Level Up

I started Basic Chinese 3 at the Confucius Institute last Saturday. The program will be conducted in eight 3-hour sessions every Saturday. I was initially hesitating whether to enroll in Basic 3 because I felt I was not able to maxminize my learning in Basic 2 and I might be too behind in Basic 3. I also learned that most of my classmates in Basic 2 decided not to enroll, having the same misgivings as I have. However, it occured to me that not enrolling might take away the motivation for me to continue learning and what I already know might waste away in attrition, and so I decided to enroll.

I was at the Ateneo Loyola Campus earlier than 9am because I haven't paid my fees and I haven't bought the materials - the textbook and the workbooks. I was quite daunted when I flipped open our textbook and saw that the dialogues are already in characters - no more pinyin! As if it wasn't bad enough, the CD for the textbook is not available yet.

Anyway, I proceeded to the classroom which is at Room 1 of the ISO Bldg. There I was met by my classmate in Basic 2 who was with a woman who was the same age as she. I remember seeing the woman on my way to the Conficius Center office. I was so glad to see my classmate and I was also eager to introduce myself to the woman who appears to be a new classmate too. I was done introducing myself when my classmate said, she is our teacher. Uh oh.

But I like our new teacher, she goes by the book which I think how it should be done. The teaching of Chinese all over the world as conducted by the Confucius Institute is done using the New Practical Chinese Reader. Naturally, I would think that all the exercises in the book have been proven useful in teaching foreigh students to learn the language. She stared with new words to familiarize us with the characters and the sounds. She also made us read the new words and corrected us in our pronunciation. After that, we went on to read the dialogue. Since I was seated in front, she asked me to read the part of Lin Na. Yikes! I could read some but not all the characters, a fact which I politely told her. She was so helpful. A couple of more repetitions and the characters began sinking in. Coming out of our first class, I know I still have a lot to do and first on the list is to do our homework. I'm going to enjoy this class. Hopefully, if I just stick to a regimen, I'll learn enough in Basic 3 so I can enroll in Basic 4. From there, I plan to enroll in the Intermediate class too, also 4 levels and eventually be able to take up Business Chinese.