Sarah Du

Read your textbook a lot, the textbook is your must helpful person. Having someone to practice your chinese with is also incredibly helpful. Since just learning the characters and pinyin isn't as helpful as actually practicing speaking the language..

Study in advance! I can also be prone to procrastination, but if you pace your studying, and give yourself enough time to study the concepts, you should perform well on all your quizzes and tests. I also recommend any students taking her class to stray away from using translate for her assignments. It only makes it more difficult for yourself by the time the test rolls around. As long as you pay attention in her class, you will do well. I highly recommend anyone to take her class.

Chinese 3 is the 3rd iteration of Chinese which makes it much harder than it seems. As long as you do good throughout the first 2 years of Chinese class, then you will be fine since you have already developed a lot of the basic foundational skills for Chinese. The main point of this class is to build your Chinese vocabulary which only really requires memorization and some studying. The class has many different types of assignments. These include writing out characters, workbook assignments, tests/quizzes, and projects. It may seem like a lot but the majority of the class grade boils down to the projects which are both fun and easy to do. Also, Ms. Du is an amazing teacher as she is extremely lenient and helpful. Overall, the Chinese classes at James Logan are easy as long as you establish the basic skills needed to be successful such as memorization and pronunciation.

To be successful in this class, it takes a lot of memorization. Chinese is a language that involves a lot of memorization since Chinese characters can't be read based on strokes. Each character must be individually memorized as well as how they fit into the sentence structure in order to have proper grammar. For this class specifically, there is a lot of work but if students distribute each assignment evenly throughout the month it is actually very manageable. Students should try to surround themselves with other sources of Chinese that they can use to practice whether that be speaking or listening to Chinese. This can be done with watching shows or movies that are in Chinese or using apps that can help you practice and memorize.

I had Ms. Du for 3 years of Chinese and the class was relatively smooth if you just pace out your homework. Since the homework is assigned at the beginning of each unit, you know when its due, and thus can space it according to your schedule. Just doing a portion of your homework per day can get it done effectively and you'll be able to memorize the Hanzi better. Hanzi is a important essence of the class, so don't slack on it, its essential to memorization of the characters. Also engage in class discussion as participation is a boost to your grade and free points just for answering questions or volunteering.