by Terry Waltz | Sep 10, 2019 | Chinese-specific, Languages of Unusual Features, Reading, Unfounded Tripe
It’s good to acquire new languages. It is. And I’m always happy to hear that people are coming into contact with Chinese, often through demos, and discovering what a cool language it is. But doing a demo brings with it responsibility. Especially if the...
by Terry Waltz | Sep 2, 2019 | Chinese-specific, Languages of Unusual Features, Unfounded Tripe
Really??? Again on the social media…I really have to just stop reading it…I get the following: Nail those tones and all is forgiven. We’ll show you how to improve your tones in the HandyDandy TonesRUs NotItsRealName Masterclass… I really, really wish...
by Terry Waltz | Jun 6, 2018 | Chinese-specific, General, Languages of Unusual Features, Training
All you people who’ve had a couple of Chinese lessons — please, please — and I am not saying this to be mean — stop generalizing your experience with Chinese to the broader field of language acquisition and particularly to teaching Chinese....
by Terry Waltz | May 19, 2017 | Chinese-specific, Reading, Unfounded Tripe
Recently, a teacher of an alphabetic, phonetic language who does not teach Mandarin posted online to the effect that: …heavy intellectualizing teachers are driving the Mandarin train further down into the intellectual caverns of non-productivity. This, at least,...
by Terry Waltz | May 3, 2017 | Chinese-specific
I think the issue many people are having of late about “establishing meaning” and whether it can or cannot be done via gesture comes from numbering the “steps” of TPRS. Most people aren’t actually establishing meaning solely using...
by Terry Waltz | May 2, 2017 | Chinese-specific
So you’re starting a new class using TPRS for Chinese. The first thing to figure out, in Chinese, is what language you will be using with them, followed closely by “what will they read that contains that language?” Many new TPRS teachers want to go...