Learning Mandarin - How Relevance Matters

Learning Mandarin is without a doubt hard. There are many ways in
which you can make it easier and most schools tackle this issue on a
number of fronts. One key issue that all these methods of making it
simpler must address is motivation. Learning Mandarin is not one quick
pick nick. Fluency takes years and even survival Mandarin is not
gained over night. To get to the point that living in China is made
effortless one really needs to focus for months. So: what is the
number one killer of motivation in Chinese language studies? As the
student support coordinator of a Chinese language school in Beijing,
China, I deal with this question on a weekly basis. It is a standing
point on the agenda of all faculty meetings. The curriculum in all its
complicated facets somehow always orients back to this key
conundrum.All those meetings, which have now been a weekly practice
for almost a decade, though I have only been attending for about
fifteen months, and all the internal research on this issue has come
up with one eternal truth. For motivation to be preserved in the long
and medium term, results must be achieved. That seems simple enough.
But with language studies the issue is complicated. Though a student
makes perpetual progress, day after day, the over all impact of the
compounded acquired knowledge of a general curriculum is hard to
notice for the individual student. All that is visible is the rest of
the mountain that needs to still be climbed.One solution to this
problem is personalized content that addresses that needs of
individuals, here people can make rapid progress in a very short time
span because the content is ultra relevant. Close to 100% of
personalized content specifically addresses the aspects of the journey
that lay ahead for that specific student in a very meaningful way. The
student can therefore almost immediately see the fantastic results
that are actually being achieved.Furthermore, such curricula address
the second, almost painfully obvious, aspect of any learning process
dealing with motivation as well; that of fun. It is much more fun to
learn the vocabulary of topics that matter to one personally. A long
time ago, for instance, when I was beginning this journey my private
tutor gave me the words I needed to go diving. I was extremely easy
for me to enjoy that content, as I knew I would be using it that very
weekend when I was going diving.Which brings us to another supremely
beneficial aspect of personalized content, which feeds back into
motivation as well. I was able to practice that terminology from the
very point that it was imparted to me, and with it, I was able to
practice the bread and butter vocabulary and syntax that holds the
language together. The reason that this feeds back to motivation
transcends the added enjoyment I felt on my diving trip because I was
able to speak. It directly addressed the first issue discussed; that
of showing a student the results of their studies.The last issue
relating to motivation that personal content can do great deal to
solve has in one way already been discussed here; relevance. However,
one aspect of relevance that was not discussed is its effect on the
speed of language acquisition, even outside the scope of the
previously noted element of natural conversation. The faculty meetings
are also centered on this is very issue. When the brain detects
relevant content being introduced it seems to hit a switch, which
turns the cognitive senses to max. If a teacher is able open a
students eyes to how the material at hand is directly relevant to the
student's daily life the teacher will simultaneously open the
floodgates for information to literally rush in.For these reasons it
is imperative that personal content is in some way introduced to any
mandarin curriculum that wants to come close to provide a optimal
learning environment for the students that will eventually use it.