[Important] Trial Language Forum review

[catseyes]

http://www.jay-chou.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=110

Ok, we all know we have a Trial Language forum set up a month ago, so now it's time to review how are things going so far, are there things that can be improved?

Basically, we want to find out:

1) Are there anything in the Rules (http://www.jay-chou.net/forums/showthread.php?t=25912) that need to be updated/changed/taken away? Back up with reasons.

2) What do you think of the response in the various threads so far? Do you think the thread starters did a good job to maintain the various threads, or rather should i say started a valid thread for the language?

3) What do you think of the lessons so far? Is it too confusing? Is it too difficult for a beginner to handle? Is there a better method to conduct lessons?

4) What do you think of the forum in general? Does it look messy? Does the labelling method sorted by the thread titles makes some of the language threads unnoticeable?

5) Do you think a contained chat thread for a language is useful? Why?

6) How do you think we can have the forum to be more active and also getting teachers for the various languages?

7) Do you think the forum should even stay in the first place? Or rather, is it better to have the threads back in the countries' forum? Why?

7) Any other things that need improvement.

So please, just tell us what you think, you don't have to follow the above questions to give us feedback, these are just some guidelines i thought of so that it makes feedbacking easier. You can just let us know what you feel about the Language forum so far in general. So don't be shy, tell us what you think~ =)

[Saharial]

Personally I am really glad for the forum, especially as it all in the one place. I don't think placing the threads in separate forums would be helpful. it would just get lost. All in one place keeps things focused.

As someone who started a language thread I'm keen to hear feedback. I realsie i don't update very fast, but i work and when i get home i am often tired - the last thing i want is to post a lesson thats confusing. I am just a beginner myself, so i liek to think that makes it easier to teach others and its great when people get involved and post lessons too (like tes and aina :))

I think organising by language name is great, like a reference library and makes it easy to find and see the range of languages people want to teach and learn :). At somepoint, maybe when the threads get very long it would be good to delete irelevant posts and consolidate the lessons. I keep an index for now, and a seperate thread for questions and general enquiries which can serve as a pointer for fuure lessons and refernece.

the section basically gets a thumbs up from me - but i am probably biased hehe :)

[kwonsang26]

Language Section Opinions

Well when the language threads were first moved to SST Headquarters.There wasn't alot of feedback,however,now members are starting to work together & there's decent activity there.

I totally agree with Saharial about how the language threads would get lost if they were placed back into their own country forums.Having the language threads in one place is definitely more convenient for new & old members alike to learn the language of their choice.

Teaching Staff

However,to get more teachers involved,maybe we can have a teaching program set up with teaching badges like the mentor & planning badges.Then the teachers can be assigned to their own language thread to give lessons.

Because I really appreciate the feedback & contributions by native speakers.However,having more than one teacher giving multiple lessons can overwhelm a new student.Additionally,the teaching program can recruit new teachers as well as honoring them & crediting them for their hardwork.

I think some people don't want to teach because of a busy schedule,no interest,& the credit that they may or may not receive.But I think there's also a money issue where some people don't want to teach for free,which I hope is not the case.

Graduation Program

There can also be a graduation ceremony held for the language students to honor their acheivement.I think it'll be too much hassle to make the exams like the JCNetizen test.

So maybe the students can PM their exams to the teacher to grade & then the teacher can post the results of all the students in that particular langauge discussion thread.

Furthermore,the graduation requirements can be made by the teacher.For example,let's say that all students who want to graduate must pass at least 10 exams or maybe more depending on the teacher's discretion.After graduation,the students may even be qualified for a teaching badge as well.

In conclusion,I completely understand how overwhelming it sounds setting up a graduation program & recruiting a teaching staff.However,I'm prepared to assist anyway I can.

[aina]

As a person who loves to learn foreign languages, i'm happy we have the language forum here. But i think most threads aren't showing much interests.

Forum sorted by thread title is good, but i think it will be better if we separate the archives from the currently-active threads. Coz, personally that confuses me.
Maybe a sub-forum for archives will make the forum looks more organized.

For the lessons (i only follow the korean and mandarin threads) so far, i can catch up with the lessons given. Not confusing and acceptable for beginners.
[Some inputs maybe for the mandarin thread : Adding the chinese characters besides pinyin would be better, i think.]

For the learning method, just a suggestion... i always like the fact that song lyrics actually useful to help me learn some new vocabs. But this could be useful if supported with further translations and explanations of course.

About teachers..hmm, i can't think of another way than having our own members to teach.
I believe we have lot of members (not only 1 or 2) here who speaks their own first languages (mandarin, japan, korean, spanish, dutch, etc) and able to teach, maybe they just don't have the guts to start a thread or they don't know the language forum exists.. :sweat:
So, i agree with the idea of setting up teaching program like kwonsang suggested.

[jbalibean]

To build off of what Aina said, I think there should only be one forum for each language represented. In particular with Mandarin, it should all be condensed into one thread(instead of the five represented). Also, for organizational purposes, I think the lesson guidelines/beginner lessons should be added as a link into the first post of the language discussion thread. This way, if more languages are added, you will still be able to see all of the information on the active threadpage (as opposed to going to page 2 to find the beginner lesson 1 (for Japanese)).

I enjoy the language forums. I think for new members, it might be a little bit difficult to find though. Maybe there could be a sticky highlighting it on the homepage for a week. That way, you could track how many people actually are visiting/would visit these pages.