A teacher from Beijing teaching Pinyin wrongly.

Yan Yue (Blue Cat) is a teacher from Beijing, China. Her introduction on Facebook says she is a teacher who teaches the Chinese language.

Here is her Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093718062022

I was pleasantly surprised when I received a message on my Facebook messenger that stated:

Hi, I read your blog. What you said is correct. The Pinyin they teach is problematic. Seeing your blog, I plan to go to YouTube, to teach Chinese. I hope you can check. I think you are a very responsible person.  Nice to meet you.

I replied:

I would be happy to comment on your YouTube videos when they are uploaded. Nice to meet you too.

Then I realised that she had already uploaded YouTube videos teaching Pinyin.

I told her that she is using the sounds as in Bopomofo and not as in Pinyin.

She said: ‘Before learning syllables, you need to learn letters because syllables are composed of letter combinations.’

She said that it is her school that taught her the way it is on her YouTube. She also said that her son’s school also teaches this way.

She said all public schools in Beijing teach this way.

Here is another case of ‘this is how everyone else is doing, so why not I’.

She then deleted all her videos.

The following is what she said:

 I can delete the video, but not because of an error.

If I deleted the video, it was because I didn't want to encounter online bullying, not because of a teaching error. 

Had it not been for the last two statements above I would have let matters be as the videos have been deleted. The following is a replica of what she was teaching. 

Yes, many schools are teaching Pinyin this way in China including Beijing. The question is what is Mr.Huai Jinpeng, the education minister of China doing about this nonsense. Why have the Chinese Embassies that I have written to not replied my emails? 

The kids who are predisposed to shutting down will disengage from learning to read because of this confusion.