Rainbow

As “foreign teacher liaison” at ZUCC, it’s my job to help recruit new teachers (speaking of which, spaces are filling up fast for next semester; there may already be none left), welcome new teachers, and do a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff. This semester I voluntarily added to my list of responsibilities the task of finding and assigning Mandarin tutors for the newcomers. Some of the tutors I found were my previous students.

The tutor I found for Greg is an excellent former student of mine who also has a presence in the China blogging scene. I was still teaching her when she volunteered to participate in my ZUCC Blog project using the moniker “Rainbow.” I’m no longer her spoken English teacher, but since last semester she has come to dominate the posting (and not in a bad way) for the ZUCC Blog and has even formed her own blog.
Recently she has posted some Tips on Mandarin on her own blog which I find especially interesting. Her inspiration is her own new teaching experiences, but she touches on the mistakes of the beginner as well as the advanced student. I hope to see more of this.

Speaking of tips on Mandarin, I need to do the final edit of the Pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese section on Sinosplice. I’ve solicited enough reasonable opinions and talked to enough qualified native speakers to be able to make the necessary final adjustments. On the dialogue I had going with Prince Roy in e-mail over whether pinyin is consistent or not, I’m going to have to maintain that it is not, since to me, “consistent” does not mean “consistent if you know all the exceptions.” English is pretty consistent if you study phonics, but I don’t think anyone wants to make the claim that English spelling is “consistent.” Anyway, that update is coming in the next few days.