Mandarin Chinese Conversationalist
You live in the Blacksburg, Virginia area and are a speaker of Mandarin Chinese with a standard accent. You are interested in engaging in Mandarin Chinese-only, 30-minute conversations with an adult professional who has achieved a lower intermediate level of spoken Mandarin Chinese.
You can provide your own transportation to and from meetings, preferably at the office location near South Main Street. Meeting at a coffee shop is also possible.
You are naturally curious about people and are interested in what they feel and think. You are able to assess a person’s capabilities and interests quickly, and initiate and sustain engaging conversations. You can remember words used successfully earlier in the conversation and can circle back to using them again in another way. You embrace the paradoxical challenge that, for adult second language learners, the vocabulary used in the conversation has to be based primarily on words they already know, but that adults wish to talk about issues of meaning to them for which they may have limited vocabulary.
You are an active listener, can reflect back what you hear, and can ask follow-up questions. You understand “air time” and strive for both you and the learner to speak about 50% of the time.
You may be a Mandarin Chinese instructor or tutor. Unlike receiving instruction or practice through these conversations, the learner’s primary goal is to gain proficiency in communicating on a meaningful level. “Meaningful” is defined as “the ability to speak, listen, write, present, think, feel, work, relate, collaborate, and connect in Mandarin Chinese.” Agreeing to and following a language pledge to speak no English is expected of all parties.
Materials providing context will be provided. This article on being a good conversationalist from Indeed.com may be of interest.
The learner is attempting to facilitate the development of a local community of Mandarin Chinese learners and speakers. Opportunities for small group conversations may develop.
The pay is $30 for each 30-minute session.
To apply for this position, please contact me. Your 30-minute, in-person interview at the office at a mutually convenient time will be a conversation session based on the above criteria.
After a successful conversation session, the learner:
- Spoke and heard only Mandarin Chinese for 30 minutes.
- Spoke approximately half of the time and listened half of the time.
- Experienced a sense of engagement and “flow.”
- Experienced success at feeling seen, heard, and understood.
Bonus: Both parties experienced a sense of mutual understanding and appreciation.
Regardless of whether or not we decide to meet again, you will be compensated for the session.
Feel free to ask for more information.
. . . . .
Next steps
If, after we meet, we mutually wish to continue to work together, I would like to explore with you the challenges of native speakers and adult language learners working together.
Unequal language skills create an unequal power relationship between equal adults. Without pre-negotiated ways to engage, unequal power relationships have the potential to do harm. Ensuring desired outcomes and protecting from harm is the purpose of agreements and contracts.
Although the native speaker’s instinct is to help, correct, and instruct, taking the role of expert creates a superior-to-subordinate relationship that further imbalances the relationship. Although the learner’s instinct is to “get it right” and ask for correction and instruction, this creates a one-down/one-up relationship dynamic.
What is the solution? Both native speaker and learner need to agree to engage in the conversation consciously to achieve the desired outcomes specified in the job description.
Based on my reviews of the research literature on adult language learning of Mandarin Chinese, my knowledge and experience as a teacher and counselor, and my experience living and working with non-native English speakers, the following skills are needed by both native speakers and learners to create an effective partnership.
Conversation Skills
Share, listen, reflect. Share your ideas, listen to the other person’s ideas, and reflect/mirror/repeat back a selection of what was said so all parties feel heard.
Practice attunement. Read the other person’s emotional, intellectual, and language cues and provide a matching response. Both initiate and reply, adjusting and adapting to the other person’s level to create flow and connection.
Initiate conversations based on attunement and curiosity. Although asking the other person what they want to talk about may seem respectful, asking too often implies lack of personal valuing and interest. A one-sided, rather than mutual, responsibility is created for conversations.
This is why the job title is “Conversationalist,” not “Teacher.” These roles require different skills and expertise. Conversation requires art, science, skill, self-awareness, and other-awareness to create both mutuality and synergy between oneself and the other person.
That’s also why the pay is $1 per minute. This is highly skilled, intense work.
Attempt to speak at an 80% comprehension rate. Having attuned yourself to the speaker, estimate the person’s vocabulary and use words of which you estimate the learner knows 80%. Please see John Pasden’s essay, What 80% Comprehension Feels Like.
Give no unsolicited advice. Although in some cultures unsolicited advice is considered an act of caring and respect, in American culture, advice that is uninvited and unasked for is experienced as criticism. Even among experts teaching languages, there’s an art and science to error correction. Instruction, correction, and criticism end, rather than continue, conversations.
Ask what the person has tried before giving suggestions. If the person has already tried what you suggest, your feedback implies that the person’s previous efforts have failed. (With regard to Mandarin Chinese, this is an indication of some of what I know and have tried.)
Give suggestions sparingly. To create high-performing teams, the ratio of criticism to praise needs to be 1 to 6. According to the Gottmans’ research on romantic partnerships, the ratio needs to be 1 to 5. For raising children, it’s 1 to 3.
Since suggestions are experienced as criticism, a suggestion needs to be paired with many more experiences of success. Two suggestions = twelve incidents of praise! Rather than making suggestions, consider using shaping to reinforce successive approximations of accurate pronunciation and expression.
Use only Mandarin Chinese. According to Li and Jeong, 2020, thinking in English, then translating into Mandarin Chinese, is a major risk factor for preventing “adults from acquiring a foreign language to native competence.”
In addition, although use of a learner’s native language – rather than the language they are trying to learn – may be well-intended, the result may be experienced as othering, an indication of not belonging and a form of exclusion.
Given the potential harm that using English can cause, and to foster connection rather than separation, for our 30-minutes conversations, all are asked to use only Mandarin Chinese.
Agree beforehand, between native speaker and learner, what to do about errors.
The learner is responsible for correcting errors.
Native speakers and teachers may believe or wish that correcting a learner’s errors would result in instant, permanent accuracy. To the contrary, researchers have found that language learners need 3 to 17 exposures to master a new word.
Nearly all of what the learner says will contain errors. In my case, why my speaking is not more accurate is not because of the time I spend studying (about 3 hours each day), the way I’m studying (I use research-informed methods), or my age (the intricately, deeply and extensively networked mature adult human brain may be primed for second language acquisition, particularly Mandarin Chinese). It’s simply because I am a human, with a human brain, learning a new task.
To discover errors, the learner is responsible for being attuned to the speaker.
The more the Mandarin Chinese learner is attuned to the native speaker speaking naturally – and can trust they will not be interrupted, corrected, criticized, or jarred by the use of English – the more they will catch their own errors, adjust and make corrections on their own, and efficiently acquire proficiency in the target language.
However, Mandarin Chinese is a special case.
If the learner mispronounces Mandarin Chinese such that the word or phrase uttered is insulting, harmful, dangerous, painful, or ridiculous, the native speaker is urged to repeat what the learner meant correctly. The learner will understand this cue and pause to repeat the word or phrase correctly.
Native speakers working with me can trust that I am working hard to catch and correct as many of my errors as I can. I eagerly repeat words and phrases until I utter them correctly.
Agree beforehand, between native speaker and learner, what to do about pauses.
Mandarin Chinese learners
- Please follow the 4-second rule. Sì miǎo fǎzé. 四秒法则。A typical pause in speech lasts only about a quarter to half a second. If, within about 4 seconds, you can’t quite find what you want to say, please say: ________.
Native speakers
- To foster conversation, please speak at normal volume and at a standard conversational speech rate, between 130-150 words per minute, or at a more moderate speed if the listener seems to be having difficulty.
If a word or phrase is wanted for which the listener does not have the vocabulary, to avoid using English, the native speaker can try to use a synonym, a simple explanation, a “guessing game,” or simply let it go and move on. Afterwards, explanations via text and email can be exchanged.
Please leave teaching to the teachers. Over 1,000 Mandarin Chinese teachers on italki are willing to criticize my vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, way of learning, and work ethic, often using English to explain my learning and personal shortcomings. I’ve had over 500 lessons with italki instructors and hundreds more with private instructors. The hardest part of learning Mandarin Chinese isn’t the language, but enduring the reprimands.
If you wish to consult with a readily available expert on using only Mandarin Chinese to speak with English speakers, please book a 30-minute, online consulting session with Benfang Wang for which I will reimburse you. This guidance for people learning English who want to work with a native English speaker might be of interest.
Please! Simply put, I ask you to speak with me in Mandarin Chinese using words I know.
Summary
With the help of conversationalists, with nuances negotiated and working with me as described above, paired with my work with teachers and on my own, I hypothesize exposures will accumulate and I will begin to gain proficiency efficiently, even exponentially.
With questions or for more information, please contact Anne Giles.
