From ZERO Chinese to Top Mandarin Teacher (As an Adult...)

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Long time no see 好久不见！Our interview series with the most successful Mandarin learners is back! Learning Chinese as an adult might seem IMPOSSIBLE, but today my friend Mairead Harris is gonna tell us how she went from ZERO Chinese at 18 years old to TEACHING Chinese as a non-native speaker at Middlebury College, home to legendary summer language programs. You’ll definitely wanna hear and implement what she has to share.
Check ritachinese.com for online Mandarin programs at Rita's Chinese Academy!
Anyways, remember: with Fàn Lǎoshī, Chinese makes perfect sense!
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🙌Chinese Tidbits on Instagram: / rita_mandarin_chinese
😎Personal Account: / rita_van

[@RitaChinese]

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[@pandabugdiaries2384]

OMG I was a student at Middlebury Chinese School this year and got to meet 何老师 This is so cool to watch! What incredible timing!

[@RitaChinese]

Hahah perfect timing!!! That’s awesome you spent the summer in the best language program in the US👏

[@PerryCuda]

Give us a review. You attended the Summer classes? I'm in China now and have attended some of the language programs here and they're AWFUL so your input would be useful.

[@pandabugdiaries2384]

@@PerryCuda I have zero study abroad experience so I am not sure how this program compares to your experience but I had a really good time! I'd say the program is the best for beginner to intermediate level students (Middlebury Level 1, 2, 2.5, and 3). Level 1 (ie. little to none Chinese ability) especially since while it is the hardest level the results are also the clearest and I'd say by the end of the course I would not have realized they had only started learning Chinese and month and a half ago. I was in Level 3 (there are 5 levels in the Chinese school, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, and 4). From Level 2.5 up, pretty much all in class learning is focused on formal language. That is to say basically not necessarily knowing how to say more different things, but learning how to say the things you already know in a more formal or conversely more colloquial way. Level 3 had an interesting research project for part of our final as well, where we got to write a good length essay and cover a topic we found interesting, some of my classmates wished we got more time to spend on the essay and more time to present our findings at the end of the program too, I mostly agree. I think the research project overall was really rewarding regardless though, and I hope they continue it next year! I think if your proficiency is already at Middlebury Level 4 it might not be as worth it, it's the smallest class (excluding the Master's program I think) but from what I've heard the ability level had a lot of variation since it was pretty much people whose ability was higher than level 3 (ie. hypothetically some of them could've gone to a level 5 or 6 if Middlebury offered it) In my opinion, where the program shines is the living learning environment. You get what you put in, and if you commit to the pledge I think you'll have a lot of return on investment. I think most fundamentally my confidence in speaking and sort of my fluency in speaking really increased because I was forced to use Chinese any time I was outside of my room (and in my opinion spending your time holed up in your room is in a lot of ways wasting your opportunities). The program also helped me focus a lot more on pronunciation and tones as well. Overall a big plus is just the accessibility of the instructors. You live in the same dorm as them, you eat with them with every meal too. There is a lot of opportunities to speak and get practice in in more low pressure environments in my opinion There were also almost daily office hours that you could drop in on (something I wish I did a lot more of). And while its a pretty short time frame (30 minutes, some of which is taken up by lesson plan) there is also one on one sessions two times a week with teachers, and we had overseas language partners we could meet with every week through Zoom. There is a lot of homework and not a lot of downtime, or rather there is downtime but I always felt like I should be doing things during that downtime (either chatting with classmates to practice speaking or just studying). I would say I averaged a total of three hours of homework everyday, which I found necessary for review but very time consuming. It's easy to find a rhythm since the day to day schedule was mostly static but it was also pretty easy to fall out of rhythm if something went wrong. The 8:00AM classes were also a blessing and a curse in that sense.

[@pandabugdiaries2384]

Hope this information was helpful for you!

[@PerryCuda]

@@pandabugdiaries2384 Excellent. What a review! )

[@shokujinki]

Why do you put background music? Its harder to listen and to pay attention

[@LaomaChris]

Mairead is awesome! Great listening practice!

[@RitaChinese]

朋友们纷纷表示“母语水平”😄

[@joshtreadway5794]

world's are coming together! I was just at middlebury Chinese language school for level 3 this past summer and now I see He lao shi on my language idol's (you) wife's channel!! haha thank you for your videos, Chris! I have learned so much form you!

[@DruidHax]

Thank you for more great content!

[@RitaChinese]

Glad you enjoyed it! More coming soon!

[@dahur]

That was a fun video to watch. Thanks...

[@RitaChinese]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@samuelarthur6030]

Amazing ❤

[@ZsStudio]

Great video!!!!

[@RitaChinese]

Thanks!! Hope you learned something!

[@richardybanez9052]

Rita Your English Is Mind Blowing Awesome As You Are S Brilliant Teacher . Richard.

[@jarellemason7291]

Her Mandarin is excellent

[@polyronin]

佩服！👍🙏🏼

[@RitaChinese]

何老师真的好厉害😄👏

[@yeroca]

虽然我不是中国人，但是我觉得她的中文非常非常标准，而且说得特别清楚 (I guess I'm paying a lot of attention to pronunciation, haha) 我期待待接下来的两个视频！666！

[@RitaChinese]

是的是的，又标准又清楚！这个对于当中文老师很重要😄

[@yeroca]

@@RitaChinese 谢谢你的这个更自然的表达！

[@johnkerr190]

Are transcripts available?

[@RitaChinese]

Will be available on my website soon!

[@defibae]

when she said she felt like a forever foreigner thats exactly how asian americans feel LOL welcome to our world

[@RitaChinese]

Yeah I’d love to invite Asian Americans who speak great Mandarin to share your stories on my channel!

[@_ninja_nic]

18 is not that old 😅

[@xuexizhongwen]

IKR? I wish I’d started learning Chinese at 18! I started at 32.

[@riccardoatwork5291]

Hello Rita , I noticed that when you speak Chinese your mouth seems to be barely open most of the time, while when you speak English it opens much more... and your lips as well move and open more...and Mairead as well does it but to a much minor degree.. Do you think there is something to it, or is it just a wrong perception of mine?

[@xuexizhongwen]

You are correct. In general, people don’t open their mouths much less when speaking Mandarin as compared to English.

[@CrisTryingToBeProductive]

I watched the entire video and I can't pin point a single tip, it was nice to hear about her experiences but I don't like being told lies about the content.

[@RitaChinese]

Hey hey, this is just the first video of the three videos! The second part coming out tomorrow focuses on the different learning processes of middle schoolers and college students/adults! Stay tuned😊

[@polyronin]

好消息！

[@neko_8315]

I was thinking the same thing

[@nagasolaire8462]

Ermm...18 yo is not what we think when we say "studying foreign language as an adult". 18 yo is absolutely standard timing for many many students who are starting to learn foreign languages...

[@Mizwanderer1989]

I was thinking the same. The brain is still maturing until around 25. So she had 7 good years until that point to develop and learn.

[@sophiaschier-hanson4163]

Actually the old “critical period” hypothesis claimed that nobody who learned a language after the start of puberty could become truly fluent. 18 is well after that.