MIN-MIN LIANG: What's the difference
between streamlined courses and regular Chinese courses?
I think in the beginning they said
that streamlined is obvious.
It's to make it faster.
So it turned out to be-- it just happened this way.
And when I start teaching here, it's already established.
So most students taking streamlined,
they're heritage learners.
You don't have to be a heritage learner at all as long
as your oral proficiency reaches a certain level.
So that means we don't start a class
with how to pronounce the words, because we assume you
have basic conversation skills.
So versus regular class, you start out
with all the language courses.
You start with pronunciations.
You start with the alphabet, that we call the [INAUDIBLE],
how to pronounce words.
And then you introduce everything,
just like from the start.
So for streamlined courses, we assume you have the oral skills
already at a certain level.
So that makes it very different.
And, I think, we're very fortunate to have this program
here, because we've got enough student
group to attend this course.
So my goal for this course is literacy building.
And this is the main component.
And the second thing is to help them too elevate their speaking
proficiency.
So I assume by [INAUDIBLE] standard,
when they exit this course, they could at least
reach the intermediate high to advanced low level
in terms of speaking.
So they came in there usually at intermediate low.
Even if you think intermediate low,
intermediate high is not much, but when
you try to push it to that direction,
it's harder and harder, because they get withdrawn
into their own little world.
They refuse to use new vocabulary.
They will just speak in their comfort zone.
So we need to push them.
It's really hard.
So that's my goal to aim at the discourse.
And the literacy, as I said it, some of them
took Chinese class when they were at elementary school,
some even in high school.
A lot of these kids they to so-called Sunday school
once a week.
So some of them do have some foundation to have Chinese
characters, but sound really don't.
So how do I start?
I make sure everybody learns same amount
of characters in the beginning.
The first month, we call it just pure memorization.
It's nothing, nothing tricky.
I hate to say there's just the effort you
need to memorize characters, because that's
how you learn to read.
There's no way-- other shortcut Let's put it this way.
It's because Chinese characters are not spelling.
It's like pictures.
You have to memorize them.
There are rules in there.
So after four weeks, people really struggle, for those
who've never done it before.
Because basically, every class, I
force them-- three hours a week, every class,
we have quiz, dictation.
So before the class, they have to memorize
50 characters at least.
Well, as I said, we're unique.
We're fortunate they're MIT students.
They're so useful, hard-working.
They complain, but they did it anyway.
So after one month, everybody, at least, has 250 characters.
Some do have more, because they learned this before.
But those who never attend Chinese schools, now they
have 250 characters.
So they can read now, because they know these characters
individually.
They put it in a sentence.
Now they can read a short paragraph.
So the moment they get to read the text,
they are just like so excited.
I can read.
So then there's the writing part.
So that's very different from regular,
because regular we have to focus so
much on four skills together.
Because for true beginners, if you
ask them to memorize characters, at same time how to pronounce
and speak is just too much.
So for heritage learners, for the streamlined class,
we can do it all together.
So that's a huge difference.
And, as I say, we're unique.
We're able to do that.
And I don't think my model is good for every university,
every high school, because it all
depends on your audience, your student group.
I have teachers from different universities
that they can't have just heritage learners
or streamlined classes.
They have to mix them up, which just
makes the teaching very difficult,
because some are here, some are here.
How do you make the balance?
So I said, I'm fortunate.
You know, I can't really give advice
for those teacher who are in the middle,
because this is totally different environment.