Ok, Gang --
I just added 20 new blog entries to my
sayitrightchinese.com
blog, including all of the emails sent to both my Cantonese I and my
Mandarin I class so far this fall, as well as a page for my tutoring
services that I am about to start offering.
Going
forward, for anyone in either class who has missed a lesson or who
joins late or who simply wants to review what we have covered so far or
during a given 3 week absence for business or whatever, all you need to
do is go to my blog, click the menu item for your class (Cantonese I or
Mandarin I) and everything for your class so far and for the rest of the
academic year will be posted right there, in reverse chronological
order, for you to review.
Many thanks to all of
my students so far this year. I know that I can be a hard ass about
this pronunciation stuff, but before thinking that I am a jerk or
contemplating quitting my class, you might want to pause and ask
yourself if 6 years of teaching hundreds of hours of ALESN classes as
well as substituting for our other teachers and gauging the levels of
competencies of their classes throughout the years might, just might,
have fueled this idiot teacher Brendan with some actual concrete
knowledge as to what works to make a good ALESN Cantonese or Mandarin
student -- and what doesn't work and makes someone drop out of our program because they have decided that Chinese is "too hard."
Whether I am nice or mean about the process, the same number of
students seem to drop out each year because they can't make accurate
sounds that would be understandable by a native speaker of Cantonese or
Mandarin.
I am trying my best to help you
all through a process of tough love. My teaching style is not for
everyone, but I have had several students over the years stand up in
front of a room of Chinese businesspeople and deliver an entire speech
in Mandarin about deal that is being negotiated for their company. I
have had other students marry Chinese husbands and wives and have the
courage and accuracy of pronunciation allowing them to stand up at their
weddings and deliver welcome speeches to guests in Cantonese or
Mandarin. I have had many students over the years tell me about interesting and humorous encounters right here in NYC's various
Chinatowns at stores, restaurants, on the street, etc. where they either
succeeded or failed miserably while attempting to negotiate some type
of everyday business or social interaction in Cantonese or Mandarin. The
trick to their successes is that they took this very, very seriously --
the need to make proper sounds from day one -- AND they weren't afraid
to make hundreds of mistakes along the way until they honed their
pronunciation and tones to the point that each new memorized vocabulary
item really could become part of their ability to communicate with people in Chinese.
I
will share with both classes tomorrow a recent FAILURE of mine,
culminating in a last minute save on my part after I calmed down, as I
attempted to yell in Mandarin Chinese at a rude idiot on my street last
week. The story I tell will hopefully show that I practice what I
preach.
Best wishes and see everyone tomorrow night,
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