Jump to content
Chinese-Forums
  • Sign Up

問我anything with Eszter


oceancalligraphy

Recommended Posts

We're continuing our 問我anything series with Eszter. She's a relatively new member of the forum, and introduced herself in her post offering online tutoring lessons

 

Here are a couple of questions to get started:

 

What was a favorite or memorable experience during your studies in Taiwan?

 

What are a couple of things you learned during your MA that you think all Chinese learners should know?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Were you on a course of just non-native speakers, or was it a mix? And what have other students on that course gone on to do?

 

Good to see some newbies getting asked questions, and hope you'll become a regular poster. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to start a conversation with other forum members! I'm really glad to be here.

 

Favorite or most memorable experience in Taiwan: I was there for seven years so it's a bit hard to pick out one thing. But probably the most amazing thing there was the experience of being competent in Chinese, the confidence I was able to get around the island even by myself knowing that I'm capable to deal with whatever comes up. Of course it's not only about my language level, but also the environment. I found Taiwanese people extremely friendly and helpful, and with their help I was able to experience the culture in ways a non-Chinese speaker foreigner could never do. That's why I still call Taiwan home, even though I have left the island for over two years now.

 

What every learner should know: To be honest, during my years at NTNU, I think I found more new questions than solutions, although I see that as a kind of improvement too. Sorry, no wise answer to this question. :)

 

About the course: roughly one-third of our class were foreigners, and the rest were Taiwanese. We attended the same classes and were expected to meet the same requirements. The only big difference was that for the local students there was a rather strict entrance exam, while for foreigners it was only a review of the documentation they sent in with the application. Of course all the classes were in Chinese and we had to read and defend our thesis in Chinese as well. Most of the graduates got teaching jobs, they are all around the world, but some of them decided to stay in Taiwan, there are many universities offering Chinese courses so they can find a job. NTNU is one of the two big, old, famous universities in Taiwan, so it's a good starting point for job search.

 

(Disclaimer: if you find my English weird it's because I'm not a native speaker. If anything I wrote is not clear, please ask.)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like you had a wonderful time at NTNU.

 

"if you find my English weird it's because I'm not a native speaker"  If you hadn't mentioned it I would never have thought twice about it. :)

 

So this begs the question what is your native language and how many languages do you speak?

 

What have you done with your Chinese since you left Taiwan?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, a fellow countryman of mine! Welcome here on Chinese forums!

 

Did you study Chinese language and culture major in Hungary as well? Why did you choose Taiwan over mainland China when deciding about where to do your MA? 

 

How did you end up in the US?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My native language is Hungarian, and I speak 3 languages, including my native. 

 

Since I left Taiwan, I work hard on keeping my Chinese in shape. I listen to podcasts, watch Chinese TV and most of all I read a lot. It doesn't really help with the speaking part but very rewarding. (If you're looking for "real" Chinese literature to read that is not too complicated or full of chengyus, ask me about my favorites) Also, I teach! That might be the single most effective way of keeping my Chinese working. Another thing that helps is, that as a teacher I keep looking for opportunities for professional development. The past summer I was fortunate to attend the ACC K-12 Teacher training program in Beijing which was tremendously helpful not only language-wise but it gave me a great perspective about my chosen profession. If anyone interested about that program (also, it's a Fulbright scholarship) I'll be more than happy to share the details because it's an awesome opportunity for anyone seriously interested in teaching.

 

Yes, my BA and MA is in Chinese studies, which I got at ELTE University Budapest. Although I can't say that the program made me fluent in Chinese but the background knowledge about history, philosophy and culture in general has been a huge help in figuring out cross-culture communication.  I spent a year in Shanghai on a language scholarship and also a year in Taiwan. I had a much better learning experience in Taiwan both in- and outside the classroom plus I fell in love with the island so I decided to go back. I applied for the scholarship from the ministry of education to do my MA there. Although the scholarship ran out way before my graduation, it was still a great time. Part of my "real life" cultural experience came from the odd jobs I did to stay alive and pay my tuition.

 

How I ended up in the US: honestly, I never planned on it, it must be a huge yuanfen. While I was in Taiwan, I met an American composer (whose favorite composers are Hungarian), and since after graduation I had no further plans, I was able to come to the US with him as he started grad school. (also, while Taiwan is the dream place for the Chinese learning student, it's unfortunately not that promising for a foreigner looking for a meaningful job or almost anything besides English teaching) We got married two years ago and we both miss Taiwan every day. :) 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first teacher was a student himself, a college student at the same department I went to later. He taught me enough to pass the entrance exams and then I had my first native teacher. She was from Fujian, speaking beautiful putonghua but I'm not sure if she was actually a professionally trained teacher (just like today's Hanban volunteers are not necessarily trained). Our outdated textbooks were not helpful either, and the emphasis was on learning to read as we were supposed to become "scholars" and researchers. We didn't get a rigorous training about tones and that led to a lot of trouble later. For my first two years I thought I was doing fine as I was able to understand my teacher and my classmates and they understood me. Then I got the scholarship and went to Shanghai, where I had to realize that things didn't work that well. Now, after so many years, I still struggle with the tones sometimes, because I didn't get into the habit of paying them proper attention in the beginning. 

 

I can say that the main reason for me becoming a teacher is because I realized the importance of a well-prepared, trained teacher especially for beginners. I hope we can help the next learning generations to have an easier access to the language and better guidance in the learning process.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes it does sound like a cool language pair. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Hungarian and Finnish were more connected to each other than to other European languages.

 

So maybe it has more in common with oriental languages?

 

Anyone ever heard this, or am i just remembering something else incorrectly. :-?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome questions!

 

Books: I love the novels of 余华, I've read maybe 3-4 of them and still wanting more. His language is very simple, he doesn't use complicated sentences or complex adjectives. Even if you don't understand every single word on the page, you can still follow the story. I also read a few things from 哈金 as his sentences are very simple too, but later I learned that he actually writes in English and later that text gets translated into English. Usually I prefer reading "original" but his books are still a great reading practice. I just recently dove into the XX. century classic, 家 and I'm surprised by how much easier it is than I expected. I bought an abridged, simplified version of it just in case but I don't really need it. In my experience, reading is not only a very important input source but also a highly rewarding experience, it's a window where I can peek into a different world. (I am a strong reader in my other languages too)

 

Music: I love music and I wish I had more time exploring what's out there. Since most of my English was acquired by listening to American hard rock in my teens, I know that memorizing song lyrics is an awesome and fun way to build vocabulary and internalize sentence structures. Unfortunately I don't know many Chinese singers or bands, but I do enjoy listening to 崔健 (although his lyrics can be very challenging sometimes), and for more modern things, the Taiwanese 信乐团. I am very willing to broaden my knowledge about music, so if you have any good recommendation, please let me know!

 

While I was at NTNU, part of my graduation requirement was to complete 100 hours of teaching. Since as a foreigner, I didn't really have a chance to find a classroom teaching opportunity, I volunteered to tutor the students of the Mandarin Training Center. So I got to work with many different people from various language background and Chinese level. Most of them were beginning and intermediate though. I think when it comes to higher level learners, their needs are very different from the lower levels. With a higher level student, I feel that my role is less of a teacher than a study partner as our skills and abilities are much closer. It's more like a discussion and an exploration done together than a lesson where I tell the student what he/she needs to know. 

 

Hungarians and Chinese... good question! It's hard to tell, although one thing is for sure, that the number of Chinese learners in Hungary has been steadily increasing in the last two decades. When I started to learn, there was only one university in the country with a Chinese major, and the year I applied, we had 12 students in the first year....in the whole country! Now it's very different of course. 

 

Hungarian and Finnish: even if there's a connection (some people would argue), it's definitely not very close, so we can't understand each other. Hungarians can't understand pretty much anyone else, which is funny since we're sitting in the middle of Eastern Europe, surrounded by mostly Slavic-speaking neighbors who can easily communicate with each other.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now that you're in the States, how are you regarded as a non-Chinese teacher of Chinese? Do you find people dubious and wanting a teacher that 'looks the part'? 

 

I wonder how long it will be before this problem wears itself out.  Most people still expect teachers of Chinese to be Chinese and that seems to me to be more or less what people expected when learning European languages in centuries past, i.e. your Italian teacher would be a political refugee from Italy and you French teacher would be a French governess etc. :)

 

Eszter, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on textbooks.  Which are your favourites (at any and all levels) and which do you think to be not worth the paper they're printed on?  I'm a big fan of 遠東生活話語3 and think that 'Teach Yourself Chinese' urgently needs rewriting.  What about you?

 

I too studied at the MTC at NTNU and was quite intrigued by that special half of the 10th floor.  We may well have passed on the corridors as I was there 2009/10 on the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship taking levels 5 and 6 classes.  (I could have done higher level stuff, but think that this sort of level had more useful material for me as I couldn't care much less about Chinese lit than I do just now etc).

 

Also, have you met Nicky Dabney over there?  She's been doing an MA at Univeristy of Indiana Bloomington and is now teaching Chinese at another local uni.  Say 'Hi' from me, if you have. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, here we go :) This issue is really close to my heart. So much so that I wrote my MA thesis about non-native speaking Chinese teachers in the US, and I found that there's still a lot of misconception going on. My interviewees reported that while non-native teachers of European languages are accepted and respected in their schools, non-native Chinese teachers still have to struggle with the "oh, but you're not Chinese!" thing and feel forced to prove their professionalism and competence all the time, to students, to parents and every native speaker around. I can think two reasons for this, maybe three: one, the culture are more distant, so it's more "unusual" from someone from the West to be familiar with it, two, we LOOK very different, so while an American French teacher can still "look French", the non-native Chinese teacher's identity as a "foreigner" is much more obvious, and three, it's still a relatively new thing, so people are just not really used to have speakers of Chinese who look different.

 

It's really unfortunate, because non-native teachers can be very valuable for students and they have some unique features that natives don't necessarily possess. If you're interested, I have a longer article written about it, based on my thesis, here:
http://miraculousmandarin.weebly.com/learning.html

 

About textbooks: Since I don't teach in a classroom setting, I'm not very familiar with many of them. I do think though that the Far East series are pretty good, it's focused on realistic everyday life situations.

 

I don't know your friend, sadly I'm not connected to IU. I got accepted to a doctoral program two years ago but since they don't have any scholarship options for international students, I gave up on the plan because it's just insanely expensive :( 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Eszter, I'll certainly take a look at that article.  I think that it's mostly point three in your post - that people simply aren't used to it.  Also, Chinese is seen as being incredibly hard (instead of just incredibly different), therefore no non-native speaker could possibly master it.  I know that, here in the UK, employers don't expect non-native speakers to apply for their jobs requiring Chinese skills.  They say 'Native Chinese speaker with fluent English'.

 

I wondered if you might have come across Nicky, being of the same specialism.  Maybe you will one day. :)

 

PS Have read your site article and I agree with you!  I esp. think the point about the non-native teacher having gone through the process and understanding the difficulties better than the native is relevant.  It's my main argument in our favour (I used to teach level one Mandarin at a University here in the UK), and a former manager (someone with a decent amount of experience as a non-native teacher of Euro languages and as a manager of teachers) agreed with me too.  Keep up the good work, Eszter!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Music: I love music and I wish I had more time exploring what's out there. Since most of my English was acquired by listening to American hard rock in my teens, I know that memorizing song lyrics is an awesome and fun way to build vocabulary and internalize sentence structures. Unfortunately I don't know many Chinese singers or bands, but I do enjoy listening to 崔健 (although his lyrics can be very challenging sometimes), and for more modern things, the Taiwanese 信乐团. I am very willing to broaden my knowledge about music, so if you have any good recommendation, please let me know!

 

I'll have to check out those artists. I'm always on the lookout for good Chinese artists for exactly the reason you mentioned. My favorite Taiwanese artist so far is 盧廣仲, mostly known for that song that goes "對啊,對啊,對啊對啊." That's not my favorite of his, but his albums are really quite good, with few weak songs as long as you like his style. He reminds me a little of Stevie Wonder with the slight jazz/funk influence and the optimism coming throughout. Also, as a professional musician myself, I have to say he crafts some pretty interesting songs!

 

Also, if you like instrumental music, 絲竹空 is my favorite Taiwanese group. They mix traditional Chinese instruments with jazz and rock/fusion. I even played one of their tunes on my graduate jazz recital. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIkjjJDUVuU

 

 

 

Thanks Eszter, I'll certainly take a look at that article.  I think that it's mostly point three in your post - that people simply aren't used to it.  Also, Chinese is seen as being incredibly hard (instead of just incredibly different), therefore no non-native speaker could possibly master it.  I know that, here in the UK, employers don't expect non-native speakers to apply for their jobs requiring Chinese skills.  They say 'Native Chinese speaker with fluent English'.

On the flip side, many ABC's and ABT's have their own problems with native Mandarin speakers having unrealistic expectations of their language abilities. My wife got pulled aside and yelled at by our tour guide for having "the worst Chinese he'd ever heard" (mine was worse than hers) during our Honeymoon, which isn't really fair. That was down in 高雄, though, so I bet they're not used to ABT's like 台北。 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

while Taiwan is the dream place for the Chinese learning student, it's unfortunately not that promising for a foreigner looking for a meaningful job or almost anything besides English teaching

Eszter, can you expound on this statement a little? Ideally my wife and I want to move to Taiwan for a year or two once she graduates from grad school in two years. I'm a professional jazz/classical piano/music teacher. Any idea what the prospects are for music out in 台灣? Or librarians (my wife's field)? Is teaching English basically the only option? 

 

My Mandarin is pretty good, basically my only hurdle right now getting a little more speaking practice and learning all the musical vocabulary to teach in Mandarin... Any thoughts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you think there are more Chinese who speak Hungarian or more Hungarians who speak Chinese?  :)  Seems a rather cool language pair.

 

 

Heh. This reminds me of the time I told my Chinese best friend's father of having visited my relatives in Budapest, then he fished out photos of HIS visit to Budapest to teach Chinese for a year. So funny how we laid out photos side by side, me and him (separately, ten years apart) near the Erzsebet bridge.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and select your username and password later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Click here to reply. Select text to quote.

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...