Now that break is over, we are returning to our regular schedule which looks something like this:
Monday: 3 hours of reading (and talking about) chinese mini-essays
Tuesday: 3 hours of listening to different types of broadcasts (ranging from weather news to short comedic sketches)
Wednesday: part of the day we learn colloqiual speech, the rest of the day we read a newspaper article
Thursday: finish up the lesson taught on monday
Friday: Full day of colloqiual speech
Just 3 hours of intense chinese a day and then FREEEDOMMM!!! I usually go out to eat with my classmates or st. olaf friends. It's useful to be around other international students who can't speak english because then I am forced to use my Chinese.....Also, for each of these classes I have different teachers (3 total: speaking/newspaper, listening, reading) -- all of whom are amazing! There are very clear in the their explanations (at least, when I can understand what they are saying). However, the general philosophy here is to push tons of new vocabulary on the students and see how much they remember. Not a favorite studying priniciple of mine --- due to this philosophy, I have as many as 100 new words for a new lesson. This doesn't include the extra passages that we read for that lesson (there is generally the main essay and then 3 other shorter essays....with more words I've never encountered before). Needless to say, I'm trying my best. Other than that, my classmates are fun to be around -- despite being in a standard level class, we are all different with our chinese abilities. Some students can speak really well, but can't read, and some others are the other way round. We help each other get by ;) (although, I'm not joking when I say I'm on the lower end....haha)
hope those who are taking classes are having a good time, and those who remain at home are also having a good time! love you all....
