If you're thinking of taking Chinese 1/2/3 with Chief because you want to have a good foundation in learning Chinese, turn away, because you're not going to get it. If you're taking Chinese just for your language requirement, it's one of the easier classes you'll take, but you'll still need to put in a good amount of effort. I took Chinese 1-3 with Chief and got an A each quarter. However, the pace is pretty fast, especially when there are 2 quizzes each week (Chinese 2-3).

Your grade is based on attending section, quizzes, a skit, a Midterm, and a Final. On attending section, that's pretty self-explanatory. He likes picking on some people more than others to answer questions, so you might find yourself getting called on 3-4 times in one Discussion. In the quizzes, Chief dictates 5 Chinese words or phrases for which you have to write the Chinese characters, pinyin, and English meaning, as well as one Chinese sentence that may include one or more of the vocabulary learned in the chapter. The Midterm and Final are generally 40 multiple choice questions that test grammar and vocabulary, and several free-response questions in which you have to translate Chinese into English and vice-versa. Pretty much everybody gets an A on the skit as long as they incorporate the corrections Chief has on the script you send him (written in Chinese or pinyin) and have an intelligible conversation.

As for the actual learning, Chief takes a generally hands-off approach to teaching Chinese. He only goes over grammar in his lectures, so he expects you to study Chinese for 2 hours each day on your own, and that you will dutifully learn the correct strokes and pronunciations (which he doesn't really go over in class) by yourself. The most guidance he will give you in class about how to pronounce the vocabulary words is to repeat each word three times. Because of this, even in Chinese 3, more than half the class couldn't pronounce tones very well, since they relied on pinyin.

Overall, he's a decent professor, but I feel he should be more involved in getting his students to become more fluent in Chinese instead of just throwing vocabulary words at them.

I have never rated any professor in UCLA but i have to say, Chi laoshi made me change that. He is not only funny and a caring professor but his grading is more than fair. You could literally get an A in the class even if you failed all three major tests (midterm 1, 2 and final). The class is very interactive and the professor gets everybody involved even though its a big class. There are quizzes and they test you on the vocabulary you have learned from the chapter that you have just gone over in the previous class. There are also pop quizes here and there but they are usually very straight forward and really easy since the professor would have mentioned the answer before. Honestly, this is the funnest class i have taken in ucla. You will not regret anything in this class, 100% guaranteed satisfaction unless you slack off completely. hope this helps!

Professor Liancheng Chief is a kind teacher who really cares about his students' learning. He's always available during office hours, and he's more than willing to accommodate students who can't make it to his office hours and need to schedule an appointment. Chi Laoshi's powerpoint lecture is always funny and easy to follow. He likes to use celebrities' photos and news as relevant examples of how to use certain nouns, verbs, or sentence structures. He encourages everyone to practice speaking Chinese and participate during lecture and discussion. I took his class for Chinese 1-3, and it was the best learning experience of my UCLA career.