Allset Learning

AllSet Learning has just made its Chinese Grammar Wiki project publicly available. It’s been accessible to clients in Shanghai for some time, but now we’re proud to share it with the rest of the Chinese-learning world as well.

Why a Grammar Wiki?

Web-savvy learners of Chinese have known for some time that there’s no single comprehensive grammar resource for Chinese grammar on the entire internet. Sure, there are some very helpful pages out there, but they’re not comprehensive or interlinked, or at least not publicly available.

We initially created the wiki to scratch our own itch. AllSet Learning provides highly personalized study plans for its clients, making use of a variety of materials, often including such disparate sources as ChinesePod lessons, textbooks, magazines, online articles, blog posts, and Weibo posts. While offering a variety of materials is great for keeping learners interests high, it does create a problem for tracking progress. How can we keep straight what our clients have studied, and what they still need to study?

The Chinese Grammar Wiki is our solution to the grammar part of this issue. Tracking client progress in grammar started with static lists of grammar points, and gradually involved into the current Chinese Grammar Wiki. We tried a number of approaches, but realized that the ideal solution needs to be online, easily edited, easily expanded, and heavily interlinked. Wikipedia was the obvious model for such a resource, and the Chinee Grammar Wiki is powered by MediaWiki, the same software that powers Wikipedia.

Organization of the Chinese Grammar Wiki

As much as possible, we’ve tried to follow the principles laid down by the Wikipedia editing team. These rules are well thought-out and debated, and also nicely documented online. Because the Chinese Grammar Wiki is much narrower in scope than Wikipedia, however, it has also implemented the following principles:

1. Organized by Level. The Chinese Grammar Wiki was designed to be useful to learners of all levels, but with special consideration for the beginner. A beginner has special needs. Pointing him to a huge list of all Chinese measure words, for example, probably isn’t the best way to introduce the concept. It’s better to start with a smaller, usable grammar point and build from there. The Chinese Grammar Wiki organizes grammar points by level, and then also ties them all together with lots of links.
2. Organized by Book. AllSet Learning has built up a decent library of Chinese textbooks and grammar books. These are the books cited as references when editing the wiki. Where possible, we’ve also tried to link textbooks’ contents back into the Chinese Grammar Wiki content. This makes it easier for an owner of a book to expand upon his book’s explanations by jumping right into our wiki’s relevant articles.
3. Always Referenced. By always citing the sources our editors use, we’re not only adhering to standard academic practices; we’re also doing our part to publicize the most essential books on Chinese grammar, such as Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar and Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide. It may be the Internet Age, but there’s no denying that most of the most useful information on Chinese grammar is still to be found printed on dead trees.

Current Issues

We don’t mean to pretend that a project of this magnitude has already been fully completed by our modest team. The Chinese Grammar Wiki is still very much a work in progress, but it is now complete enough to be useful to learners all over the world.

There are a few issues which we should point out to new users of the wiki:

1. No Anonymous Editing. We’re a small team with limited resources, so we can’t spend a lot of time managing new users, fighting spam, or monitoring quality. The Chinese Grammar Wiki is not just a pet project created for fun; it’s already being used on a daily basis in AllSet Learning clients’ studies. We invite interested potential editors to contact us, but there’s no automatic approval.
2. No Universal Pinyin and Translations. This was a very tough call to make, but in order to accelerate the creation of the wiki content, we have decided not to manually add pinyin or English translations to the many words and sample sentences contained within the wiki. This is not only because it’s a time-consuming process; it’s also because there are now free browser extensions and free tools like Google Translate which make the burden of manually editing pinyin and translations largely unnecessary. Please view the wiki’s Tools page to install free browser extensions which provide pinyin, translations, and even conversion to traditional characters.
3. Search not yet optimized. The more content the wiki contains, the more important a powerful search function will be. The Chinese Grammar Wiki is currently using MediaWiki’s default search engine, but there are plans to improve it through extensions. In the meantime, we’re still working on article content.
4. Many articles are still unwritten. Part of the beauty of a wiki is that it’s infinitely editable, always expandable. While we’ve already got 500 articles in the wiki, there are still many yet to be created. Furthermore, many of the articles are still rather minimal. We know there’s more work left to do, and we’re committed to getting it done. If you’d like to help, that’s great too!

Thank You!

We at AllSet Learning would especially like to thank our interns Lucas, Hugh, Greg, and Jonathan, whose many hours of hard work helped make this project possible. We also welcome anyone interested in helping to contact us about becoming an editor.

Finally, we’re very grateful to all of you out there who take the time to explore the wiki. It would mean a lot to us if you could:

1. Help us spread word of the Chinese Grammar Wiki by linking to it on your blog or website
2. Like us or share our news on Facebook
3. Retweet our news or follow us on Twitter

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Greg McAndrews carried on the CET legacy of hard-working interns at the AllSet Learning office in fall, 2011. Greg offered a good, critical view in helping us review learning materials, and was also very willing to try out some new learning methods to work on his own tones.

A lot of what Greg did revolved around helping us organize our grammar resources, but he enjoyed a wide range of activities such as participating in a tone pair drills case study, reviewing video resources, and researching romanization methods.

Greg’s own words on the experience:

During the time I’ve spent here at AllSet, not only has my spoken Chinese become substantially better, but I’ve also been exposed to several different learning styles that have certainly put me on my way to improving my Mandarin skills across the board. Whether it was relearning grammar structures that I had long forgotten, realizing exactly how abhorrent my tones actually were, or just participating in everyday Chinese office banter, my time here has been extremely productive toward my Mandarin education, and I really couldn’t have done it anywhere else but at AllSet Learning.

Apparently CET interns have a thing for Settlers of Catan, because Greg was also really into it. (Don’t worry, Greg; you’ll win some day!)

Jonathan Pope hails from the UK, and chose AllSet Learning to fulfull his graduate studies internship requirement at Yunnan Normal University. We were certainly happy to have his help! While working on his masters in international Chinese education, Jonathan also participated in the Chinese Bridge competition, where he proved that his spoken Chinese and knowledge of Chinese society and culture are both extremely impressive.

Jonathan helped with research of grammar information, research of pinyin and alternate romanization methods, teacher training, and iOS and video resources evaluations, among other things. Perhaps what left the strongest impression about Jonathan was his strong desire for clarity and accuracy in all that he touched.

Here’s what Jonathan had to say about his time with AllSet Learning:

Chinese masters courses are not known for their hands-on nature, so having the opportunity to intern at a company like AllSet Learning has been a great way to get a more practical perspective on Chinese teaching. From editing and researching grammar resources to choosing kid’s cartoons for clients to attending teacher training, I found that I was never far from the learner. I feel like I’ve learnt a lot of Chinese while being here, and found I have a lot of problems that I didn’t realise I had before.

It’s also been great to get to know a bit more about Shanghai; it has a dynamism that Kunming lacks (although I admit you would probably struggle to find a more laid back place than Kunming). This seems to have had its effect; I think after being here I might well have caught the start-your-own-business bug…

Jonathan also has the distinction of breaking the record for total internship hours (previously held by Hugh), working full time for 6 full weeks, and we really appreciate his contributions to AllSet Learning. We also look forward to seeing what Jonathan will do next in China!

Vygotsky has been one of the big names in education circles in recent years. EdTechLife shares a great quote that really resonates with what we’re doing here at AllSet Learning:

Our only concern is that there exist within the very nature of the educational process, within its psychological essence, the demand that there be as intimate a contact, and as close an interaction with life itself as might be wished for…. Ultimately, only life educates, and the deeper that life, the real world, burrows into the school, the more dynamic and the more robust will be the educational process. (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 345)

Because AllSet Learning eschews the institution of the school for total one-on-one learning, Vygotsky’s words ring especially true.

And another particularly prescient view on the learning of the future:

In the city of the future , there will not be any one single building from which we might hand the sign, “school,” because the very word “school”… will be absorbed altogether in work and in life, and schools will be held in factories, and in the public square, in museums and in the hospital and the churchyard.” (Vygotsky, 1997, p. 346)

Sounds good to us.

John Pasden is quoted on Enterprise China in a recent article about start-ups in the Mandarin learning space:

“I became really interested in the individual side of learning Chinese; how it’s a personal quest for each person. I wanted to establish a business where I could speak face-to-face with students, understand their needs and try to do some new things to help them learn. With AllSet Learning I wanted to use technology, but also bring a human focus. We’re in China, surrounded by Chinese people, and that brings many opportunities for one-on-one conversations with locals; that’s what we’re all about. I think personalization is the key because many businesses, including start-ups, are obsessed with scaling. Obviously there’s good reason to be obsessed with scaling – businesses have to make money or they die. We are completely privately funded. We were profitable within the first year and I’m in this for the long haul. We’re not going to be huge anytime soon, but huge isn’t the goal – the goal is to create something really cool.”

AllSet has applied the 37Signals approach to a startup: outside money is Plan B.

Hugh Grigg approached AllSet Learning about an internship on his own, and as author of the well-written “Chinese study blog” East Asia Student, he was a shoo-in. Hugh is studying East Asian studies at Cambridge, and did his summer internship in Shanghai before heading to Qingdao for an academic year of study.

At AllSet Hugh helped a lot with academic research, helping John to bring together various useful information for AllSet clients. He also provided feedback on various study materials, participated in demo lessons, and even played a role in AllSet’s teacher training. Hugh’s strong writing skills and knowledge of Chinese proved an invaluable resource, and we’re sorry to see him go!

Hugh’s take on his internship:

Interning at AllSet Learning has been a real eye-opener for what a
modern education company can do. I’ve been really impressed with the
methods used here and the projects AllSet Learning is working on. The
time has flown by, but I think my Chinese has noticeably improved in
these six short weeks. All in all, interning at AllSet has been a
worthwhile and memorable experience. The office banter isn’t too bad
either!

While at AllSet, Hugh also discovered Shanghai’s diviest dive bar, C’s, and got an eyebrow piercing (as you do). But we’re not publicly claiming responsibility for those!

Lucas Simons found AllSet Learning through his internship in his CET study abroad program. Lucas was eager to do an internship where he could use his Chinese and learn more Chinese. He came to the right place!

At AllSet Learning, Lucas participated in teacher evaluations (free Chinese lessons!), evaluated study materials (including iPad apps), and helped conduct product research. In the picture, you see Lucas playing with some “Chinese character building blocks,” which are designed for Chinese children studying characters. (Lucas’s feedback helped us to determine that the blocks were interesting, but as a study tool, the block were actually more frustrating than useful without the proper guidance.)

Lucas will be remembered especially for giving our teachers quite a challenge in the demo lessons he participated in. Everyone at AllSet appreciated his feedback.

Lucas’s take on the internship:

My internship at Allset was really a valuable experience. The small size of the company allowed me to get really involved in some of the projects and work closely with John and the teachers. I not only gained valuable work experience but having the chance to work with the Chinese teachers and John (and Beixi) and test different ways of teaching Chinese helped me to become a better Chinese learner.

Lucas’s passion for Settlers of Catan also resulted in quite a few epic office competitions. All in all, a very productive and fun internship!

Donna Yee was AllSet Learning’s first ever intern, and was introduced to use through her CET Shanghai study abroad program. She was the perfect intern for us at the time, because our small company was first starting out, and had a lot on its plate.

Donna was a computer science major, so at AllSet Learning she got to help develop an early prototype system for organizing and analyzing Chinese lesson data. She worked hard and created some valuable code. Prototyping new systems can be quite time-intensive, but it proved to be a very worthwhile exercise.

Thanks for your had work, Donna, and sorry it took us a year to get this blog post up! The worst part is that due to a hard drive crash, we have lost the original photo of Donna working hard at AllSet Learning. (Don’t worry, Donna; the memory stays strong!)

At AllSet Learning, we’re interested in any and all new technologies that improve the way we learn languages. The iPad has impressed us with its ability to cross the generational gap, simultaneously appealing to senior citizens and toddlers alike with an intuitive touch-based interface. As the computer itself is flattened, so is the learning curve for computers. We’re excited about the potential this offers for learning. Not only does the iPad offer a new, hassle-free interface, but it also makes possible more physical learning software. We’re ready for it.

There’s almost a tone of incredulity in this article on Kirsten Winkler’s blog: 52% of Online Language Learners Consider Classic Offline Learning as More Efficient.

Frankly, we’re not surprised at all by the data represented by Busuu. We believe people try to learn languages online primarily for reasons of convenience, not because they believe it’s the best (or most efficient) way. We believe that most people know that regular face-to-face meetings with a teacher or other native speakers — preferably one-on-one — is the surest route to significant progress. To learn a skill, you must practice that skill, under conditions that most resemble the final desired outcome. But for reasons of cost or geography, the internet is often the best available option.

AllSet Learning is actively pursuing better ways of using technology to faciliate language acquisition and make the process more efficient, but the supremacy of face-to-face interactions in the language learning process is at the heart of our philosophy.

Photo by ConstantineD.