Recently, while attending an intermediate Chinese class for
five weeks, I felt myself hit an emotional rock-bottom. After class, I found
myself depressed, stressed, and with a lack of pride. While it is not my
intention to bash an interesting class, I understood that this class experience
wasn’t fun anymore and was not right for me.
While I’m always pro-learning Chinese, I also found out that
in order to maintain motivation to learn, the learning experience should be
fun, interesting, and manageable in a positive environment. Without any of
those four aspects, learning Chinese becomes a heavy anchor that makes us feel
like we are going nowhere even if we force ourselves to keep going.
MOTIVATION = FUN + INTERESTING + MANAGABLE + IN A POSITIVE
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Using myself as an example, I thought about what was
bothering me about this so-called “Intermediate” class, which I believe should
have been an advanced class. It is an advanced class because other students
were able to basically read, write, and speak Chinese already. I feel like I
have a handicap because my teacher treated me like I had a handicap.
FUN:
Having fun is different for everybody, but even a fun
activity becomes a stressed activity when the other three factors are missing:
interest, manageability, and positive environment.
My teacher tried to make class interesting by giving us a
picture and we had to create stories with it. I was okay with that, but in the
next class, she gave us flashcards and we had to pretend we were at the street
market haggling, taking turns as either a seller or a buyer.
For me, role playing is an interesting and fun activity, but
I was missing the manageability and the positive environment. In the beginning,
our teacher gave us flashcards and expected us to have the vocabulary necessary
for role playing without teaching us any vocabulary beforehand. Furthermore,
she told us we were not allowed to look at the pinyin or Chinese characters
when looking at the flashcards. To me, this fun and interesting activity
quickly became unmanageable and I had a hard time participating in it. I
struggled and my teacher asked my fellow classmate to help me out. The fact she
asked another student to pretend to be my shopping friend to help me out
contributed to the idea that I am not good enough to do this on my own. I was
really determined not to receive special treatment in any way. I felt my pride
being damaged. Normally, being helped by another student should not be a threat
to my pride at all, but because my teacher had pre-established a threatening environment
for me, I was determined to prove my teacher wrong and that I should not
receive special treatment. I’ll explain more about this aspect later.
INTERESTING:
Of course, the topic of learning Chinese is interesting for
me as the evidence is clear from the existence of this CantotoMando blog. The
dedication and time that I spent to break down the Chinese language into
manageable pieces is limited to my lifespan. Our textbook in class is so
interesting, but we don’t spend too much time on the textbook in the classroom.
The fact that the entire class was conducted in Chinese was difficult and
frustrating for me to understand because I am not at the level where I can simply
listen and understand what other people are saying. I have never skipped a
class even when it is pouring rain outside. Once a week, I traveled from Long
Island where I currently work to Flushing, which is about a half hour drive.
Afterwards, I parked my car ten minutes walking distance away from the train
station, and then I rode the subway to the Grand Central Station, which is
about a half hour ride. The school is about two blocks from Grand Central
Station. I would not do all this if not for my interest in the Chinese language
and the class. Unfortunately, with interest comes fun, but without
manageability, the class becomes a burden as I struggle to understand the
entire class in Chinese. While this is a new experience for me, the negatives
seems to outweigh the positives. Again, I’ll explain environment later.
Interestingly, I found that in the beginning we had a class
of seven students. By the third week, we had five students. By the fourth week,
we had three students including myself. Perhaps, the attendance numbers are
telling me something is wrong with the teacher’s teaching methods.
MANAGABLE:
No matter how difficult the class may seem, I plowed through
it. Although I consider myself a beginner to intermediate student, I believe
there is no task too difficult when the topic is broken down into manageable
sections. Unfortunately, the teacher does not teach in what I believe is my
style where everything is broken down and clearly understood from a student’s
point of view. Whenever the teacher explained something in Chinese, I either
have a delayed understanding or I don’t understand at all. There isn’t enough
time to process what she said because she would be off to the next sentence
already. I couldn’t keep up and my vocabulary is limited. In the end, I felt
frustrated and overwhelmed. I can’t even tell the teacher to slow it down since
the other students already understood. It was like watching Chinese TV or any
other foreign program without subtitles. Sure, I’ll understand a word here and
there, but I won’t fully comprehend what is going on. Because I couldn’t manage
the language, I wasn’t able to have as much fun or take as much interest in
what I was learning.
I have done many Chinese activities even though I had no
idea what was going on. I had interned at a Chinese TV station one summer in
Manhattan with minimal knowledge of Mandarin and I have listened to Chinese
music and had no clue what the lyrics meant. What made me keep going? Was it
the exciting environment I was in and the people I was working with? Was it the
fun and interest in the music itself? Nowadays, I listen to kpop music where I
have so much fun and interest in it and that not knowing the lyrics does not
bother me too much.
IN A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT:
I realized a positive environment is critically important. All
the other motivation factors such as fun, interest, and manageability are
meaningless when I feel as though I am in a bad environment. I can recall many
times when I was young, my Chinese teacher made fun of me often. I didn’t
understand why she picked on me, but to me, she’d always be a mean and miserable
lady in my memories who was really close to beating me with a stick. I thought
about quitting so many times. After all, I was close to being at the bottom of
my class in rank as stated on my report cards. What would people expect from a
student who was picked on in class? I’m uncertain what drove me to continue my
studies. Perhaps, it was my interest and pride in being Cantonese and the fact that
my parents already paid the tuition. Quitting is simply not an option in my
mind.
On the other hand, now that I am an adult, I have a choice.
I remember going to the first class and being positive. It was a good intro
class where we introduced ourselves and then we read the textbook. From the
second class on, my teacher started giving me and another classmate special
handicap treatment. She told me that she is going to work more with the other
students because they have already “been to China.” I came into this class
believing we would all be treated equally despite our level of comprehension or
our prior experiences. Whenever, we read aloud or completed exercises, she
asked the “advanced” students to read it first or answer the questions first. I
was always last priority. I couldn’t believe I faced discrimination. From that
point on, I felt like the class was tailored to the “advanced” students who are
going to China again at some point. Finally, the nail hit the coffin when, for
homework, my teacher told the two advanced students in my class to create three
sentences based on the words we learned and to also write a story. When it was
my turn, she told me I can make the three sentences, but if I have time or if I
feel like it, I can write a story too. I felt like the way she treated me was
insulting and no amount of fun, interest, and forced manageability can counteract
this negative environment where I am treated like a student with a handicap. It
would be different if the teacher treated us all as if we didn’t know what she
was saying. Every time she explained something, she looked at me specifically
and asked if I wanted her to explain in English or if I understood what she
said.
During the last class, I was also angry when my teacher was
holding up the flashcards and kept asking a student who went to Taiwan how to
say all the names of the flashcards in Taiwanese. She also asked another
student how the names were said in the Beijing dialect since that student went
to Beijing. Never once did she ask me about Cantonese, but then again, one time
in class, she thought I was Korean based on my last name. I lost my sense of
pride and confidence in class.
Needless to say, I have decided to discontinue the class
after the contracted five classes.
At some point, if the class is not what you are expecting,
then perhaps it is time to ask yourself:
Was it fun?
Was it interesting?
Was it manageable?
Are you in a good environment?
If there are more bad points than good points, then perhaps
it time to move onto something else. There are so many ways to learn Chinese.
Do not feel like you have to be stuck in a learning environment where you are
not comfortable. It’s also not a bad idea to give yourself a trial period to
evaluate your motivation. In my case, I contracted myself to five weeks of
classes at a language school and I am no longer obligated to continue after
those five weeks. I did the same thing for dance class and I was glad I stuck
through the contracted five months. I would have regretted quitting so early.
Either way, good luck to you in your journey towards learning Chinese. Keep
motivated!
