We’ve been busy over at Praxis Language, talking about, amongst other things, the meaning behind the slogan Learning on your terms. Link.
Ken Carroll
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What does ‘learning on your terms’ really mean?
May 8th, 2007
中文 Chinese
Fox Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 7:56 am
‘learning on my terms’ means that I select the way I learn and what I when learn. This may include sometimes ChinesePod.
Ken Carroll Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Fox,
This is the driving idea behind most of what we do. Different tools enable different levels of autonomy and choice. We want to present you with the ones that enable more choice. The blog post elaborates on that idea.
Ken Carroll
David Saunders Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 9:03 am
To me, learning on my terms is a two part concept:
1. Get help in identifying the learning style that is most effective for me.
2. Having a service like ChinesePod satisfy those requirements as closely and completely as possible.
I was thinking about this topic this morning before I saw this blog. A few weeks ago, I was sent an email from ChinesePod offering a discount for the (formerly known as) 8-week program (now Practice?) since I am already a premium subscriber. However, even with the discount, the service was more expensive and less flexible than one offered by another Chinese educational organization. I replied to the email (politely) saying so and giving the name of the other company. When I got a response, it was (also polite): “thanks we’ll try to learn from their business model” type of thing and it was left at that.
Learning “on my terms,” to me (and specific to ChinesePod), means having the option to customize that Practice program to meet my educational goals. Right now, (I believe) the practice program is set for a call every day and costs X per month/year. I’m not interested in paying the cost of the program because I’m not interested in getting a “practice” call every day. Learning on my terms means I can learn 2 or 3 days per week and pay less instead of having to be restricted to the exact program ChinesePod thinks is best.
The other company I subscribe to costs $100 per month and offers unlimited (subject to abuse policy) lessons, with a live teacher on a Skype based webcam. I can schedule online, any day or time that I want to take the lesson and I can specify that I want to focus on vocabulary, or grammar, or something else. If ChinesePod could offer something similar, I’d probably switch to them. The key, for me, in “learning on my terms” is efficiency and flexibility.
Fox Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Ken
I would CPod organize like a shelf. Leave the MP3 lessons part as it is and add other useful material.
I could think of:
Graded reading material (Chinese only) for those that want to learn reading
Graded spoken short stories (Chinese only, no English, I know that already)
Newspicks (simple to read)
There could be more.
AZERDOCMOM Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Ken
“On your terms” means customizing the available materials CPod has to offer to my needs, my attension span, my life style. You are absolutely right that this “learner-centric” model is increasing in other industries. I have commented before regarding this issue, but as a practicing physician, I must continuously keep my medical knowledge up-to-date; it’s a challenge to fit that knowledge acquisition into my hectic life. Services such as http://www.cmedownload.com was created with flexibility in mind (it’s for emergency physicians’ continuous medical education.) There are podcasts, videocasts, med ed credits, etc. And it is easy to use. That’s key.
In the same manner, CPod offers a buffet of mandarin language learning tools for the subscriber to pick from. The offerings suits the casual as well as the serious learner. The level of competence of the staff shines through and allows us to trust CPod. The personalities are delightly and likable. The short podcast formats fit just right with the length of most adult attention spans these days. And, despite the nay-sayers, V3 is easy to use. That’s key. I could go on and on with praise. But, I won’t. I’ll simply say, once again, thanks for the great service you offer the mandarin-loving world.
hanyu_xuesheng Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
The podcasts are the biggest asset of CP.
With CP one can learn a lot of situational structures that are often more useful than those one learns from a classic textbook.
But sometimes I feel lost in an “ocean of podcasts”, jumping from one to the next.
So I miss most in CP:
1) Reinforcement of material - i.e. if I learned some new vocab or grammar items I would like to reinforce this material with one, two lessons/podcasts in different situations/contexts without introducing new material in “reinforcement lessons”.
Such a group can also cover a certain grammatical structure in different aspects.
2) Much better coverage of chinese characters. Learning characters with flashcards is not enough. The learner must build a character network in his brain, so he needs to know some hints about ethymology, needs to know similar characters of a given one, and needs some menemonic hints.
Examples (in German):
http://chinesisch-lernen.blogs.....n-mit.html (Some insight about characters with 埶)
http://chinesisch-lernen.blogs.....nente.html (characters with 專(专) as component)
http://chinesisch-lernen.blogs.....ndmap.html (mindmapping on 及 and similar characters)
http://chinesisch-lernen.blogs.....esmal.html (characters with 甬)
http://bp0.blogger.com/_JgA9wT.....i-sein.png (shi - to be, another mind map)
Marc Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Podcasts are great but IMO it would certainly help the CP business model if additional services and material could be added. I am sure that if beginners could have a choice between the pick-and-choose model of current podcasts and a progressive course, you would attract more new customers. This could fit in perfectly with the ‘on your terms’ philosophy. The podcasts could then evolve to extra material, extra input to consolidate the language and add the necessary cultural elements and the tons of vocabulary in different contexts that one needs to be able to ‘really’ speak a language.
Similar inroads could be made with writing hanzi, reading material and listening material (as Fox suggested) etc. Now I have to look for extra material to advance my studies far more often than I really want to.
And….the gap between elementary and intermediate is still as wide as ever IMO, when is something going to be done about this. Are you sure you are not loosing a lot of customers at this point? Do you have an idea of your drop-out ratio? At what level it occurs and for what reasons?
hanyu_xuesheng Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I second Marc’s statement: “the gap between elementary and intermediate is still as wide”.
As an “Upper Elementary” listener to your podcasts, I feel very uncomfortable jumping to “Intermediate”.
I am unable to follow the banter in Chinese, so in the moment I try to concentrate on the dialog. What about some podcasts for an audience like me helping to understand everything (full transcript incl. banter)?
Begging you. Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
ChinesePod has been a great learning tool for me, so I hope that you will not take my comment as anything but constructive criticism.
Would it please be possible to have the non-native speakers speak less Chinese? In particular, I find Ken’s pronunciation and tonality non-standard. I less to Chinesepod for sometimes hours a day, and I worry that I will replicate Ken’s mistakes.
Chinesepod is based in Shanghai–where you have access to millions of native Chinese speakers. It makes very little sense for your legions of listeners to learn pronunciation and listening skills from non-native speakers, even the non-native speakers (like John) with excellent pronunciation.
I would love to continue to use Chinesepod, but I’m really worried that the foreign accents of the non-native instructors will make it even more difficult for me to speak with standard pronunciation and to understand native speech.
Thanks–and please don’t be insulted. You’ve created a great learning tool!
chinesepod Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Begging,
I don’t teach pronunciation. I stopped doing the intermediate lessons a year ago. Nor do I appear in any but the very earliest of the dialogs. Are you trying got put me out of a job?
Ken
F1B1 Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Begging,
I thought that at first too, but I look at it as trying to recognise the same language with a different accent. Assuming at this stage I am more likely to speak to non-Chinese speakers I find it strangely helpful to listen to Jenny’s pronunciation AND Ken’s. I also like that I CAN pick that Ken’s pronunciation is not as good as Jenny’s, so the lessons must be working.
Phoebe
Jingawee Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
I appreciate Ken speaking Chinese. Don’t put him out of his job. I don’t want to praise him, but it’s true ( for me) that he’s a great valaue for the show. And.. his mistakes in pronunc. keep me alert.
Marc Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
The value of Ken in the Newbie and Elementary lessons are not his pronounciation
I thought that was clear to everyone by now. What he brings to the lessons is freshness, questions about culture and language to which we can relate, magic in his interaction with Jenny and many other things. Last year, when I started using ChinesPod Ken was the guy who stood there as an example showing me what I could also achieve, given enough time and effort. A role model of sorts. BTW I would give a lot to be able to speak and understand as much as Ken does at this moment…
As for native speakers I believe we are entitled to the very best standard pronounciation. I believe that CP is aware of this. I believe that some of the audio material is not 100% up to this, especially in the older stuff the choice of speakers was not always optimal it seems. (I have this from native speakers to whom I sent some of the audio material, including recordings of my own voice). I hope that there will be continuing attention and focus on this point.
Prez Life Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
“Learning on your terms” doesn’t mean anything. Learning is always on one’s own terms. It is like “seeing with your eyes”.
The phrase has an excellent ping to it, though. It is a good slogan.
CPOD is: A box of tools. You can’t build a complete house with it, but it will enable you to do much of the framing and trim work.
Lorean Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
To me, “Learning on your terms” is a blessing and a curse. One one hand, I can obtain sufficient resources for independent self study. I am not held back by peers or teachers. On the other, responsibility for putting in the hours rests solely on me. I can be as hard-working or lazy as I want.
To: Begging you. (if that is really your name)
I think listening to Ken’s mistakes provides a basis identifying mistakes, and thus improving ones pronunciation.
Given Jenny and the recurring voice actors, there are plenty of solid examples to learn from.
Furthermore, if you can’t process non-standard Mandarin, then you are useless in any real life function. I’ll use a conversation I had with a student to illustrate this point:
——————————
北京人不说标准的普通话。
哪里的人会说标准的普通话，我找不到。
电视剧的人
People in Beijing don’t speak standard Mandarin.
Where do people speak standard Mandarin?
On the T.V.
——————————
Cornelia Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 4:30 am
“Learning on my terms” means that I can choose from a varied menu that caters to more than one learning fashion/approach. I like the image of the shelf.
CPod has greatly improved on catering for my Birkenbihl approach by the pure-dialogue-mp3s of V3. Just two tiny details are missing for perfection:
(i) no 2 sec’s for “chinesepod dot com” in the beginning - just do as SpanishSense in their pure dialogues. Would save me the effort to set the iTunes options to start as of sec 3.
(ii) identical podcast description as the full-lesson-mp3 - this will save me storage space on my iPod because I do not need to keep the full lessons. BTW where is the promised pinyin?
I would put as many things on the shelf as might be sought by a relevant number of customers. This need not necessarily be developped on your own - perhaps you can just link to e.g. MDBG dictionnary and satisfy requests for stroke-orders etc. Find reselling business models if needed.
I, too, miss one item on the shelf: explanations about your banter in Chinese. Just the most-used sentences (I am sure it is easy for your Academic team to compile them!), maybe presented in the style of expansion sentences. This could ease the gap between levels.
Is it really intended that I find CLO_043 on ChineseLearnOnline in order to learn what your Elementary “duì huá di yi/er/san bian” means? Should I subscribe to them for a while after my premium subscription at CPod in order to progress to Intermediate level, however other aspects at them are very boring or contradictory to Birkenbihl [way too early 'repeat after me']?
1-stop-shopping is what I would wish for.
Needless to say that I am eagerly awaiting the grammar guide on your shelf - a very good project idea! I just hope that all V3 feedback did not discourage you so much that you wait until 100% assumed perfection before publishing…
Ken Carroll Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Prez life said,
“Learning on your terms” doesn’t mean anything. Learning is always on one’s own terms. It is like “seeing with your eyes”.
Er, I don’t think so. The slogan is about choice - choosing the time, the place, the content for yourself. Doubling up the podcasts with other activities and consuming them when and where you wish, for example. It’s about making decisions for yourself, building your own course of study, figuring out your options, and all the while having a voice.
What choice do you have in the traditional setting? You have a set schedule, a textbok that you follow page by page, and pre-arranged lectures from a teacher that you have no choice in, etc. It’s staggered, linear, and the last I heard was that you could not change any of that.
There’s plenty of documented evidence that learners who make their own decisions achieve more than those who just sit and do as they’re told. For the best overview on the subject try Phil Benson’s excellent ‘Teaching and Researching Autonomy in Language Learning’.
As for ’seeing with your own eyes’, did you go to school for 15 yars to learn how to see with your own eyes? Did you have tests and grades in it?
I’m not sure why you woud imply that the slogan had no meaning or thought behind it, but I can tell you that it is very meaningful to me. A a lot of people around here spend a lot of time trying to make it happen.
Ken Carroll
Begging you. Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Thank you for the responses. I still think it would be quite helpful, for me at least, to have all of the Chinese spoken in Chinesepod lessons to be spoken by native speakers.
Ken: You speak more Mandarin than perhaps you realize in these lessons. I recognize that you don’t participate in the dialogues. But when you “drill down” into the explanations, you often end up speaking more Chinese than Jenny. For example, review your recent lesson on “travelling around China.” Once you get into the explanations, Jenny will say the word once. You end up repeating the new word several times (e.g., “xiang xiang”). This is the part of the lesson that is easiest to remember later.
I end up listening to each lesson several times. I imagine I am not alone. It may seem to you like you are not speaking much Chinese, but over the 4 or 5 or 12 times I listen to each lesson–I end up listening to a lot of Ken speaking Chinese. It seems to me that it would be best to have all the models be native speakers. In the heat of the subsequent conversational moment, it is sometimes hard for me to distinguish the tones as I try to remember Jenny saying them, or as Ken has said them.
To Lorean: I recognize that in real life people don’t speak radio-style Chinese. But there is a difference between listening to someone with, say, a Shanghainese accent and listening to a non-native Chinese speaker. I think the speech should be “real”–in the sense of a real, native Chinese speaker in a daily situation.
Ken and I have the same first language–we are likely to make a lot of the same mistakes in pronunciation because of the influence from our native tongue. For example, we are likely to mispronounce fourth tones in the middle of phrases and to confuse second and third tones. Hearing Ken speak during the lessons reinforces some of these tendencies.
Would you perhaps consider a compromise suggestion? Jenny almost never corrects Ken when he speaks incorrectly. Perhaps Jenny can be a bit more aggressive in correcting her student when the tones or other sounds are off, so we are not left with the impression that the tones, etc., were spoken correctly?
Ken–I think you’re great. You make the lessons interesting and you can tell how often I listen to Chinesepod. I know you just want to make the lessons as useful as possible. I think that a strict rule of having only native speakers speak the Chinese portion of the lessons would be a real improvement. If not, perhaps consider the compromise I suggest above.
goulnik (郭力毅) Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
With this blog now under praxislanguage there’s a confusingly similar post under Power to the People
Prez Life Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Thanks for the response, Ken. I am not trying to impugn your efforts. I did not state that there is no “thought behind” the phrase.
I consider all learning to be on my own terms. If I choose to take a structured class, I do so on my terms. If I decide to read a book, I do so on my terms. So, the phrase “learning on my terms” is redundant, just as the phrase “seeing with my eyes” is redundant. I can just say “learning” and “seeing”, and leave out the qualifiers.
To try to bridge our perspectives, I would say: “Learning on my terms” means “Give me a box of tools”. That is what I see CPOD as.
Some people want more than that – they want architectural drawings, step-by-step instructions, building materials, a general contractor, an on-site inspector. So, they enroll in a structured class. They are “learning on their terms”, as well.
You are focusing the design of your tools on being: small, lightweight, self-standing, portable. That is your niche in the tool market. I can’t build a complete house with them, but I can build a lot of the structural pieces. When I need a backhoe (e.g. tone coaching) or a crane (e.g. spontaneous human conversation), I have to find a different supplier.
Jason Goldberg Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 4:58 am
Ken,
I agree with “Begging you.” It would really help to have all of the Chinese be spoken by native speakers. For some reason, I end up remembering the way you pronounce the words more easily than Jenny’s (correct) pronunciation, and I’ve been getting a lot of tones wrong.
I wish you and the other non-native speakers would stay in the dialogues, just in English.
Thanks!
Si Yao Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Responding to the blog title, I appreciate the unprecedented access to simulated real life conversations, whether they be newbie or upwards. My impediment in learning Chinese has always been a certain shyness and stage fright when attempting to speak. With CPod, I can practice in private, whenever I like - at home, walking about, in my car, etc. I can now break down the intermidiate dialogue and note all the new words and phrases on my laptop. Then I can reference the new materials in various online dictionaries as well. Hence the learning process has become very portable and flexible via an iPod and my G4. Of course, I know that my progress would greatly improve with a real life lao3 shi1 and a weekly lesson plan. The Cpod method implies that one can set up a daily discipline to really ingest the podcasts. Sometimes it is rather random to have all these lessons playing in shuffle play as oppossed to a structured manner. I don’t know if this is good thing. However, it can also serve as a way to relieve the tedium of study and repetition. The rapid access to the materials nowadays is incredible instead of doing page searches in a text book or in written notes. Also, one can edit and slice the mp3 files to create lessons suited for drill and repeat exercises.
Addressing the comments on Ken’s pronunciation - I have no problem with his Chinese. Why, because I always take my cues from either Jenny, John or the other cast members. I can usually distinguish correct Chinese since I heard it growing up as a “mute” in my family. It’s a given that Ken’s spoken ability will reflect his native Ireland/English influences. Ken has already clarified his exit from Intermediate sessions and furthermore, his dialogues with Jenny are always amusing and interesting because they animatedly reflect dual cultural and social perceptions. This kind of dialogue is becoming more commonplace with the rapid growth of global Chinese/English inter-relationships, obvious in reading the CP blogs. Anyhow. Ken and Jenny have established the new hip way of language acquisition. Their importance in the lessons, for me, is about being the link between English and Chinese speaking worlds, facilitating the English speakers comprehension of native Chinese grammar, idioms and collocation in ten minute chunks. Learning the language is also reinforcing my home bred understanding of cultural norms and expectations that are expressed through the podcasts.
Sorry for the long digression…
Michael Butler Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Hmm, this touches on a discussion we had before. It could be that some men choose to subconsciously pattern themselves after Ken (likable, personable and male) as opposed to Jenny. If this is so (and it is reasonable), then Ken has some “deep” forces working in favor of him becoming the chief role model for men in the early stages of language learning at Chinesepod.
I can understand how some people, believing that Ken’s pronunciation does not meet their standard, would feel the need to work hard to counteract this “invisible” influence.
Some men could easily feel that Jenny is an inappropriate model. Studies do show that men and women exhibit differences in their pronunciation which can be attributed to gender. As the single male voice (and a dominant one at that) on some early lessons I can understand why some listeners “complain”.
On the other hand, learning requires motivation, and for those of us that find motivation in Ken’s enjoyable asides much would be lost if he disappeared.
Begging you. Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Geez, I’m not asking for Ken to disappear. I’m just asking that someone else speak the Mandarin parts of the lessons, including the “drilled down” vocab.
Sometimes Jenny will pronounce a word. I’m not sure of the correct tones, because it is sometimes hard for me to distinguish tones as native speakers speak them. Ken will repeat the word–and he will have misheard the word in the same way I did. I end up reinforcing my earlier mistake.
An example of this is “xiang(3) xiang(4)” from the lesson on travelling around China. My dictionary (and presumably Jenny) says that the second “xiang” is in the fourth tone. But Ken and I both misunderstood her pronunciation as first tone. Ken kept saying “xiang(3) xiang(1),” which is what I heard too. Of course, no one understood me later.
Even when it is possible for me to know that Ken has misheard Jenny, it is still sometimes hard to remember which way is right and which is wrong later, because Ken’s pronunciation has been reinforced through repeated listening to cpod.
Fox Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
You can easily avoid bad pronunciation by not going to China.
Just remember that 40% of China speak no Mandarin at all. And I wonder how many speak Mandarin as first language, 10-20%
Panamajacck Says:
May 12th, 2007 at 9:58 am
To Begging and Jason,
Your request goes well beyond just getting Ken to stop speaking Chinese.
Correct me if I’m wrong CP gang, but most of your male vocals are done by non-natives, except that for the most part their fluency is quite high [which is why you might not be complaining about them Begging].
Fluency is the issue; not if their native speakers ! A recent survey estimates that around 50% of “native” PRC residents can’t be considered fluent in Mandarin, resulting in significant communication problem on construction sites.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time learning Mandarin in Taiwan. People back home or from the Mainland often ask why wouldn’t I just go to Beijing to learn. I usually respond that considering Mandarin is really a lingo franca, it’s probably better if you atune your ear to a variety of accents — Chinese and non-Chinese alike.
Taiwan, needless to say, is a wonderful place to hear many different versions of Mandarin Chinese. 台灣的國語很特別！