[My Students] 023. Derek Sheridan's Comment

我今年來臺灣是爲了比較密集地學習中文，但是因為沒有錢和時間去大學的語言中心上課，所以我跟Peter學中文。我已經跟他學了五個月的中文了，自從跟他上課以後，我的中文進步了不少。

不少的一對一的家教學習會形成無效的聊天，至少我以前的一對一學習是這樣的。但是Peter很認真，很專業，很有組織。我們用《看報學中文》這本書上課，每次一邊上課，他一邊幫我寫補充的生詞、語法和成語。這張筆記記錄了我們那天上課學到了什麽，所以這樣的學習很有效。

我學中文也是為了做人類學的博士研究，因爲他知道我的論文研究是有關於臺灣的歷史社會，所以他很認真地把一些資料介紹給我認識學習。另外，他發現了我寫句子的語法不夠正確，就介紹這本適合我的書，《漢語病句辨析９００例》給我。

Peter蠻專業的，不管你是初學者還是中高級的學習者，他都會看你的中文程度來調整你的課程，幫助你學習中文！

I came to Taiwan this year in order to do intensive Chinese study. However, because of a lack of money and a lack of time (on account of work), I was unable to attend a college language program. I was lucky to work with Peter instead. I studied with him for a year, and I made a lot of improvement.

Too many tutoring relationships can turn into ineffective chatting, or at least that has been my experience. But Peter was extremely dedicated, organized and professioinal about his teaching. We used Reading Newspaper Chinese as a textbook, but for every lesson,Peter also provided lots of extra words, grammer and proverbs.He would write these all down for me in a very organized fashion, so I always had someathing to review. Every class produced a productive written record, and because he did the writing, I was able to focus on speaking in class, and practice writing on my own time. Very efficient and effective.

I was studying Chinese in order to do research on Taiwan's history and society for my anthropology degree I am currently pursuing at Brown University. Peter was very good at putting in the effort to introduce me to materials I would find interesting for my research.

Also, because my written Chinese grammer was not very good, he introduced me to a book called 900 Common Mistakes in Chinese.

Peter is very professional, and no matter whether you are a beginner or advanced, he is good at adjusting the right level. I can't recommend him enough.

Derek Sheridan
 
keredus07@gmail.com