first weeks done. i'm exhausted. today we had a test on the past weeks material which was equal to four weeks of regular chinese. i got a 95. that's the other thing the teachers here are REALLY good about. they return everything you turn in the same day. i'll hand in my homework at 8 in the morning and find it waiting at my door by 3 pm.
anyhow, i entered the week feeling strong. like a tiger. and i'm leaving feeling weak. like a snake. thus the chinese saying 虎头蛇尾 (tiger head, snake tail). i realized i haven't really spoken any english for since last saturday and i keep catching myself trying to speak chinglish or attempting to speak in chinese with english grammar and being frustrated because it just doesn't work.
so after the 2 hour test today they immediately shepherded us into our weekly culture activity: going to another college and chatting with chinese student. honestly, it would've tight, but after a test nobody wants to be forced to do anything. all i wanted to do was sleep. the girl i talked to was nice though. although she spoke really fast.
now i'm finally off. i can't believe i used to go to high school five days a week from 8-2! this is a lot like high school in the amount of free time we have. always something new. i think we're meeting with our "host" families either today or tomorrow too.
nectar must be wrung out.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
that being said...
the teachers here are also extremely talented. honestly, i've never had so many good teachers. maybe it is because there is such a large talent pool here or maybe because china has a more standardized school of education which has led to a more efficient way of teaching effective teaching methods, or maybe it's just that ACC is really amazing at hiring and supporting teachers. who knows. but all the teachers are extremely friendly, they all had our names memorized with pictures we sent earlier so that they greeted me with a familiar sounding "nihao wang qinhui!" and they seem to genuinely want and pursue activities with us OUTSIDE the classroom. it's still early, but they seem very interested in us, and us learning chinese. no matter where we are or what we are talking about outside of class they'll stop you and tell you to repeat it until its perfected before the conversation can move on, and yet they still maintain there interest in the conversation (which the intensity usually has greatly dipped due to the corrections). it's amazing.
plus the number of teachers is something amazing. something like 39 teachers for 59 students! and all the teachers already know my name!
of course the more pessimistic view of all this is that the american dollar goes much farther than it does in the US.
plus the number of teachers is something amazing. something like 39 teachers for 59 students! and all the teachers already know my name!
of course the more pessimistic view of all this is that the american dollar goes much farther than it does in the US.
ACC 的教书办法
过了两天的课以后我发现这个这个经历会一定会很辛苦。 我们每天有四节课。 上课一天前我们得做作业，看好我们的新科文，和记得60到100汉字！ 我上大办课的时候有一个听写的考试然后复习语法。 下个课就是小半课。 这门课只有四个学生！ 这门课让我非常紧张因为老师很快地问我们语法的例子。 然后我上对话课和单班课。 这两门课是我最喜欢的。 我们跟一个老师用那天的语法和生子聊天儿。 这四门课真让我累。 下午呢？ 吃午饭以后我就在开始预习我下篇课文。 我觉得我会每天12电才睡觉！除了上课以外我们还得支持我们的语言誓约。 我的脑子月来粤风狂！
But I can write in english. so at least i have one outlet. right now, my body screams for a germanic language or even a romance one. at times i find myself about to let a french word fly even though it's been over two years since i last spoke. (a french accent doesn't count as french, for those of you who have heard me speak french in the last two years). I think this first week will be the hardest on my mind and body... hopefully. I have to get rid of systems i've used since i was young and replace them with entirely different structures, and it seems to take a while for the electric currents in my brain to carve out new paths on which to flow. i just hope i don't start speaking english in my sleep and pollute chinese atmosphere and undermine the sanctity of the language pledge.
Furthermore, the teaching style here is 厉害 (intense). Unlike the liberal arts method of my past, this style forces the student to be engaged. My whole life it's always been the students choice whether he speaks or doesn't speak even in language classes. For me it was more like I had a right not speak rather to speak. Here, the mind can not meander in any kind of whimsical (albeit interesting) pondering. Rather, it must be constantly must follow the teacher's train of thought, i.e. the lesson. For example, whenever (and I mean whenever) the teacher says something new like a grammar structure, an example, or vocab we, the students must all repeat exactly what she said in unison, and she scours the four-person class for mistakes to point out to everyone. Sometimes we are even expected to know exactly what the teacher is going to say and say it along with her with only a single nod for a signal. This could be anything from a word to an entire sentence from the the text we read for that days class. Needless to say, this is something I've never experience before and the classroom habits I've developed in the United States are not exactly complementary nor even adaptable to this environment. Some might call it laziness, but nevertheless it has got me through of my American schooling successfully. So it's frustrating when I find myself entertaining a cool thought in class and I get called on to answer a question or give an example with only ONE correct answer. But I think there's a lot to be gained from this: discipline, concentration, and even a different kind of social skill that is somewhat close to acting. We shall see.
But I can write in english. so at least i have one outlet. right now, my body screams for a germanic language or even a romance one. at times i find myself about to let a french word fly even though it's been over two years since i last spoke. (a french accent doesn't count as french, for those of you who have heard me speak french in the last two years). I think this first week will be the hardest on my mind and body... hopefully. I have to get rid of systems i've used since i was young and replace them with entirely different structures, and it seems to take a while for the electric currents in my brain to carve out new paths on which to flow. i just hope i don't start speaking english in my sleep and pollute chinese atmosphere and undermine the sanctity of the language pledge.
Furthermore, the teaching style here is 厉害 (intense). Unlike the liberal arts method of my past, this style forces the student to be engaged. My whole life it's always been the students choice whether he speaks or doesn't speak even in language classes. For me it was more like I had a right not speak rather to speak. Here, the mind can not meander in any kind of whimsical (albeit interesting) pondering. Rather, it must be constantly must follow the teacher's train of thought, i.e. the lesson. For example, whenever (and I mean whenever) the teacher says something new like a grammar structure, an example, or vocab we, the students must all repeat exactly what she said in unison, and she scours the four-person class for mistakes to point out to everyone. Sometimes we are even expected to know exactly what the teacher is going to say and say it along with her with only a single nod for a signal. This could be anything from a word to an entire sentence from the the text we read for that days class. Needless to say, this is something I've never experience before and the classroom habits I've developed in the United States are not exactly complementary nor even adaptable to this environment. Some might call it laziness, but nevertheless it has got me through of my American schooling successfully. So it's frustrating when I find myself entertaining a cool thought in class and I get called on to answer a question or give an example with only ONE correct answer. But I think there's a lot to be gained from this: discipline, concentration, and even a different kind of social skill that is somewhat close to acting. We shall see.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
My Blogging Philosophy
I'm currently studying abroad in Beijing, China with the ACC program. This program is extremely language intensive. For six months I will be studying solely studying the Chinese language. Moreover, we take a pledge to only speak in Chinese. This pledge purports to not only make us speak in Chinese but eventually think, analyze, and dream in Chinese.
Thus, I think that while I will be maintaining this blog the majority of it will not be in English. Instead, I plan I using Chinese and images. The language of images is another dialect I've been working to attain fluency in, so I will be posting low-quality videos on this blog too that hopefully will give a sense of what's going on in my life, my thoughts, and ACC.
That said, I'm tired. Might be going out to Sanlitunr, the big club/bar street in Beijing, but I really don't want to. Yet, I only have the next 18 hours to speak English with my fellow ACC students! Some perhaps I will go out.
d
Thus, I think that while I will be maintaining this blog the majority of it will not be in English. Instead, I plan I using Chinese and images. The language of images is another dialect I've been working to attain fluency in, so I will be posting low-quality videos on this blog too that hopefully will give a sense of what's going on in my life, my thoughts, and ACC.
That said, I'm tired. Might be going out to Sanlitunr, the big club/bar street in Beijing, but I really don't want to. Yet, I only have the next 18 hours to speak English with my fellow ACC students! Some perhaps I will go out.
d
Thursday, June 21, 2007
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