Winter Mandarin For Immigrants

歡迎大家參加新住民華語研習班課程，以下課程資訊請大家詳讀，有問題可詢問您的老師。Welcome to the Free Chinese Courses For New Residents. 我們是張佑安（Ms. Zhang）和賴恩萱（Ms. Lai)，都是第3期新住民華語文研習班高級班的老師，很高興認識大家！本班於10/12（四）開課，請閱讀下面的課綱和課程資訊，謝謝。

     By the end of September 2017, my schedule for the winter was shaping up. Tuesday and Thursday evenings, 6:30-9:00 pm, I would study in the advanced level of the free Immigrant Mandarin classes. With Cheryl Zhou's tutorial of me with George ended, I decided to forgo direct instruction until I was settled again in the spring and go with a group instead. I registered for the free advanced winter course as a stop-gap replacement. The intermediate level class I had loved in the summer would have been easier, but I thought I should reach higher without the challenging tutorial that kept me busy. 

There would have been three gaps breaking up a regular tutorial; a three week trip to Pittsburgh, Lunar New Year break, and a return to the States the end of February. In fact, I would miss the first three classes of the winter class arriving back in Taiwan a week late, but it would be okay; I knew there would be no continuum of lessons; just bits and pieces of random activities. I was right. When I returned, the two teachers and assistant took turns presenting fourteen students with random lessons . 

     Mandarin is best studied in a small class with a textbook. I could review at home in the tea room, but I have to  study  regularly. If there is not going to be a systematic textbook of instruction, I can not preview vocabulary for a given class, not that I would, anyway. 

     Alice Zhang taught a lesson on Tuesday and Vanessa Lai led the class Thursday. I had a harder time getting into Vanessa's lesson of work-level categories; from clerk to intellectual to technician. Not knowing most of the Chinese terms, I caught on with help of the assistant that circulated around the class. I copied the answers from the board; miraculously I had gotten a few answers correct on my own. 

     It was good I was not taking the classes too seriously. After the break, on the same theme, the class was randomly grouped with each getting a sheet with five potential employees. By personality types and attributes, we had to determine what would be the most suitable position for each. One short young Asian woman with excellent written and spoken ability took charge of our group of four women and myself and unilaterally decided on the procedure we would follow. The answer paper was facing her and she read the descriptions. I listened or looked, much of it unclear to me. She asked, like talking to a child, if I understood simple book one terms. I ignored her slights and answered pertaining to the task, some terms that she didn’t know herself; it was confirmed by the assistants who came by to check. 

     I suggested suitable job titles for our project and wrote my  response. Before we ended class, I wanted to take a photo of our group sheet but the woman grabbed the paper as I was taking a shot. My friendly teammate asked her to put it back so I could snap the photo. She then asked to take a photo of the group and we posed, but the  woman blocked me from view; my friend politely asked her to move so I could be seen, too. 
 

          One evening, my wife and I went to a Michael Bolton concert in Taipei. I had to miss the class. When we got back to Taichung I was tired  from a lovely bike ride teaching in Shengang from 4:30 to 5:40 pm so I had missed two classes. Nevertheless, when I returned the following Tuesday. 
     I rode the bicycle regularly in the cooler autumn air to the two Mandarin class meetings on the Westside. I was getting something out of it, but it was not like sitting one on one with a tutor and a textbook. Should I wait until after I return from Pittsburgh in March to see about getting a new tutor? I won’t join a five-day-a-week class; a private tutor would be good and less expensive than going back to the Chinese Learning Center. One thing is for sure: I don’t have the motivation to study on my own. 

      On November 11, we had a fun with partners. Le-Ting and I did good at the presentation that night. We had to present an oral report about Miaoli. We went up fifth. I spoke about the first day of the trip and she spoke about the second. We made a few mistakes but the three teachers and the class understood us. I did an aside about “modern Taiwan history” being made in Zhu-Nan at the café where the Sunflower leaders organized around land rights in Dadu. I introduced and talked about the preferred method of transportation; a car since we would be traveling around, though the HSR was faster. I talked about the abandoned Japanese train bridge and the street with all the wooden art mentioning that it was expensive but you could chose your own piece of wood and have an artist inscribe it for you, as we did with our front door plaque. I also talked about the fancy hotel with hot spring for 8,000 NT a night but I neglected to mention San-Yi, the building up the winding mountain in the mist. Li Ting talked about the garden and the Hakka Street of foods and the second day’s events, though I can’t remember them offhand.

     Throughout November, I rode the bike to winter Mandarin class. It’s a cool ride, around 70^o and I relax on the 5^th floor balcony at least a half hour before class. I get what I can out of class and don’t worry about a thing.This class is good practice, but I look at my notes and there is no list of extraneous vocabulary. There is still no textbook order. That being said, we do go over grammar patterns. My Chinese syntax is still all messed up and it’s my own fault for not memorizing it. 

     In the December 7 class, I was disconcerted. I tried my best to understand everything, as I do every night, but that night the odds were stacked against me by the teachers and their assignment. The instructors decided it was time to prepare to run a skit for the final presentation Dec. 29^th, on  a Friday, not Thursday, so I would have to miss a Shenzhen class if I participated.

     The Ms. Zhang  quickly handed out a test to take at home and then got to the point: she played five excerpts from modern Hollywood films and divided us into three groups randomly giving us one of the films to mimic, a five person dialogue, and had us do it. I had never seen any of the films before and couldn’t even understand the dialogue in English (or have fun making up our own to it) when she showed it on the overhead projector.

I don’t know about the other two groups, but four of the five people in our group were having difficulty. One Asian dude copying the dialogue the teacher made up for us (she had made up most of it) knew Chinese so well he could write cursive characters, half of which I couldn’t read and could hardly copy. He, according to our teacher, wrote the best, but I told her and the group that it wasn’t so; I could understand the writing of the young lady next to me better.

 I tried my best to at least copy, which is what the other four did; their tolerance was better than mine. I finally gave up and just took photos of what the teacher wrote and what the woman next to me copied. I would have understand if we had written it without her dictating most of the dialogue. I  could have copied her dialogue if she hadn’t written upside down didn’t turn it around. I had to stand up to see it or take the photo upside down. No one was happy but the one man writing cursive. 

After class, one teammate met me in the elevator; she also though the task was too difficult. The teacher was autocratic and seemed only to care to have product for the presentation. Riding home, I thought I would participate if someone typed up the dialogue for me to read.

It was a frustrating night but I endured to the end without taking it too seriously; I get what I can out of the class. Even that night, I practiced something. Whatever happened in class, it was better than staying home. The best part of the evening was it wasn’t raining when I rode the bike home, Bloomfield and Kooper were sounding groovy, and the ohahmiswa stand wasn’t crowded. The fried chicken and Kirin tall can were delicious. The cats were happy to see me. 

      On Tuesday December 12, at 6:05 pm, there was a baseball game being played in Taichung. There was also a game Thursday evening same time, same place. Too bad I had Mandarin class on those nights. Instead, I would go to the game tomorrow and maybe the game Thursday.It would be more fun. 

      I was not happy about Thursday’s class. I looked over the photos of the dialogue. In the Marvel comic movie parody she wrote, Robert Downy Jr. was being talked about behind his back by “black man #1 and #2 and white woman #1" because he couldn't understand Mandarin; that's what the instructor and the one male student were laughing about.  The dialogue concerned giving  a face lift, Botox, liposuction, and other plastic surgery changing the “red man’s” (Spiderman’s) skin color and appearance; all new vocabulary for us. 

     We were told we were to present the skit on Friday, Dec. 29^th. I can’t go Friday evenings; I have a class at Shengang. I will forgo the last three classes which will doubtlessly be spent rehearsing for the presentation. It's okay; no one will miss the 'red' man. I decided to go to a special local Asian Winter Baseball game. I could learn Mandarin watching a Taiwan baseball game.

     I do not miss the winter Mandarin class. Most of my classmates were nice - we chatted during the break - but the instructors didn't make  an internet class chat room so there was no way for us to be in touch with each other. The summer intermediate class was more fun; it was smaller and we got to know each other through the Line internet group. If I was absent, I would let them know or they would contact me. This class won't even know I'm missing when I'm gone.
    In the spring, after we return from another trip to the States, I will get re-motivated to learn Mandarin again, I will pick up my textbook and start a new class.