[Eway]

tdol, thank you for forwarding my message.
And mmyuyu, thank you for your reply, which is very detailed and concrete.
Can I just ask a few more questions regarding your reply?
You mentioned about "the tone which makes Chinese very different from other languages".
Can I ask you how you train your students to distinguish the 4 tones?
I think for most non-Chinese speakers,
the 4 tones just sound the same.
Even if the teacher repeats saying "yi1-yi2-yi3-yi4" for a hundred times,
they just sound to be the same "yi"!
With a beginner who doesn't know a single word in Chinese,
how do you communicate with them and even explain things in Chinese?

Also, you say that you don't recommend the beginners to learn writing.
At what point would you recommend them to start writing?
Wouldn't they want to learn writing at the same time when learning speaking?
And, don't you let them start writing those basic strokes when they are learning b, p, m, f in MPS form?
Or...maybe the conversation class is seperated from character-writing class?

And, how did you become a Teaching Chinese as a Second Language teacher?
Were you a Chinese major?
(This is just out of my curiosity, you don't have to answer it if you find it private.)
Thanks again! :D