Needs Assessment and Coaching Sessions

Goulniky, I'm glad you shared your experience on the practice plan with me and others. Yes, Vera keeps coming back at you with what you need. In the beginning, I was nervous about even reading a written dialog. After a few weeks I relaxed more and have been trying to listen better and to speak more spontaneously, like in real life. Don't get me wrong, my 发音不好, but I'm getting more adventurous in trying to put sentences together in conversation, less self conscious. The new vocabulary can be overwhelming at times. I feel that if you don't use a word or hear it at least 10 times, you don't really "own" it. So we keep pounding away. Vera's very creative in inserting vocabulary review into her questions. I think the misconception about the practice plan is that it is only oral practice for the dialogs and it is really so much more.

When will Cpod offer the buy a subscription and get a needs assessment a few practice lessons for free deal again?

I can only agree with wei1xiao4 that you do need to prepare to get the most out of it, I spent about 2 hours daily on this, one hour would be the bare minimum but there's no upper limit, frustrating thing is the more you push the more Vera will come back with even more challenges, but that makes me feel so good. My pattern now is 4 lessons/ week, longer ones (about 15 min.) alternating new ones with reviews from the previous (8 weeks) run. During the preparation I not only study lesson vocab, expansion, repeat all sentences a few times etc., but I check for similar topics in other lessons and prepare questions or answers more personal or related that I want to bring up or that Vera might ask about. That's why it can take so lon to prepare, up to 3 hours.

Static on the line or rather packet delays can indeed be trying, sometimes she has to call back a few times but once you get over it I'm sure when in China or face to face it will be a piece of cake.

I am glad I can afford it, not cheap but worth every single bit. I was scared when I first joined but my confidence level has gone up, I dont know, 500 percent. The situation I'm in now is Im scramblin to et the right words/patterns out quick enough but I am no longer intimitated. If I came across Chinese-speaking individuals unprepared I would no longer be worried - and when I go eat my Beijing jiaozi in central London when Im there for business evey month or so I dangran order in Chinese :-)

Oh, thank you, Aggie! That makes all the difference in the world! I was so afraid that I had humiliated myself. LOL

Thanks a lot for all the kind words above..

Frank,Barbara, Yves and James, thank you very much again for your precious feedback on our Practice Plan. We will try to make it better and better.

Oh, by the way, Frank, I think you misunderstood Jenny.She couldn't hear your voice at all, just ours. All the counselors including me are using the headsets in the office, not a speaker phone. That's why we didn't even realize how loud our voice was when we were having classes. Sorry for speaking so loudly and disturbing our dearest colleagues.:-)

I'm trying the practice plan and also find it to be a great service. Usually I get a good skype connection with Vera, but sometimes when the connection cuts in and out it can be trying.

There have been times when I've sat in a Chinese class and after 10 minutes, is seems like it's been an hour.

But the practice sessions go very quick and are always being adjusted to good level. It's fun. I also feel the combination of using text chat along with the skype audio is much better than if just using your phone.

Bazza, I recall you mentioning you've already purchased your tickets to go to China. You don't need to sign up for a year, but in the month or so leading up to your trip, you might want to try some practice sessions. The most intimidating part is entering your credit card info into the web page.

wei1xiao4 - It's a fantastic service! Don't get me wrong! I've already done an 8-week course with Aggie and found it absolutely essential to my growth. I'd recommend this to anyone. There are just folks who would prefer to talk one-on-one and not be put on speaker phone. I'm one of them. That's all. :-)

Don't be afraid. No one is judging you except you. It is really fun and the teachers are amazing. I really look forward to it every day. But you do have to prepare for the lesson if you are going to get the most out of it. You have to be ready to make the most of your time when they call. I encourage you to try it. Bazza, you are someone that I watch on the "conversations" board because I often get a lot of new vocab words from you. Yes, I even use this conversation link to study. When you all write in Chinese I try to read what I can, then I look up the words I don't know and add then to my vocab cards. Wanting to know information is a key step to learning and I want to know what the "gossip" is, so it helps keep me motivated to improve my reading skills. Thanks everyone.

At $200 a month ($2000 a year), it's too expensive for me. I think I'd be too scared to do it anyway.

I'm afraid I care, my friend. :-) This adds a level of pressure I wasn't aware of previously!

Frank, by "others in the office" do you mean your office or the ChinesePod office? If the former I can understand, I would do it from a meeting room (at home I lock myself up in a room too). If the latter then who cares, you don't know others are listenin or who they ar probably too busy anyway, thoih when you do go To China they will be a **lot** more people around when you talk so you'd betgter get used to it sooner than later..

I may be alone here, but as much as I enjoyed my time on the Practice Plan with Aggie (who is AWESOME), knowing that your sessions are being overheard by others in the office raises my intimidation level exponentially. I had been looking forward to taking this on again in a few months, but now I'm not so sure! :-\

I have also been involved in the practice plan from its start. It has been great! I've had both Aggie and Vera as counselors and they are always patient and creative in their approach to the lessons. Can you imagine how difficult it would be for them to decipher our bad Chinese on a daily basis? They are saints. My favorite lessons are when Vera tells me a short story. She reads it to me once normal speed and asks me what I heard. Then she reads it slower and asks me to fill in more details. Then we break it down into individual sentences. Then she e-mails it to me in Chinese characters so I can really look at her sentence structures and new vocabulary. Sometimes we choose vocabulary words or sentence structures that I have been exposed to, but do not really "own" yet, and I listen for those in the story. The next day I write the story and she has to try to figure out what I am trying to say. It is real life and this can all be done in 10 minutes! I really recommend the practice sessions, especially for those who do not get an opportunity to listen to real Mandarin spoken in real time. It is a humbling experience!

Hi Wildyaks, sorry to keep you waiting. However we should have emailed to all the June subscribers to schedule the free sessions. Anyway, can you kindly send me a message to let me know your email address?We will schedule the free lessons for you soon. Thanks a lot!

I signed up for the one year premium in June and am still waiting for that email to schedule a needs assessment. Not that I am too worried about it. Life is busy as it is...

Q&A time...:-)

About Practice Plan:

1. Is it available between noon - 5pm Pacific time (i.e. 3am-8am Shanghai?)

Yes of course. We will run our services 24 hours very soon. Therefore, time difference will not be an issue.

2. Is it possible to have lessons less than 5 times per week? Or do you feel that for real progress to be made you are asking students to commit to 5 times per week?

Yes, we can adjust our practice plan according to your need, however, 5 calls per week are strongly recommended. Because the learners will benefit most from the daily coaching session and it is also very important to form a good habit of speaking a little bit Chinese everyday.

Poddies, take advantage of this offer.

In case you haven't seen this, you can listen to an audio recording of a Practice Plan class with Aggie here:

http://blog.praxislanguage.com/2007/05/30/speaking-practice-2/

This is like haute couture for Chinese learning. We tailor make your studies and iron it daily.

Aggie,

我的学习是老一套, 进步比较小。 太可惜我没变成了"天才", 反而还什么都忘记。。。 :)

Henning,

It's been confirmed... you are a genius. ;)

Yves and Henning,

嘿，好久不见！

Yves, I do appreciate your diligent work. You are definitely right- the more you prepare, the more you can gain from the lessons.

However, for those who are not able to commit too much time on self learning, 10 minutes coaching session per day may also help you form a good habit of learning and speaking a little bit Chinese everyday and gradually, you will get used to speaking Chinese!

Just as I mentioned in the post, even for Newbie level learners, the coaching session can give you a very good start in the language. No matter Newbie learner or advanced level, our experienced counselors have designed various activities to suit the different needs.

Henning, surely we can also offer 2 times a week, but a longer session. It's learning on YOUR terms, so we are very flexible.

By the way, it has been a long time since our last talk. How's your Chinese study going?I hope you are doing very well. You are genius!

Hi TaiPan,

You said: "Rather than getting a coaching session on a particular lesson, or pronunciation, or practical use of Chinese etc., Could I pay for a coaching session on practical use of this site and use of the excercises and reviews?"

Yes, we certainly can offer this kind of help and will be very happy to give you some advice on how to make full use of ChinesePod learning materials to improve your Chinese.

And also, thank you very much for your compliment. I'm sure you can do the same good job in our coaching session. Why not give it a try?

Hi Darren,

I'm sure you've had a great time learning with Vera, one of our best counselors.

Yes, we will launch our 24 hours service very soon, and of course, you will be the first one who can benefit from that. I'll talk to our counselors and arrange your lessons at 10:30 your time. We will email you the details.

Hi DSL333

Thank you for your praise. hehe! Maybe 11:00pm is a little too late, I hope you won't be too tired! :(

Hi Goulniky,

I'm very glad that you like our practice!! And you are a harding-work student. Especially, you try your best to use the new words and new parterns. I think it is very useful! Looking forward to our conversation every day!!

Yes, perfectly. Thanks a lot, Yv.

I certainly see now why this needs a fair amount of preparation. I also clearly see where the value lies.

Maybe an offer to stretch the sessions over a longer period of time (e.g. by practicing 2 times a week) would accommodate some learners?

henning, thx for the compliment, but as Pat wonderedon the blog, I do find that my "structural understanding is way ahead of my ability to converse and be understood". The former may be advanced, but the latter is upper intermediate (the lesson mix is actually 2/5 inter 3/5 upper). I did sign up for 8-weeks, reaching the end of my 5th week. Also for me, there's a huge difference between understanding / transcribing at your pace and (re)using focused vocab/patterns on request within a 12 minutes chat. Prononciation isn't a major issue, it's more oral understanding and expressing myself real-time. Keep in mind that it's a different lesson every day, so that can easily require a fair amount of memorization. It's one thing to listen to the dialogue or discussion between the hosts, it's another to quickly call up the appropriate vocab relevant to today's topic and move on to another topic. I try to re-use patterns / tips / vocab from previous lessons (they're somewhat organized by theme on my plan so that helps). Again I don't know about advanced grammar, the point for me is to be able to express any idea / concept just as I would in another language (uh, English or French that is). Not sure I'm making myself clear...

oh, and yes, I second Jenny's comment that I often overhear the Aggie and Vera's coaching sessions and learn a lot myself from eavesdropping!

Yv,

for how long did you sign up?

You are definately one of the most diligent here among us (just going by your transscripts) and are way above Upper Intermediate as far as I can tell.

So what interests me is: Where do you - being a rather advanced student - benefit most from the service? Pronounciation? Advanced Grammar?

And what do you do prepare your sessions?

Hi Taipan,

You asked:

Could I pay for a coaching session on practical use of this site and use of the excercises and reviews?"

Great idea! I've referred your question to Aggie and Eileen, our coaching experts. They will let you know about this asap!

I certainly am enjoying it, and obviously the more I put into preparing my daily chats the more I get out of them. Vera is great, and the schedule flexibility suits my business travels. On the flip side, quality of the phone connection can be a challenge at times, but overcoming it is probably excellent training!

Don't mean to be rude, but I often overhear our Practice Team members talking with their fellow students. By the sound of things, everyone is learning and enjoying!

Hi - any ideas when the practice plan sessions will be available on a 24 hour basis? I was under the impression a 24 service would be available as of end of May... Loving the practice plan so far. Vera is great. But 11pm GMT for me is a tad too late for long term studying. 10.30 GMT would be great!

Arrgh! (啊呀）I pulled the trigger too soon and signed up for premium a month ago! But, I can't complain too much, the premium has been worth the investment.

I can't afford the "needs assessment" right now. But, I may give it a shot in a few more weeks. And you stragglers out there, this is a great offer! No more excuses.

Aggie,

I listened to your mp3 of the sample practice plan lesson on Ken's blog. The class seemed very valuable. You are a great teacher!

jonathan

Thanks Amber,

Rather than getting a coaching session on a particular lesson, or pronunciation, or practical use of Chinese etc., Could I pay for a coaching session on practical use of this site and use of the excercises and reviews?

I use Chinesepod, 99.9% of the time through my ipod when I'm not at my computer. Then, when I get to my computer and actually have time to visit the site, I find myself bouncing around and reading blogs and trying a few exercises here and there.

Don't get me wrong, the site is great, overwhelmingly so. I'm just too ADD to figure out the best way to use it to learn Chinese.

A one-on-one call probably isn't the most efficient way to do this for you all. Maybe Chinesepod could hold WebEx training sessions or scheduled Netmeetings to give newcomers the tour and give subscribers the tools to navigate the site for most efficient learning. Any plans for that in the future?

-Jonathan

Hi TaiPan,

All of our coaches are based in Shanghai. However, there are no long distance fees incurred because the session is conducted over the internet using Skype.

Do you have any coaches in Los Angeles? Is the only way to do this long distance to Shanghai?

Hi Man2Toe,

If you wish to change your premium account to a Practice plan, please email me at chinesepod [at] gmail [dot]com and we can use your remaining credit to upgrade you! :-)

Yes, Thank you Aggie.

Hi Man2toe,

I think the promotion is only for the new one-year premium subscribers in June. But for all our dearest old poddies, it will be the same session if you would like to try our Practice Plan.

Of course we are happy to use instant messages as well on Skype when needed- we are actually doing it for the Practice Plan lessons.

The daily practice lesson is only 10-15 minutes long each time but still well structured. Our counselor will guide you to speak as much Chinese as you can and it's real "Practice".

Don't worry about Skype- we are all new to it and it's not hard to use!

Hope that helps.

Subscribe? I already have a premium account. Will I need to re-up for another year to try out the assessment and the two sessions or can this offering attach to my first year subscription?

Skype seems to be a method that would allow for good conversation in addition to instant messaging for learned vocabulary-reminders of mistakes corrected etc. Are the teachers willing to type down in conversation words that the learner ran into trouble with? If possible this would allow the learner then to transfer this vocab to their vocab list.

I guess I don't know the perimeters of the daily practice lessons.

I need to get a skype account. I am a newbie when it comes to skype:(

Thank you for the response.

Hi Yves(goulniky),I'm really glad to hear that you enjoy your Practice Plan!

Hi Man2Toe, you are the boss to decide when and where. Our counselor will email you to schedule the appointment as soon as you subscribe. Just let us know your preferable time. Either Skype or landline will work. Which one do you prefer?

When, where and how do we set up our needs assessment appointment?

Is skype the best way to manage the communications?

any June promotion on Practice Plans ?-) Time will soon be up for me to renew... Very positive feedback from my side on the programme anyway, but quite demanding for small brains like mine if you're thorough in your preparation and review.

Oh Jenny, your English is so good we now have to assume that this sort of help isn't necessary! :)

Pronunciation feedback early on in one's studies could make a big difference in terms of confidence.

真棒!