I've been using Chinese tv shows/movies to learn and to teach Mandarin over the years. I think by combining watching the shows/movies, reading subtitles, reading plot synopses, writing reaction essays, editing those essays and discussing the shows with a teacher, it can help to take your language skills to the next level. Right now I'm primarily watching the Chinese dating show: 非诚勿扰. I've found it really useful as a way to gain exposure to a large range of accent types. The people on the show come from all over China and sometimes from outside of China.
What shows/movies do you watch as part of your Chinese language learning program? Do you have any recommendations of effective ways to use media in a learning or teaching program?
I agree watching Tv is one of the best ways to study. The problem is, (in my humble opinion) most Chinese TV really sucks. My Chinese friends seem to agree, and never have much to say when I ask for recomendations. I've watched proabaly 20 complete series, and most of them just seem to be reusing the same plot, i.e. an overly dramatic love story, killing Japanese people, etc... Although the semi-reality shows such as 《非诚勿扰》 are interesting, once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all.
The stuff I've found most interesting is always in Documentaries. There are tons of great documenteries out there by both famous diretors and independent nobodys. I like Documentaries becaues you can learn all of the vocab specific to a paritcualr subject. One guy whose videos I really like to watch is 吴晓波. He does a lot of videos analyzing the economy, technology and other interesting stuff.
http://www.iqiyi.com/a_19rrgicn9x.html
I tend to like movies from Taiwan and HongKong a lot more than from the Mainland. A recent one that I really liked is 《平凡之路》It is pretty strange and would have a lot of opportunites for discussion/analysis.
If I had to pick the least aweful series of of all that I've watched, I'd probably go with 《大宅门》Another one that is easy to watch (also a blatant ripoff of western comedy's) is《爱情公寓》I found it easier to watch than other series because the humor is western style.
I've found one of the best ways (it depends on the level of the students) to use media in the classroom is to have them watch a particular episonde or movie several times before coming to class, and then disussing the plot, words or phrases they don't understand and re-watching particular scenes that people had trouble with.
I wrote a notebook about T.V shows, and some people left some suggestions inthe comments:
http://www.italki.com/entry/407397
Watching tv series is definitely a useful way of studying, at least for me. With Chinese, it can sometimes be a challenge to find shows that you're willing to watch all the way through. Some of the better ones I have come across are:
Mainland
蜗居
咱们结婚吧
武林外传
Taiwan
閃亮的日子
光陰的故事
我爱我家
Does anyone here studying English watch Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, or Prison Break?
I've watched a little of 爸爸去哪儿. It is kind of hard for me to relate to that show though because I have no idea who the fathers are even though I know they are super famous in China. Another show that students might want to try integrating into their study programs is 今日说法. It is a legal documentary/news show about catching criminals.
