Hmmm 1-1 language training
So, i'm trying to find a language tutor. I'm trialling a couple at the moment.
I can do a fair deal on my own:
- learn vocabulary, either by thinking of words and looking them up, or by using an e-translator on a chinese article
- practice fluency of speech by reading out aloud
- practice listening comprehension by watching DVDs or recorded news/business TV programs
The main trouble is finding the time, and not getting bored. It's kinda hard going on one's own, and it's difficult to make the time. Advantages of getting a tutor:
- forces me to make time,
- ensures a focused learning environment,
- keeps my brain awake rather than staring at my laptop screen
- hopefully some structured teaching
- can do some good work correcting pronounciation. That stuff is difficult!
A couple of problems with the tutor idea though.
- expensive (1-1 ranging from 100 to 150 RMB an hour)
- expensive (1-1 ranging from 100 to 150 RMB an hour)
- teachers' english not great, so sometimes i find myself preferring to look things up in an e-dictionary than ask
- because my reading is so far behind my speaking/listening, it's hard to follow text books
- business text books don't necessarily contain the language and vocab I'm interested in
I think it's a particular problem because my vocab isn't great, my reading is terrible, and i'm really impatient and demanding anyway. So now I'm in two minds - shoudl I continue with tutoring, or should I reduce the tutoring and make more of a concerted effort to put time aside?
posted by Kai @ 6:09 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
hey...
i think having your private tutor is cool...well..if this really pushes you to read or speak mandarin, that will be worth of your time and your money.some of my friends are just too busy with his work and couldn't continuously study mandarin..to be honest, 100-150 kuai per hour is a little higher than the market average price, i guess. but that also depends on what kinda mandarin tutor you've found. well..my advice is you can try different ways in one session. for example, you can do 1 hours reading madarin, like textbooks, newspaper, magazines(i also know there are chinese translated magazines like BusinessWeek selling in newspaper booth.)..then 0.5 hr free talking with your tutor about fun topics or business. free talk will help you relax and pick more useful vocabulary. moreover, you can exchange idea with chinese people. that is cool, isn't it?
J
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