November-December SDA reflection

December 10, 2020

After having completed my recent SDA, which was a game made from Google Slides (but more like a Web Quest) to teach any person, regardless of Chinese level how to use immersion to make their study more effective and convenient. My thoughts after having completed this SDA are very positive, and I think what I did was unique and really covered the "audience" area of the SOAPStone. If anything negative, it would be that the game links don't work for some people even when I've checked that they work (probably just a disadvantage of Slides). I want to continue this and update this in the future- if I could code the game it could help users focus on the content rather than trying to get the game to work at all.

I do think I conveyed a So What- in the game, it's showed often why each method works, not just stating it. A great example is here:

It shows why labeling household objects can help. Personally, the whole "mind palace" thing has never worked for me- I can't remember where I put things in the first place! But there is the aspect of location which I believe the mind palace tries to use- just making it more high maintenance than it needs to be.

This game took a long time to make. It was difficult to stay on task without any external motivation (something only I can create), but I made it and it felt very worth it. I hit lots of C's with this SDA in that process- creativity, communication, and critical thinking. Something I really want to try to do in the future, and I might need to discuss with a coordinator, is incorporating curiosity into my studies. Of course, there is some aspect of that in picking what I read and how I choose to go about my study, for example choosing to learn Taiwanese Hokkien (which is actually quite difficult) along with Cantonese- I've also reached out to Hankou dialect, which is spoken in Wuhan (of course).

The most important thing I learned throughout the process was that your best work is when you put yourself into what you're doing. Nobody (I'm pretty sure) wants to hear about what they can look up on the internet already and easily learn- they want to see how that information is applied and what people do that works- at least that's the kind of product I'd want to see. From the beginning of this assignment, I wanted to write a paper- but it turned into something I wasn't expecting but that really helped show my understanding in an engaging and creative format.

The most vital thing for me was the constant use of the techniques for immersion I refer to in the assignment- my experience is what helped me to put that out there- and not just all the studying I do, the ways I constantly try to improve how efficiently I'm learning. I'm really proud of how it looks. That was a big goal in this for me; to have something informative that I haven't already shown that a very mixed audience, from no Chinese to native speakers. The final product was very inclusive of all- compared to in October when someone who doesn't know any Chinese wouldn't find it interesting or helpful. I need to work on my level in Webb's Depth of Knowledge- for now, the information stands at about a level 2, but I want to be constantly trying to go deeper, to learn what you didn't learn when you studied Chinese. The way I presented my info was certainly a level 4, but the content itself wasn't that deep (and is difficult to achieve when you're trying to reach out to a diverse audience).

This will apply to me forever (or so it feels)- this can be used even after I go to Taiwan since most of the techniques are very widely applicable to those of most any level of Chinese. Some I may not end up needing since things I'd learn from the To-Do list would automatically be covered in class. It's more meant for those who don't have access to people every day to talk with in Mandarin- and it's surprisingly effective just talking to myself. I didn't include that in my assignment because it is difficult, especially if you're embarrassed to speak. Something that might help to visualize the process of learning to speak Mandarin is something I've wanted to create, maybe as something extra.

I want to begin, for the midterm, incorporating what I got from my survey. I would like to reach out to those who said they knew Chinese and ask if there might be one or two whose parents would allow them to do an interview (just audio), if they are NOT a native speaker. I want to show how new learners have tackled more difficult areas, like the tones, idioms, and weird grammar structures. For the next SDA, I will use my podcast but the main platform I'll use will be a video on my website. I want to postpone Upgrade Your Chinese and make this how I cover my original plan. Things, of course, will have to change because of that: the videos will be much longer and go in more depth than planned (I guess that's a good thing), and the whole entire course will be in those three videos, with lots of side help- there's only so much I can do to teach Chinese, most of the work would need to be done- my goal is to give a learner the ability to learn Chinese independently. I've found that there's been a certain point where I'm able to distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources, and nothing I've learned requires some super deep explanation. Unlike in English, rules in Chinese don't get broken often, and grammar structures aren't absolutely essential.

A comparison is in German, where if we notice something that is different from English, even a slight difference like word order or the verb ending, it's important to bring it up and the teacher has to explain why that is and how we can apply it to our own speaking and writing. It's not quite as complicated in Chinese- it's more important that you are able to "decode" (yes, I encounter this with) what I'm reading. If there is a word order change but the sentence still makes sense to you, it's something you might adjust to over time but isn't that essential.

I know there was a lot of rambling in that, but having those thoughts I believe is important to developing understanding and being able to have curiosity in my learning.