A Stay in China

September 1st marks the start of a new semester at HIT.

Last semester I was in “C+” (C and 1/2). I’ve been moving at about half to 1/4 of the speed of other students. However, many of the Koreans have a big advantage, with numerous cognates, growing up with characters (as well as a phonetic alphabet), cultural proximities, etc. So, it’s no surprise that they often jump 2 or 3 levels at a time. That’s OK, it’s fun to watch them find their level and speed.

So, now I am in “D” level. This is officially “intermediate” (at least all the text books have “intermediate” in their titles!).

At D level, there are four classes instead of three, although still the same total number of classroom hours (disappointing), so that means a little less of the main “comprehensive” (Zong He).

Today, I had “introductions” to the first two classes and teachers. The “new” class type is writing. Also, for the first time, I have a male teacher. He apparently teaches ALL the writing classes, which is quite different from other class types that I’ve seen. Also different is that “most” of the midterm and final “grade” is actually based on weekly writing assignments, not a single large final project. Makes sense since this is the first level to introduce more formal writing.

Here’s a few of the guidelines (“rules”) of hand writing a paper:

(1 space = 1 character, and all characters fill the same size imaginary square box).

1. There should never be more space behind a title line than before (i.e. equal or more is OK).
2. If only 2 characters in the title, add a space between them (looks better).
3. If only one word, then it cannot be on two lines.
4. If you cannot write the entire title on one line, then:
   1. Minimum of 4 spaces at the front of the 1st line.
   2. Lines should have the same spacing at the front and rear (end).
   3. The top line should be shorter than the 2nd line.
   4. If more than 2 lines, other than the top (rule #3), other lines can either be same length, or also upper line shorter than bottom line.
5. Author’s name goes on the line under the title, to the far right (minus 2 spaces). I.E. right flush, with 2 trailing spaces
6. Each paragraph starts on space #3 (first two are blank).
7. You cannot start a line with a simple connector (such as le 了, de 得, etc. This applies to titles also.

The book lists more rules, but rather than study them all, we moved on to memorizing the names of the 10 most important punctuation marks, which includes several not used in English.

Every semester, about start of 3rd month, they have us fill out feedback forms on each of the teachers. Two semesters ago, I suggested that the teachers were talking too slow, that they basically stayed at the same speed for the entire semester. I suggested that they could speed up at some point, to keep us “learning” and also to help us shift to actually thinking in the language (hard to translate if they talk fast!).

So, in between 2 quarters ago and last quarter, I also gave some specific suggestions on how to do this to one of the teachers who had asked me for suggestions, because some students would complain if they thought it was too fast. So, I suggested that the teacher give a little explaination/introduction at the beginning, explaining why they would gradually speed up over the 4 months, and some of the benefits.

Last quarter, the teachers in my classes didn’t follow that approach (basically one speed all quarter), but the teacher I had given advice to did try this out.

This quarter, interestingly to me, both of my teachers started the class by telling us that they would speak a little slower for the first few weeks, but would then be speeding up. For some things, such as grammar, etc, the teacher would still go a little slower, but speed up (in the same class) for discussions, etc.

So, not sure if this is something they’ve done in the past at “D” level, or if it’s a result of my suggestion. Maybe I will find out after comparing with other students of different levels later…

Writing = 写作
Comp = Comprehensive 综合
Listen/Speak = 听说
Reading = 阅读

On Wednesday, we currently shift to a different building, and also shift to the afternoon. I’m going to see if I can get all of the students to agree to petition to have it shifted to morning, so all days are the same.

Well, I’ve avoided homework long enough…