Brendan, your ALESN Mandarin I teacher for the 2021-2022 Academic Year, saying WELCOME TO ALL NEW AND RETURNING STUDENTS!!!

 

Hi Gang,

I have been away from ALESN for a few years, so it is possible that some of you are returning students -- perhaps former students of our other ALESN Mandarin 1 teachers. If that is the case, welcome back! For all new students, WELCOME!

Let me tell you a bit about myself, in particular about how it might impact my teaching over the coming months -- though I will try my best to not have that happen, if at all possible:

First of all, before I tell you a bit about my background and my hopes for what I want us to accomplish in this class over the coming months, let me mention this crucial tidbit: 

Unfortunately, both of my parents are currently ill with unrelated but serious medical concerns, and they are located 200+ miles from NYC. I have been driving back and forth between Brooklyn and Baltimore, MD every other week, usually leaving on a Tuesday and returning on a Friday or Saturday, for the past 2 months. This will continue for the foreseeable future. I have asked my parents to schedule all doctors' appointments mid or end-week so that I can teach for ALESN this year and so that I can start each work week right for myself at my NYC home office if it will be "a Baltimore week" for me. In the event that my parents need me on a Monday, I have arranged with Tsz for me to possibly teach online via the ALESN portal, if that might be doable for my schedule in Baltimore that week.

Thank you all in advance for your kind understanding of my ongoing family emergency travel logistics, which may or may not impact my ability to teach on some Mondays going forward.

This said, I want to also mention what is perhaps a bit of TMI, but it will help to explain if my language skills might appear a bit rusty at times -- should any of the students ask questions at a higher level than the beginner lesson material that we will be learning:

It is true that I have studied Cantonese and Mandarin on and off since 2009, exclusively with ALESN, and that as of Feb 2020 right before the Pandemic Shutdown, my broken Cantonese and Mandarin conversational skills were effective enough for me to be able to teach 2-hour ESL lessons 4 nights a week, almost entirely in either Cantonese or Mandarin or both back and forth, to new Chinese immigrant ESL students via the YMCA, in the same building where we are currently studying with ALESN.

It is also true that I have not spoken Cantonese or Mandarin in almost 2 years -- AND that over the past year, I was diagnosed with mercury poisoning and lyme disease. Luckily, for the past 3 months, I have been undergoing treatment and my brain has started working again. However, for most of this calendar year, I was experiencing all kinds of memory lapses and learning disability moments.

I am extremely confident that I am more than qualified to teach your absolute beginner level class this year; I am also certain that if you pay attention, you will develop extremely accurate pronunciation and tones as you begin your Mandarin language learning odyssey. As I say, though, it is possible that if someone asks me a more advanced question that I would have otherwise known the answer to immediately 2 years ago, I might not remember right away. My brain is still "coming back," so to speak. Thank you all in advance for your kind understanding. I didn't mean to share too much just now, but I also don't want my students to feel that I am unqualified if you ask me something that I should (and probably do) know, but I cannot recall immediately, the same moment as your question.

Ok -- enough of all of that.

Let me now tell you a bit about my Chinese background and my hopes for your class. Following this, I will include links and attachments for some resources that we will be using in this class: your textbook, some audio stuff, some web stuff, etc.

A BIT ABOUT ME:

I started studying Cantonese before Mandarin as a hobby, with Tony Parisi, the co-founder of ALESN, in 2009. After several months of a false start, I returned in 2010 and studied Cantonese language and culture obsessively -- in class with Tony and other ALESN teachers, and for many hours each week on my own. In 2012, 2013 and 2017 respectively, I spent 1 month each time in Hong Kong, on purpose staying in Sham Shui Po: a very grungy, blue collar area in Kowloon where few locals speak English. This allowed me hours of daily opportunities to butcher the language during all manner of daily tasks and experiences. This, combined with constantly challenging myself to speak often, and to use Cantonese (not English) to ask Chinese people how to say what I didn't know how to communicate in Cantonese, allowed me to become very functionally conversational [WITH ALL KINDS OF ERRORS] across a wide variety of topics -- all the while speaking broken, but effective Cantonese with a "white person" accent.

Along the way, when ALESN began offering Mandarin classes as well, I started attending, and was able to quickly participate in Mandarin II and III classes via the miracle of cognates and by translating from Cantonese in real time in my head -- which we will discuss at length for those of you who might already speak Mandarin or another Chinese dialect.

I continued my [literally] obsessive self-directed Chinese studies until 2017, when after 10 years away from music (my original reason for moving to NYC in 1998), I started to feel a pull to sing again. It is a long story, but the summary is that when I was totally into Chinese, I had been accepted to a language certification program in Hong Kong and my intention was to do that and then return to start a PhD program here in the US in Applied Linguistics with a focus in Chinese. My life direction changed around 2018/2019, however, and now I am back to focusing on my music and on music journalism -- or at least that was the plan before the Pandemic started...

So, anywho, that is my background.

I taught ESL to absolute beginner Chinese people IN CHINESE for the YMCA for most of the 2019-2020 academic year preceding the start of the Pandemic, but because I have not spoken either dialect at all for almost 2 years, I am currently, alas...ahem...rusty.

AS FAR AS OUR CLASS GOES, HERE IS MY HOPE REGARDING WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO ACCOMPLISH:

We will be using Integrated Chinese THIRD EDITION Level 1 Part 1 TEXTBOOK, which was an extremely popular high school- and college-level intro Chinese textbook for many years until it was recently supplanted by the 4th edition. WE WILL NOT BE USING THE REWRITTEN 4TH EDITION. I do not have a copy of the 4th edition; have never seen the 4th edition; and have no idea what the many page # differences or entirely rewritten sections might be. Please plan to study from the THIRD EDITION. Thanks in advance.

While I firmly believe in US Copyright law, the Pandemic has made things wonky all over, so I am breaking with my own rule from past years teaching at ALESN by providing PDFs of the textbook as free downloads to the students. You have your choice of Traditional or Simplified Character editions. Don't worry if you have no idea what this means; I will explain in class. IT DOES NOT MATTER TO ME WHICH EDITION YOU USE, BECAUSE FOR MY PURPOSES, THEY ARE FUNCTIONALLY IDENTICAL FOR THIS CLASS. I WILL NOT BE TEACHING CHINESE CHARACTERS. I WILL BE FOCUSING ON THE SOUNDS AND MEANINGS OF BASIC MANDARIN CHINESE WORDS AND PHRASES, WHICH WILL ALLOW YOU TO BEGIN TO HAVE BASIC CONVERSATIONS WITH NATIVE SPEAKERS WHO HAVE NEVER MET YOU BEFORE.

PLEASE DOWNLOAD YOUR TEXTBOOK HERE:

[link removed]

I will explain the layout of the textbook this evening as well as over the next few classes if we have any new students join.

I love this textbook. It is extremely practical, and is written for adults without a bunch of dumbed-down language. If you pay attention in class and learn proper pronunciation and tones, you WILL be able to use this particular book as a launching pad to begin to speak real, basic Mandarin with real Chinese people you have never met before. And if you really pay attention and practice a lot, these Chinese strangers will actually understand you -- and vice versa!

In addition to the textbook, the publishers of the Integrated Chinese series also produced all kinds of workbooks, audio resources, AND VIDEO RESOURCES to help reinforce the lesson material, especially the dialogues. This year, we will be referring often to the VIDEOS in particular that were designed to go with the lessons from your textbook. At this moment, I was able to find 2 separate, unrelated non-password-protected major US university websites with free streaming access to the complete dialogue and "culture moments" videos for your book. At least one of the sites also has complete audio for your book as well as access to the Level 1 Part 1 Workbook, for those of you interested in teaching yourself to read and write Chinese characters -- which again, will be outside the scope of what I will teach this year.

Please familiarize yourself with whichever website below that you prefer. Hopefully, both will remain un-password-protected for the duration of our 2021-2022 class. In past years, we used to rely on the University of Rhode Island's Chinese Department's website, but they are now password-protected, alas...

HERE ARE THE 2 WEBSITES THAT I FOUND LAST WEEK CONTAINING ADDITIONAL LEARNING RESOURCES FOR YOUR TEXTBOOK:

[links removed]

In class tonight, we will be using the attached PDF handout to hear and produce some very basic Mandarin sounds, and to learn some very basic words and sentences. Most likely, next week in our second class and then going forward, we will switch exclusively to studying from the book. I recommend that you either put the book on a laptop or tablet and bring that to class from now on -- or that you print the first 25 pages of the book (minus the intro text portions before the Pronunciation section -- which you should read, but which we will not be covering in class). Once we have covered these initial 25 pages, you can print out additional lessons as necessary. If you are going to print out your pages, please make sure that you print ALL of the pronunciation and tones pages prior to the first lesson!

There is SO much that I could continue to type here regarding Mandarin language and culture; or Hong Kong; or my limited experiences in Beijing, Guangzou, and Taiwan; or my personal successes and failures learning to speak Chinese; or any number of related topics, but I think you have already read enough and I don't want to exhaust you before class even starts...

If you are very curious and want to know more about what kind of teacher I am, or have been in the past, over the many years that I have taught for ALESN (I think this is my 7th or 8th year teaching for ALESN?), please feel free to check out my dedicated Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese language learning blog that I maintained for my ALESN students over a several year period. There are several sections devoted to my prior Mandarin 1 classes that I taught at ALESN. Lucky for you, ALL of my blog's Mandarin I category entries focus on lessons from the exact same edition of the exact same textbook that you will be learning from -- so if you ever want any additional insights on the same material covered in each class that I teach this year, all you need to do is visit the earliest entries each year under the Mandarin I category of the blog, and then proceed to read in reverse chronological order until you find the same lesson that we might be currently covering in your in-person 2021 or 2022 ALESN class:

www.sayitrightchinese.com

ONE FINAL THING, THOUGH I DON'T BELIEVE IT WILL BE A CONCERN THIS YEAR:

It is my very firm policy, backed up many times over the years by the "Powers That Be" at ALESN (of which I used to be one, with a title and everything), that an absolute beginner student will only be allowed to study ONE dialect at first -- until that student can demonstrate accurate pronunciation and tones in that first dialect without making goofy beginner mistakes. ONLY THEN will I allow one of my students to take my classes while simultaneously studying another Chinese language. As I say, I don't believe this applies to any of my students this fall, but if it does and I see you in both of my classes, we will need to have a little chat away from the other students after class or via email. Thanks in advance...

Very best wishes to All and WELCOME TO MANDARIN 1 AT ALESN!

 Welcome to my new in-person Fall 2021 ALESN Mandarin I students!

I took a break for the past 2 years from teaching for ALESN, but I am back -- and hopefully, so are you. Faaaaaaaaaantastic...

While I wait for scheduling logistics and any Fall 2021 YMCA Covid policy concerns, I wanted to say hello to my new students as well as any returning students whom I might have taught in past years.

Hello.

For our textbook this year, we will be using Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1 THIRD EDITION Textbook, either Traditional or Simplified Characters -- your choice, because I will not be teaching characters. At all. As in, if you want to learn to read Chinese, please take a different intro class taught by a different teacher, most likely on Saturdays. In this particular Mandarin I intro class, we will be learning how to pronounce spoken Chinese and we will learn some very useful, very basic conversations about everyday tasks, objects, locations, and people.

Please note that we will be using the THIRD EDITION -- an older edition of this popular industry- standard beginner level college textbook. If you decide to purchase a copy, you need to make sure that you are buying THE TEXTBOOK, and NOT the workbook or the character workbook or the CD set or any other accompanying volumes from the same publisher. Because this is an older edition, you can find used hardcover copies of the Simplified version right now on Amazon for $21 plus shipping -- I just checked 5 minutes before typing this post.

Of course, many or even most of my students over recent years have found free PDF copies of this book floating around online. While I cannot encourage this -- AND I ASK YOU PLEASE TO NEVER ASK ME TO PERSONALLY GIVE YOU A FREE ILLEGAL COPY OF THIS BOOK -- if you are clever, you can find multiple PDF versions online for immediate download in under 1 minute via a standard Google search. 

The last time I taught Mandarin I for ALESN, several US universities had actually posted not only the complete textbook for free download to their Chinese students, but also all of the accompanying audio and video files designed to go along with the textbook. Once we start classes this fall, I am sure that links will be traded so that everyone can download all kinds of fun learning resources for free, if you so choose. I highly recommend the video rip of the accompanying DVD, if it is still available online (ahem, Rhode Island, ahem), because the skits are fun to watch; cover all dialogues and vocabulary items; and even include supplementary "Culture Notes" about daily international student life in Beijing circa 2005.

ONE LAST THING: In the interest of time, AND because Blogger's overall functionality is garbage, the only way for me to change the name of the label for my Mandarin I tab from "Mandarin I ALESN 2017-2018" to "Mandarin I ALESN" would be for me to waste 1-2 hours of my life individually changing every single post I have ever made to this category. I don't have time for that kind of nonsense, so going forward for 2021 and later, the Mandarin I menu tab's label will continue to state "2017-2018," but the actual archived contents of this section will extend from 2017 through 2021 and beyond, in reverse chronological order." Thanks for your kind attention!

See you all in class!

Welcome to my new in-person Fall 2021 ALESN Cantonese I students!

I took a break for the past 2 years from teaching for ALESN, but I am back -- and hopefully, so are you. Faaaaaaaaaantastic...

While I wait for scheduling logistics and any Fall 2021 YMCA Covid policy concerns, I wanted to post a download link to the out-of-print Jyutping Romanization edition of a popular beginner textbook that we will be using this year while we learn some basic conversational Cantonese. Normally, I make my students either purchase original books themselves from Hong Kong or from US distributors, or I disapprovingly allow them to Google and find free PDFs online, but this edition of this book is no longer easily purchasable or locatable. Because it is out of print, it is no longer carried by the publisher in Hong Kong, so you would need to find overstock copies wherever you might find them.

Please download your textbook and accompanying mp3s from the following link, which I will keep alive for the duration of the 2021 fall semester to accommodate any late registrations:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/wvete0r1m2vovfi/Cantonese_for_Everyone.zip/file

If you are interested in purchasing a physical copy here in NYC for $46 plus tax, this 2nd floor Elizabeth Street Chinese bookstore does apparently either stock or can order this edition of this title as of August 2021:

https://www.easternbooknyc.com/product-page/cantonese-for-everyone-jyutping-version

ONE LAST THING: In the interest of time, AND because Blogger's overall functionality is garbage, the only way for me to change the name of the label for my Cantonese I tab from "Cantonese I ALESN 2017-2018" to "Cantonese I ALESN" would be for me to waste 1-2 hours of my life individually changing every single post I have ever made to this category. I don't have time for that kind of nonsense, so going forward for 2021 and later, the Cantonese I menu tab's label will continue to state "2017-2018," but the actual archived contents of this section will extend from 2017 through 2021 and beyond, in reverse chronological order." Thanks for your kind attention!

See you all in class!

Brendan with a final thank you and end of the year wrap-up for my Cantonese I and Mandarin I Monday night 2018-2019 students...

Hi Gangs,

Many thanks again to everyone who attended my classes at anytime this past academic year, and in particular to my students who stuck it out to the very end of classes 2 Mondays ago! I sincerely appreciated everyone's interest in and passion for learning Chinese. I hope that you all got something positive out of my classes and that maybe you were inspired to continue with further ALESN classes next fall or perhaps with self-directed study on your own. I know that some students from both classes were talking about setting up a regular time to meet at the Houston St. Whole Foods. Please let me know if that happens and I will try to attend here and there this summer as my schedule permits.

During our final classes 2 Mondays ago, I briefly reviewed the lesson materials and vocabularies that we had covered the week before and then we spent the rest of each class discussing various ways to continue your learning -- on your own or at ALESN. I mentioned various DVDs from among my list of personal favorites that I have used over the years to improve my own conversational Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese. We discussed the various course offerings at ALESN as well as my suggestion to the Mandarin I class to try to cover the remaining vocabulary and dialogue material in your textbook between now and September (on your own or in small groups if you do meet up at Whole Foods, etc.) so that you will be ready for ALESN's Mandarin II class, which uses the next book in the same series. This has always been an issue for our program, that we never finish Book 1 and yet Mandarin II starts with Book 2, which assumes that you have learned all of the materials from Book 1. Yes, it would be ideal if ALESN were to offer Mandarin 1.5, covering lessons 6-10 in Book 1, but that never happens.

Maybe if enough of you directly contact Tony Parisi or Tsz Fong, both of whom are cc'ed on this email, and you request such a class, it is possible that someone might want to step up and teach Mandarin 1.5 on Thursday or Saturday starting in the fall?

As I mentioned to my classes, I will be taking a break from teaching in the fall in order to devote my time and attention to my singing. I have deeply appreciated the opportunity to learn and grow through teaching for ALESN over the past 6 years or so, and I will definitely miss everything about it. Even though I am putting aside my own Chinese studies and teaching for the time being, I will still offer private tutoring at a discounted rate for any recent or former students who might have enjoyed my teaching style and would like to continue with their learning one-on-one. Please reach out to me if you are interested. 

I am also open to possibly teaching a weekly group lesson if a certain # of students would commit to attending regularly and each student were to pay something modest per class. We could hold the classes at Whole Foods or some other convenient space in Manhattan, or even outside in a park if the weather will be nice on a given evening. I would certainly be willing to teach a Mandarin 1.5 class in this manner if someone wants to organize it and get a group together at a mutually convenient day and time each week. If this interests you guys, let me know. We could go a bit longer, say 1.5 or 2 hours each time and try to finish Book 1 in this manner.

Because I will not be teaching on Mondays in the fall, there is a possibility that our Monday night ALESN classes are in jeopardy of not happening in September. So -- if any of you knows anyone qualified to teach Cantonese I or Mandarin I on Monday nights starting in the fall and who would be willing to make that commitment from 6 to 7:15 and 7:15 to 8:30 pm every Monday during the 2019-2020 academic year, please contact Tony or Tsz and refer this person as a potential new teacher. I would hate to see Monday night classes go away once I am no longer teaching next year.

Many thanks again to everyone for an excellent and productive Cantonese and Mandarin learning experience. Give yourselvesa round of applause! I hope that each of you will continue on in your own way -- either through private study, self-study or via ALESN classes in the fall. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns, or to ask about books, DVDs, web resources, Youtube videos -- whatever you might want to know about regarding continuing your Chinese learning odyssey.

Best wishes to Everyone!

MANDARIN CLASS SUMMARY Monday, June 3, 2019 -- sorry for delay!!!

MANDARIN CLASS SUMMARY FROM LAST WEEK:    

Last week, we finished the Grammar and Language Practice sections of Lesson 4 Dialogue 2 and we previewed Lesson 5 Dialogue 1's vocabulary and dialogue. We will begin class today with this material and spend maybe 30 minutes learning some new stuff pertaining to visiting friends. 

From here, we will spend the rest of class tonight reviewing the general scope of what we covered this year in Mandarin I and discussing what might be next for each of you in your personal journeys to learn to speak and possibly even read Mandarin Chinese. I am happy to recommend appropriate "next steps" for each of you, both within our ALESN program continuing next fall as well as via self-studies and possibly even short-term immersion vacation trips to China or Taiwan -- something I have done for myself three times for one month each time (mainly in Hong Kong with side trips to Taipei, Beijing, and various towns in Guangdung Province). I also co-planned a several day side trip Mandarin language immersion "sights and shopping" bus tour in and around Shanghai with our Head Administrator for ALESN, Mr. Tsz Fong, for 2016, but I had to bow out at the last minute due to a personal emergency here in the US. will share brief stories of my trips to China and Taiwan and of the ways that I attempted to practice my ALESN-gained language knowledge while there in 2014 and 2017. 

I am also happy to share the names of all of my personal favorite Chinese language learning resources with the class and to tell you all what has inspired me most to learn and to improve my Chinese since I started studying with Tony Parisi at ALESN 10 years ago.

Many thanks to everyone who attended any of my Mandarin classes this past academic year. I will be taking a break from teaching for ALESN next fall in order to devote all of my time and energy outside of work to singing and recording music. I will, however, continue to offer reasonably priced 1 hour and 2 hour weekly or one-off private tutoring sessions for anyone who has enjoyed my teaching style and philosophy -- which I think I made pretty clear over the course of this past year, losing many students in the process, ahem...

Big thanks to my more serious and dedicated students with a passion and drive to learn who decided to stick it out with me until the end of this current academic year. I sincerely hope that I have helped you to grow your Mandarin Chinese knowledge and perhaps your confidence to attempt to speak with native speakers whom you do not already know...

Very best wishes to All!

Brendan

CANTONESE CLASS SUMMARY Monday, June 3, 2019 -- sorry for delay!

CANTONESE CLASS SUMMARY FROM LAST WEEK:

Briefly, last week we went over the vocabulary and dialogue from Lesson 7. We repeated the dialogue a bunch of times and then you all broke into small groups, I believe, to run the dialogue with your partners. I do not recall that we started the pronunciation and grammar review sections, so we will quickly repeat the vocab and dialogue again tonight and then speed through some grammar. 

Instead of doing the lesson exercises for chapter 7, we will spend most of class tonight reviewing the general scope of what we covered this year and discussing what might be next for each of you in your personal journeys to learn to speak and possibly even read Cantonese. I am happy to recommend appropriate "next steps" for each of you, both within our ALESN program continuing next fall as well as via self-studies and possibly even short-term immersion vacation trips to Hong Kong -- something I have done for myself three times for one month each time. I will share some brief stories of my trips to Hong Kong and of the ways that I practiced my ALESN-gained language knowledge while there in 2013, 2014, and 2017. 

I am also happy to share the names of all of my personal favorite Chinese language learning resources with the class and to tell you all what has inspired me most to learn and to improve my Chinese since I started studying with Tony Parisi at ALESN 10 years ago.  

Many thanks to everyone who attended any of my Cantonese classes this past academic year. I will be taking a break from teaching for ALESN next fall in order to devote all of my time and energy outside of work to singing, performing, and recording music. I will, however, continue to offer reasonably priced 1 hour and 2 hour weekly or one-off private tutoring sessions for anyone who has enjoyed my teaching style and philosophy -- which I think I made pretty clear over the course of this past year, losing many students in the process, ahem...

Big thanks to my more serious and dedicated students with a passion and drive to learn, who decided to stick it out with me until the end of this current academic year. I sincerely hope that I have helped you to grow your Cantonese knowledge and perhaps your confidence to attempt to speak with native speakers whom you do not already know...

Very best wishes to All!

Brendan

Sorry for my not sending class summaries last week -- AND TONIGHT IS OUR LAST CLASS -- NOT NEXT MONDAY!!!

Hi Gangs,

Doh! [Insert best Homer Simpson impression here.]

I had a busy week preparing for a singing audition that happened this past weekend (I got the gig) and I didn't set aside time to type your class summaries from last Monday.

I also mistakenly suggested last Monday (I think -- honestly don't remember) that next Monday would be our last classes. 

ACTUALLY, TONIGHT IS OUR FINAL CANTONESE CLASS AND OUR FINAL MANDARIN CLASS. 

I sincerely apologize for not reading my ALESN closings calendar properly. 

See everyone tonight. I will try to type up quick summaries right now to send before I leave for tonight's classes of what we covered last week if possible. If not, I promise to type a double summary email for each class sometime in the next 1-2 days.

Again, sorry for not sending your weekly summary email, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, SORRY FOR SUGGESTING THAT WE HAD 2 MORE CLASSES INSTEAD OF JUST ONE MORE CLASS TONIGHT!!!

See everyone in 2 hours,

Brendan