Courses of a Chinese language undergraduate student

Date: 2012.03.03 | Category: Chinese Education, Chinese Language, Me, Sun Yat-Sen University | Response: 8

As most of you know, I’m studying a undergraduate degree in Chinese language at the Sun Yat-Sen University. There isn’t really many full-time Chinese language students in the blogosphere, but perhaps some of you are interested to hear what kind of courses I have.

I’m on the third year of my studies and chose Teaching Chinese “major”. The official name of my major is Chinese language, but my degree also includes some courses about teaching Chinese to foreigners. Other option was Business Chinese, but I thought Teaching Chinese is a better pick for me.

Let’s take a look at the courses!

Basic language courses

口语， Spoken Chinese

My teaching-Chinese-group has only four students so for spoken Chinese and comprehensive Chinese we were put on the same class with advanced non-degree students. There are over 20 students in total which is too much for spoken Chinese course. Even though the aim for the course is to learn to make presentations, most of our time is spend on dialogue. There just isn’t enough time to let us all make more than one or two presentations this semester.

The level of the course (not the students’) seems to be lower than my spoken Chinese course last semester, where we had presentations every other week. At the moment this course is the one I’m least happy with.

综合， Comprehensive Chinese

This is the basic core course which includes vocabulary, reading and grammar. There is 50-60 new words in every lesson and we learn maybe one lesson per week. Our teacher is quite demanding and she wants us to be well prepared for every class. She asks lots of questions from students and it’s not nice when you have to admit you don’t know because you weren’t prepared.

写作，Writing

Our goal for the course is to learn to write opinion pieces, essays that shows our opinion about something. We will write ten essays during the semester and grades from them will have an effect on the final grade. The same teacher use to teach me Cantonese last year, but seems to be good at teaching other subjects as well. This course is only for my group so there is always maximum of four students at class.

Teaching Chinese special courses

对外汉语技能教学， Teaching Chinese for foreigners（teaching different courses）

On this course we learn how to teach different courses to foreigners. We learn on what to pay attention to when teaching comprehensive Chinese, spoken Chinese, listening , reading and (if we have time) writing. During the semester we will also learn to make lesson plans.

语言学概论， Introduction to linguistics

Our teacher said that this course’s aim is to understand languages, including our own, a little bit better. The teacher always asks a lot of questions about our own native languages and sometimes I find it hard to answer. I have never thought about Finnish in that level and this course makes me think in a new way.

现代汉语， Modern Chinese

This is an demanding, but interesting course. It teaches us more about the language we have been learning for years, it teaches what is Chinese language is really about. This semester we will concentrate on aspects of spoken Chinese and vocabulary. Other parts of the language will come up on a different course next semester. With this course I hope I would have learned the grammar terms well when I was in high school, now I finally have to learn what attribute means.

对外汉语教学引论， Teaching Chinese for foreigners

I’m not sure what would be the proper translation for this course, but for example we will learn what is this “Teaching Chinese for Foreigners”, it’s a major, it’s a profession and even a mission. The most important part of this course is second language acquisition. During this course the teacher also hopes us to find a topic for our bachelor thesis.

Selective courses

中国国情，Current situation of China

The topic of our first meeting was Chinese New Year and especially the rush to get back home to celebrate the festival. We discussed what it means to migrant workers and how hard it’s get to tickets for buses and trains. Our other topics will be from different aspects like economy, politics, culture, people, education, religion and so on. I hope this selective course will help me to understand China better and to learn about recent happenings in the country.

现代汉语虚词学习，Modern Chinese function words

This course will be a headache! A full course on those little function words which doesn’t have meaning, but do have a grammatical function. Like 的，地，得 and 了1 + 了2. So why did I chose this course? It will help me in so many levels: speaking, writing and with my modern Chinese course.

中级粤语，Middle level Cantonese

A better name for this course would be Beginner Cantonese 2, because that’s the level we still are. Luckily or unfortunately all of my classmates on this course seem to have a Cantonese parent or grew up in Hong Kong. But optimistically thinking, it means I have more than one teaching at the classroom!

中国历史, History of China

History used to be my major back in Finland so I of course had to choose this course. I really like the teacher and we will learn the basics of the 5000 years of Chinese history. I’ve been concentrating a lot on 20th century Chinese history, so even during the first meeting I learned a lot.

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So here are all of my courses for this semester. Do you find them interesting?

In total it’s almost 22 hours of Chinese classes per week. On top of that comes the homework of course (exercises and reading), then add some self-study like reading books and watching Chinese TV. And don’t forget that I have a Chinese boyfriend and cat at home.

Nothing is perfect, not even Sun Yat-Sen University

Date: 2011.11.24 | Category: Chinese Education, Guangzhou, Me, Sun Yat-Sen University | Response: 28

I have been very satisfied with my compulsory courses at the Sun Yat-Sen University, but I can’t say the same about my elective courses. I have to electives this term, Cantonese and Chinese calligraphy. The major problem on both of those courses is that there are way too many students in class.

Cantonese course

There are about 50 students at the beginner Cantonese course and most of the students seem not to be that interested in learning to speak Cantonese. Or they still haven’t figured out how to close their mouths. Many students are talking casually through out the whole lesson and teacher doesn’t seem to know how to make the group silent. She tries, but in my opinion, not hard enough.

Teacher simply doesn’t have enough time to correct our pronunciation or even here all of us speaking. How are we going to learn this language without help when the pronunciation is quite difficult?

Also the textbook isn’t that good. It used Guangdong romanization, not the more widely used Jyutping. The first things I would like to learn in Cantonese are the numbers and how to go out and buy things. This would be the vocabulary I could use from day one. But instead we are learning how to greet people, ask how they have been doing and if they work or study. This is also common topic, but it could wait until later.

Chinese calligraphy course

My other elective course, Chinese calligraphy, is difficult, but interesting. There are also about 50 students at class and due to the timetable changes made by the teacher (and because he always finishes early) the class lasts about 60 minutes, not 90 minutes as it should be according the the original plan printed on our schedules.

The calligraphy teacher doesn’t seem to care much. I agree that as we are all adults studying there we can decide if we come to class or not. But when I do come to class (which is always, but not today because I’m going to a MRI with my knee) I would hope to get more guidance. The teacher usually doesn’t help you if you don’t ask him to help. We had a substitute teacher one week and I have to say he was better than our regular teacher.

But even with the not-so-great elective courses, Sun Yat-Sen University is still much better than the Guangzhou University where I used to study before.

Studying Chinese at Sun Yat-Sen University: Intensive Course

Date: 2011.11.06 | Category: Chinese Education, Chinese Language, Me, Sun Yat-Sen University | Response: 24

The comprehensive course (综合) or intensive course (精读) in other words is the most information packed course we have at the Sun Yat-Sen University. We have intensive classes three times a week which makes up 27% of our total class time. The course includes new vocabulary, new grammar, reading, exercises and occasionally writing short essays.

Our teacher Zhang always comes to class prepared and is an excellent teacher. We first go over the new words, but not all of them at the same time. We usually first cover the words mentioned in the first paragraph of the text, then read the text aloud with our teacher and after that she will explain the tricky parts and grammar for us. With this method it takes us one week to finish one lesson.

Every chapter also have eight to ten exercises that we do partly during class, partly by our selves at home. Every now and then our teacher wants us to write a small essay related to the lesson. Sometimes we also do our homework to our special notebooks and hand them over to teacher Zhang to correct. Homework and essays are graded with letters, A+ being the best one.  (Homework grades are 10% of our final grade.)

After every five lessons we have a small exam which makes up 5% of our final grade. The aim is to make sure we study hard during the semester and not only cram before the final exams. (Final exam is 60% of our final grade.) I think I did a good job with our first exam and got 89 points (100 being the best score).

Studying during class is of course not enough. Besides homework there are lots of new words to learn. Every lesson includes about 50 word’s vocabulary and usually most of them are new to me. It’s not only learning the meaning of the words, but also how to write the characters by hand.

First I write every new character (and old ones that I still don’t remember) 10 times by hand. Then I put all the words to Skritter (affiliate link) and review the words there. I bought the writing tablet and a pen just to study with Skritter.

For memorizing characters and words it’s also good to read the chapter at home at least once. Besides reading the textbook it’s also advisable to read other material. I’m reading my first Chinese novel at the moment (for our reading course) and every time notice words that I have just learned at intensive course.

Intensive course might be the best course I have at the moment. The textbook is good, teacher is great and I learn a lot every week. The level suits me well, keeps me busy, but doesn’t feel impossible to handle.

Besides final exam (40%), small exams (10% in total, two exams) and homework (10%) are final grade also includes attendance (10%) and being active at class (10%). It’s not enough to just show up, but it’s also not enough to be good if you skip classes regurarly. You’re also not allowed to take the exam if you skip too many classes.

If you have any questions about our intensive course or studying at Sun Yat-Sen University in general, please leave a comment!

Applying and registering to the Sun Yat-Sen University

Date: 2011.10.05 | Category: Chinese Education, Me, Sun Yat-Sen University | Response: 4

In China if you have to apply or register to something, it usually includes a lot of paper work and going from place to place. Getting into Sun Yat-Sen University isn’t hard for foreign students, but it can be a hassle. Here’s how it happened with me this summer when I applied to the undergraduate degree of Chinese as a foreign language.

Admission

The application deadline was June 5th (if you apply for the spring term it’s December 5th), but I handed in my application already in April. I went to the international office and along with the application form gave them copies of passport, copy of my high school diploma and self made unofficial translation, certificate from Guangzhou University and my current HSK certificate.

You can check the admission guidelines from the website of Office for International Students’ Affairs.

Because I had studied Chinese before at Guangzhou University for a year and a half, I was hoping to skip at least year one. They told me to contact them again after one month to hear to which year they will put me in. After that month had passed I sent then an email and heard they decided to let me start from the year two.

I went to the international office again in July and August, first to get my acceptance letter and then to get the JW202 form I needed to get a student visa from Hong Kong. (I had a tourist visa during August at China.)

Notice that these steps might be different for you if you apply from abroad. I had the advantage to be in Guangzhou already and could just visit the office anytime I had questions or needed some documents.

Registration

Applying to the university was the easy part. The great hassle begun when the registration week started on 5th of September. Because of the huge amount of students it took me three days to register and pay my tuition fee. The most important thing is to follow the steps they give you, always have all the documents with you and be at the office early at the morning. If the office opens at 8.30am, there’s already a line of at least 20 students at 7.30am.

Because I was already in China I had registered at the police station and already had done my medical check-up. After registration I only had to take all my documents to the exit and entry bureau, wait for two weeks and got my passport with residence permit (which is valid until March).

During registration I gave my newest HSK certificate to the teacher in charge of undergraduate degree students and manages to talk my self to a more advanced class (from 本二上 to 本二下). Before I had hopes to start from year three, but those hopes were set too high.

There are a lot of things to do and remember during registration, but don’t worry, the staff at the international office will help you. Just follow the steps in the document they will give you and you’ll be fine. Also remember that if you study less than 6 months then F visa is enough, if you study longer then you need to enter China with X visa and then change it to residence permit. If you pay the whole year’s tuition fees at once, you can get a residence permit for one year. If you pay one semester like I did, you will get a residence permit for half a year.

Important websites and email addresses

English versions of the university’s websites are quite dated, so if possible, follow the Chinese ones.

Main site: http://www.sysu.edu.cn/2010/

School of Chinese as a second language: http://scsl.sysu.edu.cn/

Office for International Students’ Affairs: http://iso.sysu.edu.cn/index.htm

Emails: tanjx(a)mail.sysu.edu.cn and violet_wong(a)126.com

First week at Sun Yat-Sen University

Date: 2011.09.25 | Category: Chinese Education, Chinese Language, Me, Sun Yat-Sen University | Response: 38

My first week as a Chinese language undergraduate student is now over and I’m really happy I chose to study at Sun Yat-Sen University! The teachers are educated and know what they are doing. They are prepared for class and have a clear plan for the whole course. The courses are interesting and challenging. My class (本二下) on the second year is just right for me and the level suits my needs.

Our basic compulsory courses are comprehensive (综合), listening (听力), writing (写作), reading (泛读) and speaking (口语). Besides that we can choose at least one selective from five different courses. I decided to choose Cantonese (粤语) and calligraphy (书法).  If you think Mandarin is difficult, then you should try Cantonese and think again!

My original plan back in 2010 wast to apply for Beijing Language and Culture University, but I think I made the right decision to stay in Guangzhou and come to the Sun Yat-Sen University. It’s the best university in the south and usually 9th or 10th best in the whole country. Even though in Finland it doesn’t matter from which university you graduate (students of Helsinki University might disagree with me), but in China it’s appreciated if you graduate from on of the top universities.

Now my job for the following three years is to be a top student. Final exams aren’t the only factor when calculating our grades. We also have to do our homework or other assignments, attend classes (after certain amount of absence from class you’re not allowed to take the exam) and be active in class. All of this requires a lot of study and I’m ready for it.

I dreamed about studying a Chinese degree when I was 16 years old. Now is the time to be worthy of my dream.

Now I would like to throw the ball to you my readers. Would you like to know more about my studies at Sun Yat-Sen University? Or more posts about learning Chinese?