Intermediate Chinese I (W) · East Asian Languages And Cultures
10 diary entries, random stuff, random quizzes, 2 midterms, a final.
Take Elementary Chinese, or skip to Advanced Chinese. Do anything but take this class with "Su Tai Tai"! Su Tai Tai rarely corrected people if they mixed up their "zh- ch- sh-" with "z- c- s-" or if used a wrong tone for a character. Even worse, she spoke English more than half the time when teaching. So my Chinese regressed from listening to wrong pronunciations AND my English regressed from listening to Su Tai Tai's lilting, piercing ramblings. She also spends very little time actually teaching because she's too busy being passive-aggressive, going off on tangents, making inappropriate comments, lauding her pedagogy, etc. She likes to bring up Chinese regional differences, which is fine, except it would become "China does this... Taiwan does that" and then she would say "but let's not go there!" or "but we can't comment on this!" or "but we must be neutral!" You brought this up in the first place, Su Tai Tai. Some days, she's clearly grumpy, and her annoying, high-pitched, screeching voice would be tainted with a tangible impatience. More than once has a student complained about being scared of her. When someone says something "wrong," expect some snide comment. Or if the class is a bit slow in repeating in kindergarten-fashion after her, expect a loud, obnoxious, threatening "HELLO?! HELLO?! IS ANYONE THERE?!" Su Tai Tai also spends a good deal making "some people in this c…
Could be a lot, could be a little. With Sobelman, you never know.
About Sobelman and making technology work against us: Sobelman prides herself on integrating technology with language learning... but the problem is she does not know how to work with computers and dabbling has only made things worse. Sobelman distributes class documents as hard copies in class, as attachments in e-mails and files on Courseworks with no particular coherent organization. This is kind of like a company paying its employees in cash, then in check, then in electronic deposit at random order. See the problem here? It's a pain to keep track of everything and vital information is easily overlooked. To exacerbate things, she also often sends the same e-mail twice, send the wrong e-mail, forget the attachment or attach a wrong file. However, what tops the cake is that for the first few weeks of class, the students had to actually help her how to access her files on the class computers. We would literally sit there and watch a student walk her through how to find a particular file in her cluttered inbox. One time, a document on a quiz on the next day was sent via e-mail on the night before the quiz instead of having been distributed in class on the previous session or posted on Courseworks in a timely manner. About Sobelman and NOT teaching Chinese in Chinese class: However, the biggest time-waster, and I estimate that at least 20% to 40% of total class hours was wasted…
10 journal entries in Chinese, 3 short compositions in Chinese, and totally mystery homework assignments that you're never sure was assigned or not but can shaft you at the end of the semester when she makes you turn in a "homework dossier".
I read the reviews on CULPA and decided to try the class anyway because I thought, "how bad could it be?" Well, I am confident that my level of Chinese has decreased this semester. I will NOT be taking this course next semester and I will NOT the only one in class who is doing so. If there was a "0" bubble to select to denote "horrible," then I would have selected it. To be fair, my level of Chinese would have decreased even more had I not taken this course, but that is like saying I would have starved even more had I not bought that bag of chips for $50. I am disappointed in both myself for not heeding the warnings I read about Sobelman and in Columbia for offering such a poor course. Seriously, a Chinese professor from the Math Department can probably teach Chinese better, or at least less painfully.
Very light. A few compositions all semester. Very easy tests that require only the memorization of the letters in the text. Her focus is on in-class speaking, which, for the advanced native-speakers, is babyish and a waste of time.
This lady talks a lot, and it's repetitive. Classtime is painful and feels awfully wasteful because all she does is have the class read aloud the textbook and repeat after her - at a level which "native-speaking students" should have already mastered, and the ones who haven't yet, can learn from the pin yin. Her quizzes are very easy and straight from the book and her supplement. She is a very dedicated teacher in spite of it all, and she always sends you back your composition the same day if you write it on the computer, (sometimes even at 3 AM in the morning!) She has a lot of ideas for teaching and is really into her own system of pedagogy, as you will find in her first two classes, which are NOTHING but rants about her own pedagogical philosophy - don't let her fool you in the first two classes: she may be your "Coach," your "Su Tai Tai," but in class, she is the itch below your diaphragm that makes you sputter and suffocate.
If you keep on top of your work it can actually be less than other 5 credit language courses. But if you don't it could be alot more as she expects you to self-motivate and self-learn.
Sutaitai (as she likes to be called) is nothing short of a character. The first day of class students are giving a lecture on her Confucian teaching styles, which emphasize group learning and advancement and the friendship between teacher and students. Her teaching style is totally unstructured, and students coming into her intermediate class following a highly structured elementary Chinese class here at Columbia might be a bit overwhelmed by her total lack of any sort of teaching plan. However, although she might never learn your name, she is a very intelligent woman who knows her stuff. Expect alot of self-motivated learning and studying; there are no daily dictations as in first year Chinese, nor are there any set tests. She emphasizes sentence structure and more advanced reading, and she assumes that you already know most of your vocab from first year.