As I wrote last week, instead of a level assesment test, the teacher just asked me whether I can write and on hearing my "no" sent me to the beginner's class. So, today I was expecting to get a brush-up on pronunciation and the pinyin/zhuyin notations. I think I could really need some perfection of my pronunciation, focusing on some of the similar-sounding sounds (like q, j, ch, zh, z, c) and the tones.
However, unfortunately and surprisingly, our first class today started with a very short introduction for tones (which I admit was useful, because the teacher explained the third tone different from how I know it and I think that helped me), but the she went on teaching us some words with special attention to the tone, but with no attention to the sound. In fact, she was using only Pinyin and assuming that we all know it. Also, I hoped to see some writing, but there was none at all.
So I was a little disappointed and I am questioning what value there is in a mostly oral course when I explicitly stated that I want to learn to write. I also just had a look at my school book and saw that it mostly contains things which I have already learned two or three times over.
So I went to the school's office after lunch and they told me to speak to Ms. Li tomorrow Morning about how to proceed.
I think that learning to write is mostly done at home by yourself and I already started learning the week I arrived here. I just hope that I can attend a class which also talks about writing each character as it is introduced. I have seen that done in other places and I think it doesn't take too much class time away if the teacher just shows the character, talks about it's radical and components and gives a chart of the stroke order.
So much for now, let's see how things go.
No comments:
Post a Comment