Mandarin that's like Homeschool Spanish Academy

[Drama Llama]

For the past few years, my kid has taken Mandarin at school, and has studied Spanish on the side, using HSA as one of his resources.  This is totally by his choice.  Next year, he's switching to Spanish at school, but he wants to keep up his Mandarin and maybe keep progressing.

There is no way he can do a class, because he is overscheduled, and his sports are kind of unpredictable schedule wise.  HSA has been great because he can skip weeks when he's busy and then put 2 sessions in a row when he has a weekend without a tournament, or a session every day of spring break.  

Is there anything like that for Mandarin?  That involves an actual human teacher, not something like Duolingo?  

[Porridge]

You could try iTalki or Preply?

[Porridge]

also Lingobus

[Drama Llama]

Thank you @Porridge!

Do you know if any of them have a curriculum that aligns with school curriculum?  

[jplain]

iTalki is a marketplace, kind of like Etsy or Outschool.  The platform provides a scheduling calendar, but each language teacher/tutor has their own materials, teaching style, availability, pricing, etc.  Preply is similar, but is not limited to languages.  We prefer iTalki.  

My kids have worked with lots of different iTalki tutors for Spanish, French, German, and Russian.  Many of them assemble their own materials.  Others work with textbooks.  They may mention this in their intro video, or you may see details in student reviews, but in general you have to try a teacher/tutor to get a good feel for their teaching.  I suggest only using cheaper trial lessons when it saves you more than a couple dollars, because once you run out of trial lessons you cannot get any more, even if you change languages.  So with new tutors we usually just book a regular lesson, and my student sends an intro message outlining her background with the language.

This year my graduating senior has been working with one of her iTalki tutors using a college level textbook.  At the beginning of the year the tutor had suggested three different texts, and my daughter chose this one.  Months later she found out it is the same text she'll be using in the third year language class she placed into for fall.  It is a very challenging text, so she doesn't mind the repitition and figures this will make the transition to college level study very easy.

On iTalki, the difference between community tutors and professional tutors is often insignificant, so I definitely would not limit your search to the professional category.  Often the community tutors *are* professionals, but for whatever reason cannot meet iTalki's requirements to be labeled as such.  (The tutor I mentioned above is in fact a community tutor.)

Preply is similar to iTalki, but I am somewhat biased against them because at the time we were getting started with online language tutoring, their policy was that tutors had to give the first lesson free.  In other words, the student paid, but the commission Preply took was 100%.  I consider that exploitative, borderline pyramid scheme, especially when you consider that newcomers to the platform will be doing mostly first lessons until they build up a number of serious students.  (Many students seeking language tutors are not serious and don't take more than one or two lessons before quitting.)

I just checked again.  Preply still takes 100% commission on the first lesson with a new (to the tutor) student.  They currently charge between 18% and 33% commission after that, lowering the rate as tutors accumulate hours. 

iTalki currently charges a flat 15% commission, but they do not charge any commission on the cheaper trial lessons that many tutors offer.

Edited June 15 by jplain

[Drama Llama]

@jplain Thank you for the detailed explanation!

The thing we like about HSA is that he can sign up at the last minute, with whoever has space, and they have access to the curriculum.  He is crazy busy, problematically busy to be honest, and working with a specific tutor’s schedule doesn’t work for us.

[Porridge]

On 6/13/2024 at 8:39 PM, Drama Llama said:

Thank you @Porridge!

Do you know if any of them have a curriculum that aligns with school curriculum?  

Unfortunately I’m not aware of any programs like this unless you take an actual online class (as opposed to working with a tutor)

 

[Drama Llama]

50 minutes ago, Porridge said:

Unfortunately I’m not aware of any programs like this unless you take an actual online class (as opposed to working with a tutor)

 

An online class requires you to schedule a time.

I could probably find an asynchronous class, but my guess is that he needs someone to listen to him so that he gets feedback on tones.  

[jplain]

6 hours ago, Drama Llama said:

@jplain Thank you for the detailed explanation!

The thing we like about HSA is that he can sign up at the last minute, with whoever has space, and they have access to the curriculum.  He is crazy busy, problematically busy to be honest, and working with a specific tutor’s schedule doesn’t work for us.

I think the reason HSA can offer students so much flexibility is that they have a large number of customers and everyone prepays.  

Mandarin is not as popular as Spanish among language learners, so a company trying to set up something similar might have trouble getting enough customers to stay afloat.  Without an established customer base, I'd worry that teachers could be taken advantage of.  They might be pressured to stay near their computers all day, just in case a student appeared, even if the odds were low.

Babbel Live has a sort of similar model with small group classes instead of one-on-ones, and last minute sign ups are absolutely fine.  However, they only accept older learners (16+) and offer a limited set of frequently studied languages: French, Italian, German, and Spanish.  They usually offer a pretty great discount on Black Friday, but even a full price 12 month subscription is not unreasonable for unlimited lessons.  (And it is definitely possible to end up with a private lesson or one with just one other student depending on level and time of day.)

Back to Mandarin.  Something self-paced might work.  Let me poke around and assemble some links for you!

[jplain]

Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative has a self-paced auto-graded college level Chinese 1 and 2.  Cost for independent learners is $10, so it is very low risk.  You could give homeschool credit for it on a homeschool transcript, but at $10, it does not earn college credit.  I don't know anything about the CMU OLI Chinese courses, but I have used their French courses, and their emphasis on listening comprehension is impressive.  (Even people with some prior French would probably be wise to start at the beginning instead of trying to start with French 2.)

The left hand menu includes a link to the course outline:

https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/chinese-1-independent-learners/

https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/chinese-2-independent-learners/

 

In your shoes I'd also spend time searching/reading the Reddit Chinese Language community.  Most of the language learners on Reddit are not taking formal classes, but many of them are making significant progress on their own, using a variety of materials (often including traditional textbooks!).  Self-studying languages is usually a lot more time-efficient than group classes, but it does require motivation.  

Daily contact with the language is ideal, even if not much time is available.  At this point, I'm guessing your son would benefit from adding (if he hasn't already) podcasts and YouTube channels to his learning resources.  (We made a habit of listening to Spanish podcasts when driving to/from swim team and robotics.)  The Reddit forum would be a very good place to seatch for recommendations by level.  You could also search for posts that discuss texts or websites that other learners have found to be effective.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/

There is also a general language learning community on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/

 

Edited June 15 by jplain

[Drama Llama]

19 hours ago, jplain said:

Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative has a self-paced auto-graded college level Chinese 1 and 2.  Cost for independent learners is $10, so it is very low risk.  You could give homeschool credit for it on a homeschool transcript, but at $10, it does not earn college credit.  I don't know anything about the CMU OLI Chinese courses, but I have used their French courses, and their emphasis on listening comprehension is impressive.  (Even people with some prior French would probably be wise to start at the beginning instead of trying to start with French 2.)

The left hand menu includes a link to the course outline:

https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/chinese-1-independent-learners/

https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/chinese-2-independent-learners/

 

In your shoes I'd also spend time searching/reading the Reddit Chinese Language community.  Most of the language learners on Reddit are not taking formal classes, but many of them are making significant progress on their own, using a variety of materials (often including traditional textbooks!).  Self-studying languages is usually a lot more time-efficient than group classes, but it does require motivation.  

Daily contact with the language is ideal, even if not much time is available.  At this point, I'm guessing your son would benefit from adding (if he hasn't already) podcasts and YouTube channels to his learning resources.  (We made a habit of listening to Spanish podcasts when driving to/from swim team and robotics.)  The Reddit forum would be a very good place to seatch for recommendations by level.  You could also search for posts that discuss texts or websites that other learners have found to be effective.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/

There is also a general language learning community on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/

 

I have trouble believing he can learn to speak it without someone listening and helping him with tone.  Maybe I'm wrong?

In Spanish he benefits from lots of other opportunities.  He has friends and neighbors who happily talk to him in Spanish, and he watches sports and cooking shows in Spanish.  But for Chinese I think his opportunities are more limited.  I don't think he's at a level where he could listen to a podcast in Chinese and understand much.

[Drama Llama]

I should add that I don't need credit.  He goes to brick and mortar school, and if he goes back to studying Chinese in high school they'll give him a placement test, so sticking close enough to the standard HS curriculum will put him in the best position.  It's possible he will want to take the AP exam, but that's a long way away.

[jplain]

1 hour ago, Drama Llama said:

I have trouble believing he can learn to speak it without someone listening and helping him with tone.  Maybe I'm wrong?

In Spanish he benefits from lots of other opportunities.  He has friends and neighbors who happily talk to him in Spanish, and he watches sports and cooking shows in Spanish.  But for Chinese I think his opportunities are more limited.  I don't think he's at a level where he could listen to a podcast in Chinese and understand much.

There are podcasts and YouTube channels created for learners.  Search the Chinese Language Reddit for recommendations.

To work on tones, I'd want my child to work with one teacher/tutor over a period of time, since the teacher/tutor would get to know my child's strengths and weaknesses.  

But if he cannot set aside time for a class or regular tutoring, other kinds of engagement with the language are far better than nothing.  So maybe he focuses less on speaking and more on reading, writing, and listening.  Listening comprehension typically lags behind speaking and reading, so podcasts and YouTube channels created for learners would definitely not be a waste of his time.

 

Edited June 16 by jplain

[luuknam]

On 6/16/2024 at 12:15 PM, Drama Llama said:

I have trouble believing he can learn to speak it without someone listening and helping him with tone.  Maybe I'm wrong?

You said he's taken Mandarin at school for "the past few years." Which could mean he should be a-okay tone-wise... or not at all, depending on both your son and whatever the school taught (some people pick up on tones quickly while others struggle indefinitely, and some schools get you to near fluency in a few years of foreign language while others leave you still in A1-ish territory*). So, I wouldn't automatically assume he has to work with a teacher on tone on a regular basis... that said, he might need to. It just depends. 

General random podcasts in a foreign language aren't going to be easy to understand, so him not being able to understand much doesn't tell me much about where he's currently at, especially since Chinese doesn't really have any cognates with English so if you don't know a word there's just not really a way to guess at what it might mean. 

The vast majority of Mandarin learning materials use HSK levels, so if you can figure out what level he's at that would help. 

That Carnegie Mellon link above uses traditional characters it looks like... Taiwan speaks Mandarin with traditional chars, mainland China uses simplified chars. You're going to want to know which chars you need, though you can allegedly learn the other char set in a few months if you know one already (don't know; haven't tried yet - I care more about getting my Mandarin (simplified chars) to a more advanced level first). 

I love the Du Chinese app. It's rather pricey, though I got a nice discount on their Black Friday sale (it does have some free stories though). Any other apps etc I might be able to recommend would be highly dependent on his HSK level. 

*If you find out that his level is still *really* low, you might want to consider his motivation, since it sounds like he doesn't have people around him who speak it. It's not an easy language to learn - it takes roughly 3 times as long (language learning times bottom half of page) to become proficient in as learning e.g. Spanish does. 

Edited June 27 by luuknam

[Clarita]

On 6/16/2024 at 11:24 AM, Drama Llama said:

It's possible he will want to take the AP exam, but that's a long way away.

On this note consider that there are a significant number (percentage-wise) of native speakers taking the AP Chinese exam, it may not help at all for him to take this in the future unless he knows he can easily get a perfect score. 

This was said to me when I considered taking the Chinese AP exam decades ago, meaning that it wouldn't help me get into college (of course it would still give you foreign language credits). 

[Drama Llama]

15 hours ago, luuknam said:

You said he's taken Mandarin at school for "the past few years." Which could mean he should be a-okay tone-wise... or not at all, depending on both your son and whatever the school taught (some people pick up on tones quickly while others struggle indefinitely, and some schools get you to near fluency in a few years of foreign language while others leave you still in A1-ish territory*). So, I wouldn't automatically assume he has to work with a teacher on tone on a regular basis... that said, he might need to. It just depends. 

He's taken 3 years of middle school, which equals 2 years of high school.  My understanding is that relative to other middle schoolers who started from scratch at 11, he's good.  But compared to his Spanish, he's not good.  He's got a long way to go.  

I would think that for any language you'd need to speak to other people and have other people respond to your spoken language to become fluent. I've certainly never learned a language without that.  For Spanish, that's easy.  While I don't speak Spanish, we live in an area where it's not hard to find Spanish speakers to talk to.  But for Chinese the only people he's really spoken to in the language are Chinese teachers. 

15 hours ago, luuknam said:

General random podcasts in a foreign language aren't going to be easy to understand, so him not being able to understand much doesn't tell me much about where he's currently at, especially since Chinese doesn't really have any cognates with English so if you don't know a word there's just not really a way to guess at what it might mean. 

The vast majority of Mandarin learning materials use HSK levels, so if you can figure out what level he's at that would help. 

That Carnegie Mellon link above uses traditional characters it looks like... Taiwan speaks Mandarin with traditional chars, mainland China uses simplified chars. You're going to want to know which chars you need, though you can allegedly learn the other char set in a few months if you know one already (don't know; haven't tried yet - I care more about getting my Mandarin (simplified chars) to a more advanced level first). 

I love the Du Chinese app. It's rather pricey, though I got a nice discount on their Black Friday sale (it does have some free stories though). Any other apps etc I might be able to recommend would be highly dependent on his HSK level. 

I will check it out.  I have no idea what his HSK level is.  That's not something I've heard used by his teacher. 

15 hours ago, luuknam said:

*If you find out that his level is still *really* low, you might want to consider his motivation, since it sounds like he doesn't have people around him who speak it. It's not an easy language to learn - it takes roughly 3 times as long (language learning times bottom half of page) to become proficient in as learning e.g. Spanish does. 

He's motivated right now, although his plan is to go to high school and do ALL THE THINGS!!!! I think it's possible he will find with school increasing in intensity and sports increasing in intensity he may have less time than he anticipates.  So, I want to set things up in a way that he can regulate for himself, and take breaks or slow things down or quit altogether if he wants.

I think it's kind of cool that he loves languages, but I am not taking the lead or pushing on this.  It's going to have to come from him if he keeps wanting it.  Having said that, when he told me 3 years ago that he was going to learn Spanish on his own, I was very skeptical, and he has clearly shown that he can do it.

[wendyroo]

On 6/15/2024 at 11:38 AM, Drama Llama said:

@jplain Thank you for the detailed explanation!

The thing we like about HSA is that he can sign up at the last minute, with whoever has space, and they have access to the curriculum.  He is crazy busy, problematically busy to be honest, and working with a specific tutor’s schedule doesn’t work for us.

iTalki can work very similarly to this...minus having one single curriculum.

We have been using iTalki for about 5 years now, and Peter quickly found one tutor that he likes and has stuck with the whole time. Thankfully, her schedule is very, very open, so we can sign ourselves up for lessons whenever we want. I think they have a way of doing "Instant Lessons" that start right then, but we have always scheduled for the following day or later. And it is entirely possible to book lessons every day for a week (or even more than once a day) and then none for the following week, or whatever you want. And if you don't find one tutor who has an open enough schedule, then you can find two or three and switch between them based on who is available.

But there is definitely not one set curriculum. Even with Peter only taking lessons with one tutor (who is a community tutor, not a professional tutor), they don't follow a curriculum. They play chess and Pictionary. They do digital escape rooms and word games. They talk about world events in Colombia and the US. Lately, Peter has been tutoring the tutor in math and helping her learn to divide fractions. Sometimes it seems the tutor is choosing activities based on language constructions she wants Peter to practice, but most of the time her goal is to just keep Peter talking and listening. If she doesn't understand Peter then she will ask questions and help him circumlocute until she does or offer him a vocabulary word he is lacking, but it is actually rare for any of their lesson time to sound school-y at all. But the tutor is very clearly a master of providing comprehensible input, and Peter's Spanish skills have skyrocketed while taking lessons with her. With the added benefit that Peter loves the sessions and learns a lot despite not being very motivated or making the best use of the time.

[luuknam]

9 hours ago, Drama Llama said:

He's taken 3 years of middle school, which equals 2 years of high school.   

I would think that for any language you'd need to speak to other people and have other people respond to your spoken language to become fluent. I've certainly never learned a language without that.  

I will check it out.  I have no idea what his HSK level is.  That's not something I've heard used by his teacher. 

He's motivated right now, although his plan is to go to high school and do ALL THE THINGS!!!! 

I'm not really impressed with what 2 years of high school for foreign language looks like in America, but I haven't looked at any Chinese high school textbooks, so I'm not sure what exactly that brings him to (I've only looked at French and Spanish, but since those are easier for English speakers, I could see them covering more than Chinese... or not, who knows?). 

It'd be impossible to become a fluent speaker without speaking with other people. That said, I learned Chinese from apps and watching TV only and did quite decently the first time I chatted with Chinese people - had a conversation about a variety of topics (where I'm from (NL), some stuff about my wife and kids and that I teach the kids at home, that my oldest kid wants to major in economics, our dog, our sheep (and the neighbor's dog having killed two of our sheep, grrr)) where I understood most of the things they asked me (they kept it very simple, of course) and they understood almost everything I said. Disclaimer: I spent a year in Thailand and Thai (completely different language family from Chinese) has the same 5 tones as Chinese does, which is why I'm saying that if you have the tones down, it might not be necessary to practice tones with a teacher (just pay attention to them while learning). I'm not saying that it's great to not talk to people. I'm just saying that it's okay to go a year without, assuming you've really got the tones down. 

HSK are the exams the Chinese government uses. Most of the books and apps are geared towards them (or, well, the old HSK levels - they've been working on a new HSK that has 9 levels instead of 6, but I'm a bit lost on what exactly is going on with that). 

Doing all the things is fun and all, but there just isn't time for that. I've dabbled in Chinese a couple of times before, and never got anywhere until I finally said "I'm going to do this" about a year ago to prove I actually could, but to make any kind of decent progress in Chinese takes a lot of work. I love languages, and it's the only language that I've ever really really struggled to get beyond the very basics. I don't want to sound discouraging, just my $0.02 from a BTDT. If he just wants to dabble for fun, more power to him. But if he wants to actually be able to reach a useful level of Chinese, it'll take spending a good amount of time on it (somewhat true for every language, but *much* more true for Chinese).

[luuknam]

9 hours ago, Clarita said:

On this note consider that there are a significant number (percentage-wise) of native speakers taking the AP Chinese exam, it may not help at all for him to take this in the future unless he knows he can easily get a perfect score. 

Not sure why he'd need a perfect score (as opposed to just whichever score the college wants to see to give credit), but this is definitely worth keeping in mind when you look at the pass rate, how easy people say the exam was, how much time they spent studying for it, etc... those heritage speakers do inflate the pass rate etc quite a bit for Chinese, afaik (the US has a lot of Spanish heritage speakers too, but many more non-heritage speakers who also take Spanish, so the Spanish AP pass rate isn't as inflated, afaik).