10 days without an Advanced lesson...
henning
July 18, 2008, 04:34 AM posted in General Discussion...and counting.
And all other levels seem to be "downgraded" in difficulty recently. Just a coincidental little play of the stochastic lesson selection algorithm? Or purpose?
John
July 19, 2008, 08:29 AMHenning,
I don't think the "Advanced" lessons are designed for "genuine" Advanced learners (like you), but rather for overconfident Intermediates (like me) who strive to built up their vocab base in order to become "somewhat more advanced".
Well, how you use the lessons is up to you, but I assure you, the lessons are designed for advanced learners. It's our "advanced," though, not the HSK's, or some other standard's.
"Crutches"?? I thought they were study tools.... :)
poopzilla
July 18, 2008, 06:46 AM
mark
July 18, 2008, 06:54 AMI've started studying the older advanced lessons recently. They seem harder and more jam-packed with tasty vocab and indecipherable patterns than the more recent ones. I like challenging puzzles, but they were too challenging for me when they first came out.
The production quality of the new ones is also better. Cpod is deffinitely improving over time, but the old lessons still charm me.
lostinasia
July 18, 2008, 03:05 PMI'd love to look at more of the older advanced lessons, but unfortunately a lot of them don't have a traditional html file available.
ChinesePod, if you are going to lessen the amount of new content, at least please make the OLD content properly available! It shouldn't take that long for someone to go through the older lessons and set up a traditional html file.
As far as I can figure out, lessons up to and including 话中带刺 (April 23, 2007; E0495) don't have a traditional html. That means more than half (71 out of 133?) of the advanced podcasts are very difficult to use for those that don't like (er, despise/ find utterly useless/ wonder why they even exist) the non-cut and pastable PDFs.
Making the lessons more consistent - sorting out what's in vocab, what's in the expansion sentences, and what's in supplemental vocab - would also be nice.
(Less of an issue but still annoying, on traditional PDFs I downloaded way back, the links to the htmls don't work for anything before 城市的乞丐, #712, from November 26, 2007. I guess they got broken in one of the changeovers.)
mikeinewshot
July 18, 2008, 03:11 PMLostinAsia
Can't you copy and paste the text from the dialogue tab into word and then use a converter to convert the characters from simplified to traditional?
Long winded maybe but then you could use the older lessons.
lostinasia
July 18, 2008, 03:23 PMThanks for the suggestion. I've used traditional converters in the past but found they missed a lot... then again, maybe they've improved in the past year or two. It's the kind of thing the internets get better at fast.
It's actually better for me to copy and paste from the simplified html; I'm lazy enough that I want me my pinyin!
To be honest, I probably shouldn't be in Advanced, but as I think we've discussed elsewhere already, they're often really interesting - moreso than most of the Upper Intermediate. My speaking is certainly nowhere near Advanced, although my [traditional character] reading is OK for it. I didn't so much graduate from Intermediate as ChinesePod lowered the bar, so up I moved.
The whole tradtional html issue just seems like the kind of "follow through and get the quality right" thing that ChinesePod often... doesn't do. Would it really take more than a day's work for someone in the ChinesePod factory to sort out the traditional htmls?
henning
July 18, 2008, 03:44 PMHm,
my suspicion is that the problem lies exactly here: Praxis doesn't have a developer day left for this type of task.
Thinned out, due to
a) the aftermath of the new release (bug fixing) and
b) (more worrisome!) the introduction of all those xPods.
The xPods drag from the shared resource pool but it can't be expected that they already (if ever) bring in enough extra cash to compensate.
The reduction of the release cycle, the shortening of the dialogues, and the decreased number of (more preparation-intensive) Advanced lessons might all be a result from this.
But this is of course speculative. I would really love to read some official statements from CPod regarding the higher levels.
mikeinewshot
July 18, 2008, 03:54 PMI wonder how many people work on advanced levels. Some of us (myself included) are trying to get up to that level but not really there (Henning you must be there!), but indeed find the subjects more fun than Upper Intermediate in general. Maybe it is only a handfull .... Chinesepod will know!
I too wonder whether the other xxpods will be as successful as this one. The number of commenters on Frenchpod seems small. I am waiting for an Advanced Frenchpod lesson to see whether it helps me but so far no sign of it.
The previous Spanishpod didnt work out. I haven't checked up on the current one as my interest in Spanish is minimal at the moment.
lostinasia
July 18, 2008, 04:20 PMI've just changed my level to "Upper-Intermediate" in my profile. I'd never dare claim I'm at that level to anyone's face, but maybe - just maybe - ChinesePod bases business decisions on how many subscribers declare themselves to be a given level. Perhaps others should do the same.
As a language teacher, I'd suggest the Advanced lessons actually aren't as preparation-intensive as other material. When I'm preparing material for my classes, Advanced is relatively easy, because I just say or write what I'd normally say or write, but a little slower. Lower levels takes much more time to prepare because you have to trim and trim and trim. The language needs to be much more controlled and carefully thought-out.
(Re: participation in Advanced... I seldom comment in those lessons because I'm really shy about typing in Chinese! Same bloody problem that keeps my spoken Chinese from improving, actually. Sometimes I fear that ChinesePod has given me a wonderful chance to work on my passive Chinese skills, and so persuade myself that I'm improving, without making me work on the active skills that I also need.)
henning
July 18, 2008, 05:45 AMchangye,
I don't think the "Advanced" lessons are designed for "genuine" Advanced learners (like you), but rather for overconfident Intermediates (like me) who strive to built up their vocab base in order to become "somewhat more advanced".
Although I am now indeed trying to integrate other sources into my learning slot, I still learn most from the Advanced CPod lessons. The stuff out there in the wild does not have the structure, repetition, and add-on-material ("Expansion", "Exercises" and "Audio Review"). Yes, I still need those crutches.
mikeinewshot
July 18, 2008, 04:44 PMLostinAsia
Hmmm. I could have written the same as you for example "I seldom comment in those lessons (Advanced) because I'm really shy about typing in Chinese! "
I get inhibited by Changye and others who throw in passages of Chinese and who (obviously?) are cruising at that level, rather than desparately trying to gain a foothold.
When I have written something in English, it seems to get ignored and smothered by reams of Chinese characters from others - or maybe it is sufficiently boring not to engender any interest.
mark
July 18, 2008, 05:15 PMOne of the reasons I've started on the old advanced is that I seem to be consuming two advanced lessons a week. I'm not sure what I'll do when I get all caught up, especially if CPOD is slowing down on new advanced content.
changye
July 19, 2008, 01:37 AMHi, native-English-speaker guys,
Hehe, actually, I’m very pleased to hear that some of you are shy about posting comments in Chinese. The same could be said for us non-native English speakers who post comments in clumsy English. It took me a lot of courage to post my first comment written in English here, and much more in Chinese.
A lot of listeners don’t post a comment partly because they don’t have much confidence in their use of English. You have an advantage. At least, you don’t have to worry about your English ability. Just pick up your courage to post in Mandarin! Nobody laughs at you in here, just like you don’t laugh at our English.
lostinasia
July 19, 2008, 02:29 AMThanks changye - you're right, and that's a good point!
I do find it endlessly ironic that I'll spend the day standing in front of a class, begging my Taiwanese students not to be shy, then as soon as I'm out walking the street and someone starts to talk to me, I'll shut down.
RJ
July 19, 2008, 03:20 AMIn all fairness I think the intermediate lessons were shortened or simplified in response to the many criticisims posted regarding the disproportionately difficult leap from elementary to intermediate. They are trying to smooth this out. Real or imagined, this issue drew many complaints.
Lost in Asis@ certainly your complaints re trad support are valid but I would think simplified lessons would still hold value for you. Only about 25-30% (based on my own crude measurement) of characters have been simplified and Im guessing since you have chosen trad you are learning both. Its not like you cant touch a simplified lesson lest you be contaminated. Am I missing something?
As for advanced lessons I do find it unfortunate that they are reducing the number of lessons per week but at the advanced level you have other options such as engaging in actual conversation, reading magazines or books, writing letters, watching tv shows, or listening to radio. Lower level folks depend much more on the spoon fed lesson materials. Again I am disappointed at how cpod communicates change, and I find the total abscense of any staff involvement in the boards on the weekends to be an eerie silence, but I dont expect cpod to be a stand alone tool.
auntie68
July 19, 2008, 04:05 AM@henning: Wow, "overconfident Intermediate" describes me so perfectly, I hope it make it onto a official CPOD t-shirt!
Considering that I struggled with the transition to "Advanced" for a full year, I am very conscious of how much I've benefitted from CPOD.
So I'm not ungrateful. But I wish that CPOD could be less sensitive about user criticism than they've been in recent months. There are certain issues that will always trigger a mild scolding from the CPOD team: Traditional support, Ken's comfort with tones, Jenny's "accent", grammar, structure, quality control, adverts, levels of difficulty, Amber's response times, CPOD mugs etc.
The "let's get back to learning Chinese, folks" response grates on me because it implies that people who post about such issues aren't studying Chinese very diligently. But I guess that's partly due to the expectations which accompany a corporate slogan like "Mandarin on your terms!"...
To be fair to Praxis/ CPOD, learning ANY language "on your terms" is far beyond the scope of any "one size fits all" solution. Now that I've worked my way through the lesson levels to a place where I'm starting to view the "Advanced" lessons critically, I think that "Mandarin On Your Terms!" is the kind of slogan that is liable to come back to "bite you in the butt".
@rjberki: I agree with you and changye about the options outside CPOD for more advanced users.
Having said that, I think that more can always be done to enrich the learning process for these learners. Eg. I'd love to see a few lessons in the format of an exchange of letters. And I've been toying with the idea of requesting Chinese-language explanations in the "Advanced" pdfs, in addition to the English definitions, because I benefitted so much from switching to a Chinese-only dictionary. But I don't think that CPOD are in the mood to receive any suggestions which go beyond simple lesson requests. And certainly not from this Grumpy Auntie!
If CPOD were to be more open to what users had to say about how they want to learn Chinese, more accepting of references to their competitors, this would help them to avoid straining the loyalty of loyal customers.
henning
July 19, 2008, 04:53 AMDon't break the balance of the levels.
I am convinced that it is of prime importance to bind learners from all levels here for reasons of exchanging experience, helping out, and showing a path up there. We need the Newbie learners just as much as we need the Advanced ones. Who, by the way, pay the same price to enjoy the services here. Why overproportionally punish them?
The logic "you have grown out of this, play elsewhere" is dangerous as you drive away more advanced learners. Besides: It is only half true because there is a huge gap between CPod Advanced and real media. With the same right you could say: "Newbies, there are so many beginner resources out there on the web waiting for you.". See the danger that lurks on that dark path?
The old scheme was perfectly fair:
- 3 x [Newbie/Elementry]
- 2 x [Intermediate/Upper Intermediate]
- 2 x [Advanced/Media], with Media coming only every second week
- 1 QW
- fun stuff (DA)
Do we switch to a scheme of the following sort now?
- 3 x [Newbie/Elementry]
- 1 x Intermediate turned Elementry
- 1 x (rest)
- 1 x QW
- 1 x fun stuff (DA)
- 1 x (non-Mandarin! extra show for a minority of the users)
BTW: I would definately appreciate a clearly laid-out, explicit publication scheme that tells me when to expect what level.
John
July 19, 2008, 08:15 AMWow, lots to address here. I've just returned to China after a vacation in the States, and I'm still getting caught up on all the developments.
As ChinesePod Product Manager, Clay is in charge of the lesson schedule. There are definitely well thought-out principles behind the publication frequency, designed to meet the needs of our user base and to deliver new lessons of every level in a regular fashion.
I will talk with Clay and make sure that he explains the issue and addresses your concerns.
wolson
July 18, 2008, 04:33 PMCareful, Henning, I resemble that remark! :)
henning says 
11 hours ago
changye,
I don't think the "Advanced" lessons are designed for "genuine" Advanced learners (like you), but rather for overconfident Intermediates (like me) who strive to built up their vocab base in order to become "somewhat more advanced".
changye
July 18, 2008, 05:10 AMHi henning,
That might be better from a marketing point of view. The last Media lesson was uploaded on June 29, about 20 days ago, but I don't think there are many listeners who complain about this. Pradoxically speaking, I guess that the more you advanced, the less you listen to advanced and Media lessons. And more importantly, genuine advanced learners usually don't come to language learning podcasts. They learn languages on their terms.