Grace Yu

This class is taught in English and she has good english speaking skills. It's easy to understand her teaching. Contrary to the two earlier reviews, she's not a hard teacher and NO she doesn't make life difficult for her students. She doesn't take favors with any students, at least certainly not me. She's friendly and encouraging to non-chinese peeps. Her class is straight-forward; do all your homework and pay attention in class. I'm not Chinese and yet I got an A in this class. Btw, i took mandarin in high school and i failed it real bad! There's 1 or 2 homework (writing the chinese characters) and a quiz for every lesson in the textbook. She's a fair grader and knows her material well. It's very easy to get an A in this class if you do your homework and study the textbook. The only people who would complain about her are those who don't attend class regularly and don't bother to do their homework. Take her. You won't go wrong with this teacher.

Sometimes Ms. Yu tells us what she's going to test us on but then later changes the format and we are tested on things that weren't covered. She assigns memorization homework, like role plays. We have two days to memorize a conversation and perform it in front of the class, but this doesn't help us learn Cantonese! We may be able to memorize the words, but we still don't know what they mean! The handouts she gives are really OLD and are so inky you can't see the words. I studied really hard and still missed questions because I couldn't see the accent marks on the handouts.

Another thing she thinks will help us learn is singing Cantonese songs. IT DOESN'T HELP AT ALL. We learn the words to sing but we don't know what they MEAN! The singing was a total waste of time, especially since we had to do it almost every day.

In class, she calls on students in a fair order and has us say words outloud and corrects our pronounciation when necessary, which is helpful. She's not a terrible teacher. I disagree with teaching romanization rather than Chinese characters because then you have to re-learn the words in later Chinese classes, if you are planning on taking them. But this class is a good stepping stone for beginners.

I would recomment taking this class ONLY if you aren't taking it seriously and if Chinese isn't your major. This class is for students who want to learn a little Cantonese for fun and is most understandable if you were exposed to Cantonese growing up.