I gave a talk at the American Chamber of Commerce last week. It aimed to introduce the concept of ‘web 2.0′. My thesis: ChinesePod demonstrates how the new web 2.0 tools can be used to learn Chinese and create a real business. I will take this talk on the road over the winter, speak […]
Archive for October, 2006
Presentation ‘What is Web 2.0?’
Published by October 30th, 2006 in Learning Chinese and About ChinesePod. 11 CommentsMandarin Chinese Tone Pair Drills
Published by October 29th, 2006 in Pedagogy, Learning Chinese, Community and Pronunciation. 18 CommentsSinosplice has a new feature: Mandarin Chinese Tone Pair Drills. Users who have found that website’s content useful in the past should probably give it a look.
A while back, Ken did a series of posts on pronunciation. It became clear that the CPod poddies wanted more help. Ever since, we have been paying more attention […]
The BLCU
The HSK is a test designed to assess the Mandarin proficiency of non-native speakers of the language (the equivalent of TOEFL or IELTS for learners of English.) The HSK was developed by the HSK Center of Beijing Language and Culture University and it is the nationally accepted standard.
I’m interested to know what […]
This blog is one year old this week. I looked back at what we were talking about at that time. Here is one of the earliest posts - About communiction. It concerns Steven Pinker (amongst others). Funny that, one year later - to the day - we’re back to Pinker’s ideas.
And guess who answered […]
Lantian has an interesting post, Did that click for you? on his blog. He looks at the subject of ‘parsing’. I’ll let him explain.
When native speakers of a language speak, hear or read a sentence that is not properly formed they will often say it “just didn’t sound right.” And if the sentence is then […]
Learning Chinese through TPR - Total Physical Response
Published by October 22nd, 2006 in Uncategorized and Learning Chinese. 9 CommentsJames Asher originated the TPR approach.
We used a TPR approach in the podcast lesson today. This instruction method has been around for, I guess, 40 years now. The idea is to present learners with a series of instructions and have them do the actions as they hear the words: “Please stand up“, “Put the […]
This might be on interest to Bazza.
Ken Carroll
John and Aric put this short video together. Enjoy.
Ken Carroll
Simultaneous translation of the podcasts
Published by October 18th, 2006 in About ChinesePod. 10 CommentsHere’s an interesting video/audio mash-up: Maxiewawa listens to and an advanced intermediate show and translates simultaneously (or at least he gives it his best shot) into the camera. This is a difficult thing to do. I’d give him pretty good marks - it’s funny, too.
Ken Carroll
Tips on learning Chinese
Published by October 18th, 2006 in Uncategorized and Learning Chinese. 78 CommentsI want you to think like a Mandarin teacher. You’ve just met someone who is really interested in learning Chinese, but has never studied it before. What tips do you offer the newbie?
Next you meet an elementary. Again, tips for an elementary?
And so on.
If you’re willing to share your advice on learning Chinese, we’d […]
Comments