounds like it is more likely Cantonese).
Point 3 skips back to previous points in that European children have a high exposure to other European languages, there are even examples of mainstream programming for little kids that have French and Spanish, just like many Chinese kids appear to have exposure to English. Mandarin however may as well be Martian at the point of introduction and that must be taken into to account.
Point 4 is key, and difficult to address, Ken mentioned my Chinese blog but actually I cringe a little looking at it now the last post is almost a year old. I tend to focus more on listening and talking but reading and writing are coming on, also I probably do myself a disservice as I approach most Chinese writing tasks as fast as possible and try to make minimal use of a dictionary. I prefer to analyse what I produced after the event.
I have no classes, no Chinese family, no Chinese colleagues, have never lived in a Chinese speaking country, full time job, three kids, other hobbies, have ‘wasted’ some time learning a little Cantonese. After almost exactly two years I feel I have made significant progress, I talk to as many Chinese people as I can find, read subtitles etc. How good am I at Mandarin? I haven’t got a clue.
I intend to address this more this year, I would like to demonstrate that you can get pretty good without living there, or taking formal instruction etc. in three years as a hobby. I prefer face to face talking but am quite happy to release videos or recordings later on, writing is useless as a measure because after a certain point the key issue is how long did you spend on it (comments in blog posts being a case in point as many would indicate that I have not mastered English yet).
If I have an objective that would simply be to be provably better at Mandarin after three years than what is expected for someone taking three years of traditional formal study (fulltime!).
For now I can tell you that I can pick a random Advanced Cpod lesson and should get most of the gist of it in one sitting but may take many listenings to get everything (with a little dictionary help via what I hear I don’t use the text). A typical Imandarinpod podcast is easier I may get most in one go and have learnt Chengyu and the accompanying stories from a couple of these with just a few listens in the past. A CLO (Chinese Learning Online) podcast (the later ones) are easier still and usually only have a word or two that are unfamiliar but can guess from context. Princess Remy podcasts or SBS Chinese drama shows usually require a little more effort but are doable, Crayon XiaoXin cartoons are often easier (probably because of the video). I can often read Chinese subtitles and sometimes entire paragraphs (depending on content) in blog or twitter posts. My longest conversation with a Chinese person entirely in Chinese was 30mins (more that a little strained in places and I felt like I needed to lay down afterwards).
This year I hope a lot more will drop into place. I can think of at least two other Cpod users who may have surpassed me somewhat in a similar timescale but there must be many more (I haven’t used the forums much recently).
心急吃不了热豆腐，我知道学会中文需要很多时间，不过我一点也没有怕。对我来说传统的学习方法没有什么用处，我发现了一个适合我的系统，CPOD是一部分，而且很多别的网上学习内容。我随时着机会讲中文，我比较喜欢面对面的聊天。
An example of the type of thing I can often say and get away with in conversation, I am sure it is full of errors but I get understand and in a few weeks time I will be a little better…. It didn’t take me much more time to type than an similar English paragraph.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Editing the above, just listened to a couple of new imandarinpod podcasts understood first time, 90% of the content required no thought whatsoever most of the remaining 10% just needed a little concentration, I know they speak on the slow side but it is all in Chinese. I’ll try some Advanced Cpod lessons again.
Also the example above was derived from the context of talking to Westerners I have never yet felt like telling a Chinese person that traditional methods are useless (I don’t feel that would be advisable most of the time). I have spoken recently to some younger Chinese though that have different attitudes for example agreeing that initially it is pointless for Westerners to learn to handwrite Hanzi (one, an engineer admitted that she sometimes struggles to handwrite after using a computer for so long).
These days if I meet a Chinese person I am invariably asked how long I lived in China. Either that or they casually talk to me for a little while in Chinese before suddenly registering surprise.
February 28th, 2008 at 2:05 am
Luckily my high school Chinese classes were taught by a lively red-haired American lady who was anything but traditional. She would jump around the classroom and have us tell the silliest stories we could think of in Chinese (elephants wearing 饺子 patterned underwear, Chinese leaders riding lobsters to install the biggest toilet in the world in the 黄河， 等等） I think if it wasn’t for her I would have been unmotivated and bored. Of course, when I went to University it was a completely different story - very traditional teachers - but by that time I was interested enough in the language to stick with it and actually somewhat enjoy a more “traditional” approach (strange.. i know…but i thought it was cool and helpful how my teacher would tell us the different components of a character, what they meant in ancient times, which radical held meaning and which one was for sound. But I won’t lie. I still missed my high school method.)
But I really feel bad for those students who start out with boring traditional methods and learn to be afraid of Chinese instead of chilling out and having fun with it first.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Sounds like Nora has bought into the instrumental reasoning for learning a language hook, line and sinker. The reasons she used works well in China but it ain’t gonna fly among many of the young in English speaking countries (yet).
There has to be something very intrinsic to the lesson that makes learning compelling. Fun works. Wanting to please an adult work can work. Making friends in the language works. Singing works. Being successful and getting praise works. Playing games work.
Telling young kids that they need to learn a foreign language because they will get better jobs goes over like a lead balloon with most young kids. Going into the classroom with that understanding of motivation results in exactly what you observed; an attitude on the part of the teachers that the students are lazy and the parents are uncommitted.
I’d recommend that this teacher watch the movie Patch Adams and report back.
March 21st, 2008 at 7:05 am
My first visit here, but not the last. Has anyone looked at what difference the age of the learner has on optimal methodology for learning?
I’ve been reading a lot about the brain and the neural processes that occur prior to, say, age 10 or 15. There’s still not that much language instruction in the U.S. prior to high school (ages 14 - 18), which means even for western languages with structure similar to English, students are starting with something of a handicap.
March 22nd, 2008 at 1:16 am
Dave,
I think that age definitely impacts learning and certainly language learning. Generally speaking, the earlier you start a second language the better, though there is much disagreement on how and when that effect really works. I hadn’t realized that before high school, most American kids get little language education. That would indeed explain a lot!
Ken
March 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 am
Ken, my own kids are long since out of high school, but when my youngest was in seventh grade (around age 12), he was able to take an “intro to languages” class. This course spent about 9 weeks on each of four languages, sort of dipping toes into those linguistic lakes.
This in the Fairfax, Virginia public schools, regarded as one of the best overall systems in the U.S.
Ironically, the previous summer, he’d gotten the language bug on his own. He and I picked out a beginner’s book for Latin (his idea), and within two weeks, he was able to translate an entire page in the (presumably fictionalized) life of young Horatius.
Taking a highly engaging approach, the book told of the boy’s world, including his troubles with the bully Decimus, who unwisely mouthed off to the teacher. Decimus durus est, sed stultus — Decimus is strong, but dumb.
March 23rd, 2008 at 5:46 am
Well, having said that, I wondered what the actual numbers might be…
In the first part of this summary from the National Center for Education Statistics, of high school grads in 2004, 15.5% had no foreign language, 16.1% had one year or less, and 33.9% had two years. Just shy of two-thirds, with two years or less.
On the other end of the scale, 5.4% of grads had advance placement levels in foreign language.
(Tangentially, a report in the New York Times earlier this week told about many states having inflated their graduation rates, which may be as low as 70% nationwide.)