TO PEOPLE WHO ARE LEARNING CHINESE: PLEASE READ THIS !!!!
I think this sounds like yesterday's news but I placed into the Advanced Level of Chinese according to the CIEE Communications, Business, and Political Economy program. Upon learning about my placement, I was thrilled but a part of me was unbelievably nervous because I have only had 5 semesters of Chinese and I can only hold a conversation about mundane topics. My classmates on the other hand either have had 5-6 years worth of Chinese! To be honest, I am the weakest link in this class and I have come to accept it. I realize that many things I am learning in this class flies over my head at first which contributes to most of my frustrations. To be honest, I don't give myself a chance or time to process it all because I wallowed in how intimidating it all could be which led to my belief that I did not do well on my midterms. Well, that's pessimistic alright! Time to focus on solutions!
I have decided that before every lesson I will review the vocabulary ahead of time as well as look at the grammar patterns so I am not completely thrown off. I think that's the mistake I kept making because I felt that I would process it quickly but I kept failing to do so. I kept believing that my pace is as fast as my classmates but I forgot what I kept telling myself is that we all learn Chinese at different rates! I need to slow down and stop comparing my pace of learning to those who are already in the mindset. Secondly, I will build up the habit to spend at least one hour each three designated days to Chinese (ie. 1 hour on monday, 1 on wednesday, and 1 hour on tuesday etc). I will review either grammar or vocabulary I can't remember as well as take time to review the dictation we have to study for. I am also going to make it a point to work extra hard on zeroing in on tones because that is my number one problem. TONES are my nightmare.
So on my to do list:
1) Review vocabulary ahead of time
2) Review sentence structures
3) Dedicate three days--one hour each--to studying Chinese and reviewing what I am not good at
4) Apply what I have learned--new characters, grammar, etc.
5) DO NOT--I repeat---DO NOT WALLOW IN FRUSTRATION
6) Concentrate! Concentrate! Concentrate!
7) Allow myself time to process what I have learned and be patient with myself
8) Practice tones!
9) Do my homework ahead of time to ask questions (if possible) or at least skim through my homework
10) Learn to guess on the readings if I cannot read all of the characters
But what I have learned so far about my experience with learning a Chinese is that you not only learn to communicate cross culturally but the virtue of perseverance. It is not how much farther ahead others are of you but how far you are willing to push yourself, to exceed the confines of limits you have created for yourself. From all the time that I have invested in learning Chinese, this is what I want to take from it. So to those of you who want to learn Chinese, you are never too old to begin learning but once you begin, I encourage you to keep learning Chinese! Failures should never prevent you from learning what you want to learn. After all, I believe that much of life is about learning from our mistakes and growing. That's the attitude I am taking with language learning and the rest of my life where ever it may fall into place.
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