Pinyin Practice

I am enjoying the new polling feature here. Thanks to all who have cast a vote or two. The results of all the polls should now be available on the polls archive page (link on the homepage sidebar). The last poll — on Chinese characters — was very close. I thought it would come out in strong favor for simplified, but it looks like my audience is still split. All of my materials are in simplified since at the time of creation I was teaching in a simplified focused university. As a learner of Chinese, I consider myself fortunate to have learned the traditional form first (in high school and college). Then, when I studied in China, the switch was almost fun. I’ve seen some students struggle with the switch from simplified to traditional — but even then, it’s not a huge deal.

I was looking for Chinese textbook titles online and came across this Bibliography on Chinese Communication Theory and Research by John Powers at Hong Kong Baptist University. It’s not a textbook obviously, but it certainly is a nice collection. It’s almost too overwhelming. It might be interesting to pick just five and see what we learn. I’ll let you know which five I pick.

I thought I would immortalize those who played so well on the pinyinteroids game here and reset the score board so others could have a chance to make their mark. You can find the game on the More page. These were the high scores as of 4.14.2006:

• 94600 Grant
• 94600 Grant
• 88000 love it
• 86000 peaceu
• 85000 sam
• 83200 Andrw
• 82600 theguy
• 80600 Anon
• 80400 KevinMurph
• 79400 Grant

Getting things done!! The activities themselves are the same. But I have learned and practiced a bunch of CSS! It feels good. I think it is an improvement. And with this blog up front, I might have more chance to talk with some of you. Let me know how you like the changes. Show your appreciation by visiting the donate page.

I am working on re-designing the pinyinpractice site. Just an FYI. I will likely be moving servers here in the near future. It should not distrupt anything, but you never know. This blog will need to change a little. I will likely move it to a Word Press blog.

Other plans in the works are creating an activity set for a textbook. Then I can create an online Chinese course via Moodle that can rival any H.S. or college first year curriculum. I just need to pick a textbook to get started. And then I will need students…