Christina S. Yao

Despite the fact that she is sometimes late for class and that she is occasionally unprepared to teach (there are times when she doesn't know where we're at in a lesson, perhaps because her TA has not notified her on time), Christina is far from being one of the worse teachers in the world. On the contrary she is, no doubt, a rather excellent teacher. She is extremely knowledgeable in her subjects, it's just that she has so much on her mind that she can't always clearly express herself. There are accusations that she tends to favor non-Chinese students but all you have to do is sit in my class and you'll see that she doesn't discriminate against anyone. My own classmates complain that she is too nit-picky and strict but I find that instructors like Christina are, in reality, concerned about their students. She urges everyone to work hard and gives praise to those who deserve it. The text, which you can use for the first three semesters, and the reader are some of the best curriculum you can find for beginners' Chinese. There are two quizzes every couple or so weeks, a few oral presentations straight from the lessons and lab attendance is recommended everyday for half an hour, though interaction with the instructors or native Mandarin speakers is much more likely to help you with your pronunciation and tones. Homework is frequent, usually consisting of assignments from the reader and worksheets. I am disappointed that Christina won't be teaching second semester Chinese next spring but if she teaches another class, I'll jump at the chance.

I took her class before,she was quite a disappointment. Even she has a Ph.D. I find her not very knowledgeable or not prepared on the subjuct she was teaching. A junior high school Chinese teacher oversea could did a better job than her. And she did not seem to be fair to all the students. She was specially kind and easy on non-Chinese students which were like the rest of the instructors in the Chinese Program. I don't see the fairness in such a action, so were the rest of my Chinese classmates. When we took other classes why don't we see other teachers pamper students who don't speak/write Enlish well? She should set an example to all the other instructors that being fair to all the students reguardless their nationality or home language they speak is important. The other thing is that she didn't act responsiblly when she reviews all the applications to the graduate program. She did not set a standand of accepting or rejecting students. I have heard some non-Chinese native students' Chinese were so poor got accepted in graduate progrm but some other Chinese- native student got rejected because her secretary had some opinion about that native student didn't take any Chinese courses in colloge..... Should a dept have some clear guildline to accept or reject a graduate student and not changed from time to time?