Unfortunately, some of the negative comments about Professor Xu are true. It was his first quarter at UCLA and it was as much a learning experience for him as for the students; he experimented with test and quiz lengths and difficulty (I was still able to finish), and his lectures were often irrelevant to learning Chinese grammar. A lot of students in class were already fluent in Mandarin, but keep in mind that this was not Prof Xu's fault. His error may have been in relying too heavily upon inexperienced TA's. However, he is a kind-hearted person and I believe that he genuinely wanted the students to learn. He was excellent when teaching on a smaller scale--he led our discussion section twice and I learned a lot from him. I think that if given a chance, he will be a better teacher in future quarters. Give him a chance.

All of these comments are WAY exaggerated. The only way you would hate him is if you couldn't learn on your own or if you didn't mind learning during discussion. His tests are relatively fair and the best way to utilize him is through seeing him during office hours and practicing your chinese. Lectures tend to be long-winded, but because it's only his first quarter teaching at UCLA his style can only get better. He was a bit disorganized in the beginning, but now that he's gotten used to US teaching techniques, he's more effective. So don't pay attention to the people on this board who slander him and claim he's completely ineffective--with his class, it's only going to be as good as you want it to be.