bob wrote

bob - I've been experimenting lately with assigning my students a chapter of "Lets Talk in English" and then in the next class asking them to translate from the Chinese back into English. You would expect this to be a reasonably easy excercise because all they have to do is read the English/Chinese versions and then listen to the English recording a bunch of times. In practice however it turns out to be considearably more difficult for two reasons: 1) They are generally too lazy to do a speck of homework. 2) The translations into Chinese are not all that accurate. This is the interesting apect of course because when we discover a mistake (or an alternative way of expressing the same idea, or something similar that might be said in a given situation...) we actually have two problems. First, how to translate the English into Chinese. Second, how to translate the Chinese into English. Translating from Chinese is much more difficult for them naturally and is the aspect of this excercise that they seem to feel is most productive. I try not to help them too much with the actual words they need, but instead give them the info they need to complete the translation for themselves. For example yesterday I had a student who constructed the following sentence from a translation "You can't keepING doing this." I responded to this by directing him to the sections in his grammar book that describe (in Chinese) the use of modals and to another page that explained the use of the present participle. It was a slow processs but he eventually discovered his own mistake, corrected it and I think learned a couple of things in the process. Anyway as often as I can I direct them to the relevant section of the grammar books we use. This helps them to undertsand "why" such and such is a mistake and why the other is correct.

After we finish translating one conversation (and discovering the inaccuracies in the book version as well as the times when two or more translations would be acceptable) we read the whole thing aloud with extremely careful focus on correct pronunciation. By the time we get to this last part they have a pretty good idea what each passage means and why the sentences are structured as they are. The careful pronunciation practice focuses attention on all those details.

Like I said before this method seems to give my students the feeling that they are learning something. Still it would be interesting to hear what the more theoretically minded of you think of this method.

Thanks.


bob - Judging from the responses so far it looks like you really set the teaching world on fire with your new technique there bob. It sounds kind of like grammar translation and audio-lingual approach rolled into one. No wonder people are so excited. Anyway bob I am curious about one thing: Given your total ignorance of the Chinese writing system how do you have any idea what the translation even says?


bob - Thanks for responding bob. Yes I know it is a little like the grammar- translation approach except opposite. Rather than asking people to translate from the target language into the native language in writing I ask them to translate from the native language into the target language orally. I guess it is something like grammar translation after all. Sort of like how black is similar to white. My method does borrow from the audio-lingual approach in recogonizing that language is essentially organized noise and the quality of the noises you produce is very much an indicator of your success in learning the language. Besides I enjoy teaching phonics. I get away without being able to read Chinese characters by having my students read the passage aloud and then writing what they say in Pinyin on the board with a word by word translation into English under that. It is an interesting way to highlight the grammatical differences between the languages. Any more questions?

bob wrote: Any more questions?

bob - Just a couple. You say that you reference your students to the section of the grammar text that will help them complete a translation. Isn't that rather difficult to do? I mean do you know the text that well or are you able to anticipate before hand the problems they will have, which of course would give you an opportunity to look up the answers before the class?

bob - do you know the text that well or are you able to anticipate before hand the problems they will have, which of course would give you an opportunity to look up the answers before the class?

bob - That's the tough part definitely as I certainly don't know the texts that well. I use the Betty Schrampfer series and as you might already know they contain a lot of material. After the first run through with one student though it gets a lot easier as they frequently make the same mistakes. Anyway one of the first sentences I teach my students is "Nobody knows everything and everybody makes mistakes." Watching me try to juggle this method certainly provides them with plenty of evidence in support of that statement.

good advice

Need nothing, desire everything, love what you get.

annonymous

is it taiwan or is it you?

Jefferson wrote - Returning home after a long journey abroad allowed for a fresh perspective on life in Taiwan and how I see it. The first couple of days back, I was mostly having a good time visting my old haunts, seeing old friends, etc. Not too much bugged me.

Of course, after getting back to the grind and the nitty gritty of daily life, the little frustrations started piling up, and I found myself getting annoyed at things like people crowding onto the bus, driving like lunatics, etc.

Instead of letting those (everpresent) problems get me down, I did a quick assessment of my situation and realized that Taiwan, well, was still Taiwan. Nothing had changed over the last week. It was my mental state which had changed, which had affected my attitude and outlook.

Now, granted that every place on this little globe has its own problems, the question is this: To what extent are the "problems" you encounter here products of your own state of mind? Or, to put it another way, to what extent is the focus of your complaining and irritation affected by your current living condition?

I realize those are extremely difficult questions to answer when you're "in the middle" of things here. BTW, I'm also interested in hearing from folks who've left and come back after a period of months (or years), and how that's affected your perception of life, Taiwan, the universe, and everything.

jefferson again wrote - I wonder what percentage of Taiwan Tantrums are reflections of a person's own wrecked state of mind. And to take that further, I wonder to what extent the people who see a lot of problems are in fact revealing a deep well of personal troubles. To extend that to a point that might be ludicrous, I wonder if cases of extreme ranting might be an indication of serious personal issues, which might be completely unrelated to the object of one's ranting.

Of course, this can never be cut and dry, since it's a complicated business. There are issues of culture-shock, adjusting to a new home, etc. But I think it is interesting to draw a connection between our changing perceptions of a place and our changing states of mind. Because then, once we realize that's what's happening (if in fact, that's what's happening), it can allow for a shift in perception, added stability, and a better sense of balance and well-being.

At least that's the theory.

bob - Taiwan can be irritating as hell of course. My personal beef is the traffic and the attendant air pollution. There are a number of wonderful things about the place though such as the sensitivity that you can expect from people who are actually your friends. Basically I think that the healthier you are psychologically the more you will find to appreciate about Taiwan and the less you will find to bitch about. That's probably what you should try to do if you want to become or remain psychologically healthy as well. Looking for the positive is a good general strategy wherever you are. Of course it is also healthy to try and shape your environment in positive ways as long as you don't become grandiose and over estimate your potential influence. I've seen a lot of Westerners in Taiwan who don't seem to understand any of these things. They bitch and complain and expect things to improve as if by magic all on account of their having identified a problem or a shortcoming. It really is an embarassing thing to behold and all the more so because I was once one of the worst offenders.

Wookie - Righght-on, Bob.
Wherever you go that's where you are. So you can either go somewhere else or adapt to your locality.

Back home: The boss screwed me, the driver cut me off, this person is an A**hole, I didn't get enough respect from so and so, This person is a shithead and is holding me back, the govt. sucks, "The Man" is pulling the strings and little people can't get ahead, "The System" is designed for those who are within, the world is f**ed up and I can't make a difference, so why try...

Here: Ditto

It is easy to externalize our problems. Not so easy to look for the source--usually inside ourselves.......Peace!

bob - Thanks Wookie. You know something else I've realized lately is that the grandiose, narcissistic, hypercritical, depressive, paranoid mess I was when I arrived here five years ago was to quite an extent pretty much an unavoidable consequence of coming from a grandiose, narcissistic, hypercritical, depressive, paranoid, shame based mess of a society. I have no idea really what the society is about here, but thanks very much to a book entitled "The Art of Happiness" I have chosen to look for whatever positive I could find in whomever I have had contact with here and that has made all the difference; which, in a round about way, brings us back to Jefferson's original question: Is it Taiwan (or wherever you came from for that matter) or is it you? And that my dear readers is a hell of a question since it is bloody near impossible to extricate a "you" from the mass of influences that created you. It is possible though to yank yourself up out of that cause effect dynamic and chart a more deliberate, controlled course for yourself but that requires a good bit of soul searching.....

Jefferson - Sounds like a good attitude, Bob. It may well be that Taiwan is allowing you (along with many of us) to undertake a personal reinvention. Being in a place where our previous habits, reactions, and assumptions are decontextualized allows the slate to be recast. Or, at the very least, it allows for a new slate to be created, especially when speaking Chinese or Taiwanese, as many of the cultural and behavioral artifacts of one's native language are dropped.

But again, it's not all that rosy or cut and dry, which is a reason we need to do things like engage in regular introspection, read books to help us sort things out, and start threads like this to share experiences.

bob - People who have a chance to step out of their birth culture as adults for extended periods of time are some of the luckiest people alive. Especially people like us coming from the west at this point in history, which it seems has been characterized by abuse of both the most blatant and the most subtle kinds for decades. Most of the smart people I know in Canada are recovering from it in one way or another. The dumb ones don't even realize what they did or what happened to them.

Which of course isn't to say that there isn't a lot of negativity here. It's just that I am not part of that dynamic, since most of my interaction with people is in the role of teacher, and in that role I usually seem able to maintain mutually respectful relationships. That would probably not be possible were I to find myself employed less professionally here. Were I to return to Canada you could be well assured that I would quickly find myself employed less professionally. I doubt that it would suit me much. Anyway both the Chinese and Western Zodiacs say I would make a good assassin. I wonder if there would be good money in that....