I’d add, a good teacher lets YOU speak, not her/himself. She/he creates opportunities for you to speak so you can use not recite new words and grammar. The most basic way is “Can you give me an example use?”, but I also learned the “把” structure because my GoEast teacher was asking me how I made my favorite recipes, and the “把” structure naturally fits in answers used to answer that question.

I have been studying chinese for about 10 years, but it is only during the summer months when I go to China for 2 to 3 months to take classes that I make any progress. One of the most frustrating things I have found over the years in ALL the classes I’ve taken, either in Beijing or Shanghai, at 4 different language schools, is that the teachers, even the ones I consider good teachers, do not spend any time correcting my pronunciation.

In a way, this is understandable. Even in a small class, if the teacher had to correct everyone’s pronunciation after every mistake, we’d never get beyond nihao. Haha. But still, some part of every class should be devoted to pronunciation, even at levels beyond absolute beginner.

I am also frustratrated with how every teacher seems to use the same tired method of teaching foreigners, the method that they themselves were taught at BCLS or some other famous chinese language school. When I studied french at the Alliance Francaise, the teachers used many different methods to improve our french, including other forms of media, like listening to the news or watching tv programs. But my chinese classes all seem bound like prisoners to the textbook, be it Boya, NPCR, Short Term Spoken Chinese, or some other book.

Why not teach us tongue twisters? How about teaching us chinese pop songs? I would think singing in chinese would really help to improve our tones.

In any case, thanks again for all the advice!
Best regards,
josh mackles