Question about lessons
ontrack
November 20, 2010, 11:12 AM posted in General DiscussionDear Chinesepod Staff
I have a question I'd like to ask.
I was reading through one of the discussion boards from a recent lesson, and Catherinm wrote in one of her comments that you guys aren't making any new Newbie lessons. Then I went browsing through the Lessons page and I noticed that there were 326 newbie lessons when you guys stopped making making them, and that there are now more elementary lessons (346) , and almost as many intermediate lessons (305).
My question is, how much longer do you predict you will go , with making new elementary and intermediate lessons, before you guys decide to stop making those as well ? And if you decide to stop making lessons in one or both of those levels, what will you make instead ?
hamshank
You make a good point, especially with the highest levels but I think the reason of "You are not a newbie anymore" can also apply to Elementary and possibilly even Intermediate although the numbers needed would obviously be higher.
I would still be interested to find out if the road map includes a stop for these levels and as ontrack mentioned and what is the plan for the any alternatives if another level gets the chop?
I for one would love to see additional interactive elements come to the website or maybe start up some video podcasts again.
bodawei
November 21, 2010, 02:01 AMI think focused reading and writing lessons would be cool. The possibilities are limitless. The problem facing ChinesePod is too many options.
ontrack
November 22, 2010, 12:16 AMit would be cool if there were a series of lessons related to music, preferably the kinds of Chiense music that are most likely to be seen/heard at Karioke bars
catherinem
November 22, 2010, 03:07 AMWhat xiao_liang wrote is correct. We felt that by continuing to make newbie level lessons, we'd be re-hashing content we had already covered. With 350 newbie lessons users can safely pick and choose from a range of content, then move up to elementary.
There is a lot more to explore at the elementary levels and beyond. We have not made a plan to stop publishing at these levels, though we are always looking to explore different kinds of content.
Bodawei is correct, too, in saying that there are perhaps too many options for areas to cover. We would like to do more with writing, and have thought of introducing tools that help learners focus on this. If this happens, it will be in the long-term, not the short term. Right now we're working closely with teacher services to put together lesson plans and ppt's for self-guided and classroom learning. We hope that by providing more structure to our content through pre-designed courses, we'll be able to help more learners tackle Chinese.
As always we welcome your feedback. If you have any thoughts or ideas for content development, please let us know.
xiao_liang
November 20, 2010, 06:02 PMI think maybe the opportunity to make lessons in the high levels is quite a bit wider because of the range of grammar you can bring in etc. I seem to remember them saying the reason they stopped making newbie lessons is because there's only so much you can teach someone before they stop being a "newbie", and the current corpus of lessons covers that multiple times...