My First Day of Class

I just finished my first day of classes at ACC. They were really interesting, and I am excited for how much I will improve while I'm here.

Most of the Light-approved programs structure their curriculum the same way. This past Saturday, I signed a language pledge stating that I will only speak Chinese for the next two months. On top of that, we have four hours of class every weekday. Here's the general outline of a regular class day:

8:00-8:50am
This is the big lecture class (7-9 students) where we begin every morning with a quiz on the day's lesson. The quiz is as follows: First, we write down the pinyin and characters for 2 vocabulary words, then we write down a vocabulary word based off clues given to use by the teacher, and last we write down two long sentences full of vocabulary words. After the quiz, we go over the new words and sentence patterns from the day's lesson.

Here's what we covered in our big lecture class today (You can't really see what it says. Many of you don't read Chinese anyway, haha. The point is that we covered a ton of Chinese in just fifty minutes:

9:00-9:50am
This is the small lecture class (3-4 students) where we get drilled in the previous classes new words and sentence patterns. There's a ton of repetition of the teacher's speech. The most fulfilling aspect of this class is when you are able to produce your own sentences using the news words and sentence patterns.

10:00-10:50am
This is a discussion class (3 students) where we discuss an issue with one another. The discussion is observed by the teacher who rarely interjects into the conversation. It's a nice time to get to know your classmates using formal grammatical structures (instead of the bad Chinese spoken amongst one another outside of the classroom). For example, today we discussed the best American city to study English in. We debated about whether New York, Middlebury, or Chicago is most suitable for learning English abroad. Also, you use this time to use the new words and sentence patterns from the current lesson to communicate.

11:00-11:50am/12:30-1:20pm/1:30-2:20pm
This class is a one-on-one discussion class with the teacher from the discussion class. They talk to you about various things. It's practice with conversational skills. They also record in our "mistakes notebook" any words or phrases we tend to mispronounce often during the one-on-one session. This is a nice time to get to know the teacher as well. I wish I could more clearly and accurately express my thoughts during this session because all of our teachers have awesome stories to tell. Also, you use this time to use the new words and sentence patterns from the current lesson to communicate.

Here's more: Monday through Wednesday we cover lessons from the text. On Thursday we cover lessons from a listening CD. Then on Friday we are tested on the week's lessons. Apparently each day's classes is equivalent to a week's worth of language study at American universities. But I think the pace of the classes is very manageable. I don't know why but Yale students got placed in second-, third-, and fourth-level Chinese. One L4 Yale heritage speaker placed into fourth year. Another L4 heritage speaker from Yale was placed into second-year Chinese. That's strange. I placed into second-year Chinese, which is a bit frustrating because I did really well in second-year Chinese at Yale this past school year. One non-native speaker from L4 got placed into third-year and two others from L4 got placed into second-year. Either way, I know most of the vocabulary and sentence patterns from second-year. The problem I have is with production. If given a test on our vocabulary and sentence patterns, I can do well because the test gives me time to think and reproduce the material learned in class. However, when I'm speaking Chinese with natives and people from Beijing on the street, it's hard for me to think quickly enough to sound fluent. I understand most of what is said to me, and I can get around Beijing pretty well on my own; however, when the time comes for me to have an EXTENDED conversation (or to keep a conversation going), I have problems. I think that's why I'm in second-year Chinese. And if that's the case, I don't mind. Not only will my test and homework grades be really good because I've already learned the material, but I'll also be able to start to improving my speaking skills. I will begin to PRODUCE Chinese in a real life setting (outside the classroom), which I haven't had the opportunity to do since studying abroad in Shanghai two summers ago. I like the emphasis on SPEAKING and producing Chinese at ACC. I think all the Light-approved programs share this emphasis; that's why studying abroad in Beijing is so crucial to successful language study.