MSL Master stands for Mandarin as a Second Language Master. This name reflects who our students are and what our approach is to teaching and learning Mandarin Chinese. Our students are non-Chinese speakers who have grasped their first language. And our mission is to help students master Chinese and to help them become a master of Chinese.
As a Hong Kong based education solution company, we focus on teaching and learning Mandarin Chinese as a second language, and developing materials and methodologies for non-Chinese speakers to learn Chinese effectively, efficiently while having great fun. And we encourage everyone to learn Chinese, to understand and to appreciate the cultural differences.
At the same time, we also acknowledge that, while many students have succeeded in learning Chinese, more have failed. Instead of having a great time and making great progress at their Chinese studies, they are frustrated that they never seem to go anywhere with their Chinese. Nobody understands their Chinese outside of their classrooms, neither do they understand other people’s Chinese.
The number one reason for failing to learn Chinese is that many students start learning Chinese for the wrong reasons. Therefore, we’d like to lists some of the fraudulent beliefs about learning Chinese, and stress that these are NOT good reasons to learn Chinese.
Reasons Not to Learn Chinese
For those who want to learn Chinese because they have heard that Chinese is so easy to learn for the following reasons, that Chinese has no tenses, no verb conjugations, no plural forms, they should not learn Chinese. There are good reasons for Chinese to be widely recognised as one of the hardest languages on Earth.
For those who want to learn Chinese because they have to write academic papers on a foreign language, culture or politics, they should not learn Chinese. Choosing a different language will be more economical with both the time and effort. Given that nobody is going to read those academic papers anyway, there are even more reasons not to learn Chinese.
For those who are lured by the beautiful Chinese calligraphy, they don’t need the knowledge of Chinese language to appreciate the art! So there is no need to learn Chinese.
Some more are listed here, Why learn Mandarin?
Terrible Method
Apart from a terrible reason to start learning Chinese, many people fail because the teaching and learning methods are not effective.
The top one is that beginner students don’t have enough targeted, interesting, and level appropriate listening exercises. After reading pinyin or writing pinyin during nearly every class, it is not surprising that students can not communicate verbally in Chinese.
Sometimes students are sent to YouTube channels to hunt for good listening materials, which are, unfortunately, almost always beyond their levels.
What it takes to learn Chinese
We have come to realisation that learning Chinese successfully requires students’ dedication, passionate Chinese teachers, and stimulating learning materials. While students bring in their willingness to study, we bring in our passion for teaching and two series of Chinese textbooks. Combined together, students are able to gain outstanding Chinese language proficiency and cultural literacy.
Loving teaching Chinese and planning to make some badly needed changes, Chinese teacher April started MSL Master. She remembers her English learning days clearly, and knows how frustrating it is not to be able to speak the targeted language. In establishing MSL Master, she has put all her effort in transforming the old fashioned, reading and writing based Chinese curriculum, into a fun, stimulating and communication based Chinese curriculum. Over the years, she has helped many students get outstanding learning results. Moreover, she has presented her papers and shared her teaching experience with many Chinese teachers in major conferences and book fairs.
The two series of Chinese textbooks, the Mandarin Express series and the Chinese Reading and Writing series, are inter-related, defining a learning path comprised of four stages: Introduction, tion, Development, and Acculturation. This path has exciting built-in learning curves.
There is always room for innovation, and we are always looking for new ideas, exciting technologies or non-tech fresh perspectives which can create great learning experiences.