There's really not much to say about the professor, except that she's really good at teaching and that the grade distribution really is that good.

Of course, Chinese is a memorization-heavy language, and there's no getting out of that. That said, the workload isn't too bad: about 6 hours a week of outside study should be more than enough in a typical week. That said, if you took Chin 1 with Yao, note that Chin 2 WILL be significantly harder than Chin 1. While I've never taken Chief's class, apparently Yao's exams are on a whole other level compared to Chief. Also, exams are 100% closed note. By the way, the last 2 weeks are intense; 3 lessons are covered, instead of the usual 1 lesson per week.

In terms of course logistics, you will need THREE textbooks: the Textbook, the Workbook, and the CHARACTER Workbook. Homework is graded on effort, and in-class assignments are basically graded on effort, although if you repeat the same mistakes you will be docked points. Again, you must pick Simplified or Traditional and stick with it. Lecture and Discussion attendance are MANDATORY, but if you show up to them, they're free points. There are mandatory in-class assignments and quizzes. If you don't show up to them, you'll hurt your grade pretty badly. Also, as a heads up, lectures routinely go overtime, so keep that in mind when planning coursework

Quizzes form the bulk of your grade, and generally involve you transcribing what Yao Laoshi says into Chinese-both into characters and pinyin. They're graded very generously. Exams are actually quite difficult as they're purely written and you have to memorize many radicals. Yes, this is Chinese 2, but you still have to memorize radicals. Fortunately, exams are not worth that much of your grade (like 30% total).

By the way, the cutoff for a solid A appears to range from 93 to 95%. 93% is reasonable, but 95% is actually much harder to get than it seems. 90% is the cutoff for an A minus.

Basically, show up, care about the class, do your work (it's really clear what you're assigned to do), and you should do fine.

I JUST CAME HERE TO SAY THAT I LOVE YAO LAOSHI SHE IS SO FUNNY AND SO ENGAGING. BEST PROFESSOR EVER LOVE THAT WOMAN!

Yao laoshi is an amazing professor. You can tell she really cares about her job and her students. She knows everyone by name. I tested into this class and on the very first day, she recognized that I was a new student. By the next class she called on me by name. Yao laoshi does a great job creating a comfortable setting for her students to practice Chinese. She's also really funny and tells stories that help you remember the lesson. I will definitely continue taking Chinese with her.

The work for this class really isn't too difficult, especially if you've taken some Chinese before. I noticed that a lot of people in my discussion section had some background in Chinese, so I think keeping up in discussion might be more difficult if you are coming in with no background. In those cases my TA was pretty good at offering extra help. The weekly homework took me 2-3 hours to finish, which is fine if you spread it out over the week. The most difficult part was the weekly quizzes in which you have to transcribe Yao laoshi's sentences.