TAC 2020 - Vijay

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TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-01-01, 6:19

Happy New Year, everyone!

Last year's TAC ended in failure again. I am still stuck on Hindi for reasons having nothing to do with languages, really. I did manage to read parts of language-learning materials for Bulgarian, Modern Greek, Setswana, Northern Sesotho (Sepedi), Xhosa, Zulu, Ancient Greek, Hawaiian, Amoy (or rather Penang/Kuala Lampur) Hokkien, (Urban) Hijazi Arabic, Irish, Levantine (Jordanian?) Arabic, Welsh, Hungarian, Latin, Afrikaans, Polish, Romanian, Finnish, Swedish, Icelandic, and (just now) Ukrainian, though (in roughly that order)!

Anyway, here's my updated TAC list just so I don't have to go back to the old TAC to look at it, I guess:
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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-01-08, 9:23

And I read a few more materials for Croatian, Romani, Vietnamese, and Punjabi, in that order as well. I still haven't done anything about my TAC. :P

And of course, last but not least, I'm moving to Taiwan in less than a month!

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby Luís » 2020-01-08, 11:02

vijayjohn wrote:And of course, last but not least, I'm moving to Taiwan in less than a month!


Where in Taiwan?

You need to start brushing up on your Formosan languages :P
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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-01-08, 15:19

Luís wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:And of course, last but not least, I'm moving to Taiwan in less than a month!


Where in Taiwan?

Well, I'll be going to Taipei for training first, but I won't actually find out where I'll be teaching until the evening of the second day of training, so I don't actually know yet!
You need to start brushing up on your Formosan languages :P

I have a feeling I might end up feeling that way. :lol:

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-04-02, 5:59

I now live in Yuanlin in Central Taiwan, and I still haven't had many opportunities to practice Mandarin Chinese yet because I'm forbidden from using it at work. :( But now I have a long weekend, so maybe if I'm lucky or smart about it, that will help me find a few more opportunities.

Meanwhile, I've finally gone back to doing some Hindi/Urdu as well as some Persian.

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-04-12, 17:34

Still doing Hindi, Urdu, and Persian. I've been exploring a street two streets down from my own for food. I discovered a beef noodle (soup) stall and got a small bowl of beef noodles. An older man sat next to me at some point. He looked at me a few times, and I looked back at him, smiling. At some point, he asked me something in Mandarin. He must have repeated it at least three (maybe as many as five) times, but I had no idea what he was asking me. Then he said, "国语听不懂?" (You don't understand Mandarin?). I tried to explain and probably said something like "我听得懂一点可是..." (I understand a little, but...) but then never finished my thought. He declared, "国语听不懂," and continued eating his noodles and not saying another word to me. I reflected on that. He was right, wasn't he? Ugh.

On the plus side, I did manage to do a lot of things not related to languages. I got more food supplies, stocked up on water during the week, did my laundry (still isn't really dry, but I can't help the fact that it was windy and not very warm...), finished and submitted some homework I had to do for my job (maybe not very well but whatever), got my residency card on Thursday(!), and used it to get a new SIM card that will stay active for a year as long as I show up at the store every month to pay for it (it's not too far away). Maybe having finally gotten all of that done will help free up some of my time so I can actually learn some languages and especially improve my Chinese!

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-05-17, 5:05

I think maybe my Mandarin is slowly improving, or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part, idk. I still haven't found a way to talk to other people yet, though.

On the plus side, I've finally moved on from Hindi/Urdu to ASL (but of course I'll return to the Study Group as soon as someone posts something there and I get a chance to respond, at least). I'm hoping to move on to Thai pretty soon as well.

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-05-23, 12:56

I've moved on to Thai and am also back to doing Persian. I'm gradually getting more hopeful about my chances to practice my Mandarin as well. I have been getting the occasional "look, he speaks Mandarin so well!" which is just encouraging despite being the usual kind of flattery for foreign learners.

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-09-08, 2:25

I guess Persian is on hold at the moment, although I did try to do something for it recently. I moved on from Thai to Tagalog, and I now have a neighbor in the apartment just across from mine who works with me and is (half American) from Thailand! She also speaks Mandarin well enough to get by, at least, though her Thai dad's family is Teochew (Chinese from Chaozhou) and she doesn't speak Teochew. I don't get to speak Mandarin at work, but I often hear kids saying things in Mandarin like "Teacher, do you speak Mandarin? No, he doesn't speak Mandarin. He's a foreigner! Oh, that means we can talk in Mandarin and he won't understand anything we're saying. :naughty:" :lol:

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby dEhiN » 2020-09-08, 4:27

Haha, nice! So, have you caught them saying anything bad? If so, have you revealed your Mandarin skills?!
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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-09-08, 18:21

Well, in one class, I did notice one of them saying their teacher (me) was stupid, but I didn't react or anything, so they don't know I understood that.

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby dEhiN » 2020-09-16, 3:16

vijayjohn wrote:Well, in one class, I did notice one of them saying their teacher (me) was stupid, but I didn't react or anything, so they don't know I understood that.

Aww, sorry to hear that! You should give them a ton more homework just because they said that! Lol, it's probably a good thing I'm not a teacher...
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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby Bubulus » 2020-10-12, 20:39

Kids are just brats. Also, some kids will inevitably complain and insult their teachers behind their back no matter what their teachers are like.

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-12-01, 16:51

I actually try unusually hard to be sympathetic to these kids, and I think the system is far more to blame than the kids themselves. We are forced to teach these kids something they have no interest in. That is impossible without the direct involvement of Taiwanese teachers who have already been teaching them for years (well, even with their involvement, it's probably still impossible, but they can at least avoid more problems with management than there would inevitably be otherwise). Those are the only teachers they will listen to and with good reason, as the other teachers like myself simply come and go after a year or so.
dEhiN wrote:You should give them a ton more homework just because they said that!

What good would that do? That would just be punishing myself with even more grading because then I have to grade all that homework.

So...I've knocked off a few more languages from this list...
► Show Spoiler

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby Saim » 2020-12-01, 18:56

I know how you feel man, and I agree. I have a couple of problematic groups but I try and see it from their perspective and understand that it's their parents that are forcing them to take English.

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-12-02, 1:19

To be fair, it no longer matters all that much because I'm leaving in about two months anyway. It also helps that I've become close friends with the two newest foreign teachers (ironically, none of us can say the same for the other foreign teacher who came here with me). Our branch got a new teacher just after my birthday who moved in right next door to me(!) and another about a month ago. Now that I've been here for several months, I can actually help them get settled in and deal with all the awkwardness of this job. Being able to help them (or anyone, really) is far more rewarding to me personally than my salary is. Things are so much easier for me now that they're here that by now, I've already planned almost all my lessons for the next two weeks, and before long, I will probably have planned out the entire month. I'm hoping this might help me free up time to help people even more.

Now I'm actually more worried about making arrangements to leave. :lol:

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-12-27, 7:10

Finally did something (however minor...) for all of the languages in my TAC for the first time in a few years!

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby aaakknu » 2020-12-28, 18:36

vijayjohn wrote:Finally did something (however minor...) for all of the languages in my TAC for the first time in a few years!

Congratulations!
Здайся на Господа у твоїх справах, і задуми твої здійсняться. (Приповідки 16, 3)
TAC 2019

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Re: TAC 2020 - Vijay

Postby vijayjohn » 2020-12-29, 5:31

aaakknu wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:Finally did something (however minor...) for all of the languages in my TAC for the first time in a few years!

Congratulations!

Дякую! :)


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