ChinesePod host, Ken Carroll, plus a native Chinese-speaker, yet to be revealed, will be strapping microphones to themselves for an initial period of a month, to broadcast non-stop formal lessons, daily interactions, and casual conversation to their 250,000 users.
In experimenting with Big Brother-style immersion techniques, Ken believes the ChinesePod team could revolutionize language learning:
"It's 100% in line with our brand, Learning Chinese on Your Terms. We want to bring the learning to the individual, to make it as easy and convenient as possible to enable Chinese learners to absorb the content of our lessons into their lexicon. It’s all about picking up real Chinese in real-time.
"Of course, this may be considered a radical pedagogical approach – I certainly don't think it has been tried on commercial basis before – but I am confident that experimentation is always worthwhile. Our initial trials have progressed exceedingly well and we are very excited by today's launch."
In order to keep listeners engaged and stimulated beyond the pre-planned lessons, the hosts plan to take trips to local Shanghai restaurants, markets, shops and tourist attractions. The aim is to offer insight on how to successfully apply the target language.
In terms of practicalities, each host will take it in turns to rest, with 20-minute breaks every four hours. The streaming will be available on a 24-hour basis through the ChinesePod website, however, so ideas for discussion topics and words of support are welcomed.
"This is a revolutionary way to learn Chinese - the best way to do so outside of living in China! And even then, many of us expats here are in our offices not speaking or listening to enough Chinese. I've listened to the initial trials and was thoroughly engrossed - i just couldn't press pause. I can't recommend this highly enough."
- Andrea Wong, Shanghai Editor at City Weekend Magazine
To learn more, please visit http://chinesepod.com/
