Joseph Z

I'm American born Chinese, so I've always wanted to learn Mandarin Chinese, including how to write characters. Excluding the times when I was really young, I only learned how to write characters regarding stroke order, never the spacing or the size. This was kind of the first time in a while I started learning those aspects again, so thank you!

Learner · 2 days ago

Thank you for greeting the early learners by name! This is a fairly large session, so it's nice to establish that sense of community. It's nice that you established the boundary about not searching up answers but kept a light attitude about the fact that some learners may search them up anyway. You also add a lot of little jokes throughout the session that lighten up any tension that may have been there, since a lot of these learners have never met one another. As for strengthening learner confidence, you're not really going through practice questions, so I've marked N/A for the category.

Tutor · 1 mo. ago

I loved this session. Joseph was so friendly and he gave good explanations and he also encourages people to read if people are shy, he just says it’s fine and if they participated their reading would be better so wonderful session.

Learner · 2 mo. ago

-You checked the learners' prior knowledge in that you asked them if they were familiar with the Improv game already. Since this is a community event/game session, you didn't have to any further on this end. Well done! -You adapted the session's needs! A lot fewer learners joined the session than you were hoping/expecting, but you got around that by starting a similar and just as entertaining game with the learners that were in the session. As I already mentioned, good presence of mind! -When you're playing a game together, there's really no way to not continuously engage the learner. I am glad that you continuously made comments about the game rather than just staying silent. For example, you remark that the story is "very tragic" (sarcastically/humorously) when going over the story together (58:00). It's little comments like these that make the learners feel comfortable and desire to attend a similar session again. Nice job! -There was no way to check the learner's progress since you were just playing a game together. You did ask the learners if they were on board with some of the decisions you made (e.g., opening up Gartic Phone), so you performed sufficiently on this metric.

Tutor · 2 mo. ago

I loved this session! It was really fun and I enjoyed the game! I highly recommend Joseph as a tutor. Thankyou Joseph for the session!😁🤩👍

Learner · 2 mo. ago

Thank you, Joseph! I really enjoyed today's session and I loved reading that story in Chinese. (I haven't practiced my Chinese in a couple months and this really jumpstarted my memory again.) I feel more motivated now to keep practicing and learning. Thank you, Joseph!

Learner · 3 mo. ago

Thanks for the session! It was very fun to join, and I hope to join again in the future. Even though I joined late, you still included me, and you were very fun to interact with. Thanks for teaching me a little bit about foods around the world!

Learner · 3 mo. ago

Joseph is a great tutor and always makes sure everyone understands the lesson. He is very patient and always explains every Chinese character we learn in great detail. Thank you so much for this session!

Learner · 4 mo. ago

可怜的猴子。。。

Learner · 5 mo. ago

Today the session is very helpful, l learned so many useful skills in spoken English, and I can feel the emotion of the tutor and the classmate, it’s really nice to listen their chat even though l can’t understand the talk totally, but the chance to listen is also very nice.l hope there are more opportunities to learn from the tutor.

Learner · 5 mo. ago

Thank you for this session! Joseph explains the details of Chinese Calligraphy very thoroughly and always answers any questions learners might have during the session. He is a great tutor!

Learner · 6 mo. ago

Thank you so much for this session; I appreciate how elaborative you were in explaining the slides' content and answering our questions. The introduction you had us do at the beginning really broke the ice for me, making me feel more comfortable and allowing me to get to know the other learners, which are soon to be tutors! This session was very much needed, and once again, thank you for making it happen despite it being a bit late in your time zone and making an exception for me.

Learner · 9 mo. ago

Thank you both for this session! You were incredible at making room for everyone to feel comfortable, as well as at creating the space for questions and ideas. I was a bit unsure coming in as to how all this was going to work, but now I feel a lot more confident! Thank you again—I'm really excited to be here! :)

Learner · 9 mo. ago

thanks for being so patient with all of us learners, despite our different skill levels!! The session was really engaging and I felt like you tried to include us all as best as possible :> I'm looking forward to the next one!

Learner · 9 mo. ago

Thank you for hosting today's session. It's been a difficult time for you and your family but you still kept up with hosting sessions and being so friendly and kind as always. I can't appreciate and admire you for this enough.

Learner · 10 mo. ago

Great job, Joseph! Though this wasn't a session that was supposed to teach through a medium, I really love how you introduced Chinese through conversations. That's exactly how I learned Hindi and Malayalam! The fact that you used online games to spark conversations made it exciting and hard not to participate. Video games are a powerful tool for engagement. Using them as a medium for language learning can make the lessons more interactive and fun, helping students stay motivated and interested. They often require players to make decisions based on dialogues and interactions. This can encourage students to actively use their language skills in a simulated environment, enhancing their conversational abilities. Overall, great job, Joseph! 👍

Tutor · 10 mo. ago

This session was amazing, as usual! Learning with the situation of being in a store was incredibly useful, and I can definitely see myself using the knowledge I gained today for my future travels. The Kahoot review was also especially helpful to refresh my memory of everything we've learned so far. Thank you so much for the session!

Learner · 11 mo. ago

You have an in-depth understanding of algebra-based math as your explanations were correct, clear, and had very minimal hesitation. Also, great job annotating your work on the whiteboard! Visual learning is a great tool to help your learners better grasp concepts that you are teaching.

Tutor · 11 mo. ago

Thank you so so so much for the zoom help, it really helped me and breaking it down into simple terms really helped me understand it thank you so much again

Learner · 11 mo. ago

the Gimkit game was really fun, and the flag questions were a great idea! :D thanks so much for hosting the session for us, Joseph! I'll try to learn more Chinese during the week so I can actually speak next time XD

Learner · 1 yr. ago

This session was so much fun! It was so fascinating to learn about the mid-autumn festival and its history, it was my favorite part of the whole session! (Although everything else was awesome, too). I can't wait for the next session :)

Learner · 1 yr. ago

This session was so informative! It was so fun learning the idiom and all of the introductory phrases, and learning "Let's go" was so helpful! The videos were so cool, too. Learning Chinese with Joseph and Murray is so much fun. I can't wait for the next session!

Learner · 1 yr. ago

Super helpful. He is a very patient teacher.

Learner · 1 yr. ago

-The learners are not learning anything new in this session! The Jeopardy game itself is a check of their understanding of Humanities topics, so there's no need to check their prior knowledge. -This is a large session that is meant to imitate a game show. Thus, it does not seem necessary to adapt to the learners' specific needs. -This session is constructed such that all of the learners (that wanted to be competitors) are engaged. They all got to take turns choosing a category and answering questions within that category. Overall, the learners seemed to have a lot of fun! -This is an unconventional (community) type of session, but you still do a great job at checking the learners' progress! After each major point that you make, such as reading the directions, you ask the learners if they have any questions so that you can move on. This definitely proved to be helpful because some of the learners did not fully grasp the directions, which would have given their competitors an unfair advantage.

Tutor · 1 mo. ago

Hi Joseph! Thank you for hosting this session about Chinese History. I am very impressed by the efforts you put in preparation for this session. Rather than doing Google Slides, I liked how you use Canva to design your presentation. This is my favorite tool, that allows me to include beautiful visuals onto the slides making my audience more engaged while listening. In your session, I liked how you made the background color to brown illustrating a scene at a museum for an ancient historical work. Furthermore, I can tell that you also spent lots of time in choosing the visuals for your session. Like the pig on slide #3, it’s definitely a great choice that reflects the time period you are talking about. Other than that, you clearly did your research in finding and researching about the facts about Chinese history. For the later slides about the origin, it is sophisticated yet summarized in a way that allows your learners to understand. Overall, great work!

Tutor · 1 mo. ago

This was literally the hardest I've laughed in a long time. Thank you Joseph for the awesome session!

Learner · 2 mo. ago

Joseph, I really like the idea behind the improv game. It looks like a lot of fun to play, and I can totally see how it allows learners to allow their ideas to flow. It's unfortunate that you could not play it since not many people joined the session. However, you took up the opportunity to improvise and start playing Gartic Phone with the learners- nice presence of mind here! I think the Icebreaker feature on Gartic Phone replicated the Improv Game pretty well, so I'm glad you were able to stick to your original plan to a certain extent. This seems like a wonderful way to bring the community together; definitely keep hosting these type of sessions!

Tutor · 2 mo. ago

Thank you so much! I really enjoyed reading the children's book and learning phrases from it! I will make sure to practice my reading and pronunciation more, so I can read and understand more next time! 😊

Learner · 3 mo. ago

I LOVED THIS SOO MUCH! I'm coming back for more. Don't you dare ever finish this series XD

Learner · 3 mo. ago

Thank you so much for hosting this session! The activities were so much fun and I really enjoyed this session so much. I am really glad that you are going to host even more sessions like this and make it into a series. It was so nice to be able to be creative and get to interact with others in this community through this session. This was such a great idea and you did such a great job hosting it. I really look forward to the next session and I hope you have a wonderful weekend! :)

Learner · 4 mo. ago

You are such an amazing and great tutor! I really appreciate you hosting this session and I look forward to the next one! I really hope that you have a wonderful weekend! :)

Learner · 4 mo. ago

Super fun and engaging tutor! He helped me work on such a boring, and tiresome assignment however his playful manner made it so that I was able to power through it. He's very thoughtful, engaging, and always has something wise to say. Thank you so much for your help, Joseph! You're a wonderful tutor.

Learner · 5 mo. ago

It’s very glad to see you.to be honest,I am very nervous at the beginning , but at the end, I speak loudly ,it’s really amazing during this session, the tutor is very friendly and super patient ,I learned how to do a speech, he teaches super detail and useful. At the end,I asked one question, and the tutor answered with his own learning style and it’s really helpful. Thanks for the advice ,thanks for the meeting .I hope everyone can be better.

Learner · 5 mo. ago

Joseph was great at engaging us as well going through the slides in-depth, giving us great tips, and sharing personal experiences! I look forward to seeing Joseph host Chinese Lit. sessions

Learner · 8 mo. ago

Thank you guys for hosting this session. For the first time, the session was pretty awesome and got to know a lot of the greek mythology. It was so interesting to learn even for my standard about history. I hope to learn more mythology in the future because it is so fun to learn and surprisingly not boring for once. I hope you guys do this topic again in the future. Thank you guys for hosting this session and I have learned a lot through the gods, month, planets, and many more. Hope to see you guys around.

Learner · 9 mo. ago

I want to thank everyone on the Reading and Writing Subworld Founders Team for this informative and fun session. You guys ROCKED IT!! I am SO IMPRESSED with all that you got accomplished to get the Subworld up and running! It is so clear that you all have bonded and are an amazing team. I can't wait to be an active member of this subworld. THANK YOU ALL for making it happen.

Learner · 9 mo. ago

Thank you so much for this session! I have been losing my motivation to learn Chinese lately, but every time I attend of one your sessions, I find my motivation again! You make learning Chinese so fun while making it incredibly informative at the same time. I always look forward to your sessions because I know I'll learn so much!

Learner · 9 mo. ago

This session was so helpful! I feel much more prepared for any travel to China in the future, armed with my new knowledge of airport/train station terminology. Seeing how the Chinese keyboard works was also very cool. Thank you so much for the session, and I can't wait for the next one!

Learner · 10 mo. ago

By incorporating video games into the learning process, you effectively tapped into a shared interest among the students. This not only makes the lessons more relatable and engaging but also helps foster a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect among learners who share a common hobby. It's a clever way to break the ice and encourage students to participate more openly. Over the past few years I've had my computer, I've learned that the use of video games, a familiar and enjoyable medium for many, likely helped in creating a comfortable and low-pressure learning environment. You've taken this to your advantage and created a unique and innovative approach to teaching conversational Chinese.

Tutor · 10 mo. ago

As usual, this session was so informative and fun! I enjoyed learning about the genders, plurals, and questions. And the video was amazing as well, I enjoyed the story despite not fully understanding the dialogue (although I understood a lot more than I thought I would!) When I first started learning Chinese, I was sure I wouldn't be able to do it. It looked so hard. But these sessions make it so much easier, they help so much! I can't wait for the next session!

Learner · 11 mo. ago

Thank you so much for the session! You explained everything very clearly, was patient and very friendly. Overall I understand everything very well! Thank you so much again!!!!

Learner · 11 mo. ago

As usual, learning Chinese with Joseph was so much fun! I learned so much, and I can't wait to (hopefully) put my new conversational vocabulary to use. Learning about the Chinese opera was also incredibly fascinating, especially the Sichuan Opera and the face changing. This session was amazing, 谢谢你!

Learner · 11 mo. ago

This session was so much fun! It was really interesting to learn about the numbers and how the words for country, people, and language change. And the Qixi Festival was so cool to learn about, especially the mythology behind it! I can't wait for next session, learning Chinese with Joseph is so much fun!

Learner · 1 yr. ago

Thanks for offering to help me, Joseph! I really appreciate it :D

Learner · 1 yr. ago

This session was so much fun! It was so cool to learn about all of the different tones and greetings. And the slang expression was so funny! I loved hearing the story behind it, too. I can't wait for the next session.

Learner · 1 yr. ago

thank you for this session! i loved the fact i got to know more people! it was super fun:)

Learner · 1 yr. ago