Chinese Course evaluation

In the tea shop I heard the music for the old song about:
"Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain, telling me just what a fool I've been."
Meanwhile the rain pours down outside, soaking the sun-baked streets, driving away the mosquitoes and the motorcycles.  I've retired to my room to contemplate.
The Chinese course ended yesterday.  I have two feelings about it: on the one hand I feel like a complete failure, because there were certainly many tests and I certainly failed them all; on the other hand I learned a lot of Chinese in three months of hard work.  I tried to relate to the teacher, but unfortunately I failed at that too.  I never criticized her in class, but outside of class I did point out a few things when I probably should not have and it got back to her.
There is an irony in that I know she tries very hard and the problems about the course are not her fault.  Still, criticism from me probably translated into loss of face for her.  Also, my views are not the same as the other students.  Most of them worked very hard.  They just accept the course the way it is and do their best.
At the close of the course there was no real celebration, awarding of certificates of completion, expressions of gratitude or anything like that.  They gave us a hard test, collected it and we all went away.  I wondered if their would be a course evaluation, but there was no sign of one.  No closure.
So here is my course evaluation.
1)  How did this course develop your knowledge of, and ability to use, the Chinese language?
         - I would give this one about 50% which is a huge improvement compared to the alternatives available to me.   The  course is strong on reading, writing and grammar.  It is weak on speaking, listening and learning vocabulary. I definitely improved in my knowledge base; although certain parts of the course did not work well for me.
2)  How would you rate the usefulness of the course materials and facilities?
        - The textbook dates from 1999, but seems much older than that in terms of pedagogical style.  It is cheaply printed and the illustrations are primitive.  The CD recordings are wooden and poorly presented - ease of access is not user friendly.  I question the entire premise of teaching language from grammar as the starting point.  The theory is: Understand the grammatical logic and then use it to create meaning.  There was a 100 minute test almost every week. This flies in the face of brain research about how language is acquired.  We don't teach grammar to babies, we teach communication.  Sometimes the grammar even came before teaching of the vocabulary needed to describe it.  There is also clearly a bias towards written language as the basis for learning.  This requires the brain to reverse its normal pattern for language acquisition (speaking first, writing later).
       -  The facility, however, is excellent.  There are clean white boards, wifi access, overhead projector and effective air conditioning.  The chairs and the space for student work were suitable and comfortable.
3)  -   Were the goals of the course and the methods of evaluation outlined clearly in advance?  This was definitely a strength.  Students were tested on the material taught.  Unfortunately, the results of the testing did not seem to affect teaching.  Nevertheless, marks at the conclusion, although they have not been revealed, probably reflect this accuracy
4)   -  How could the course outline and methodology be improved?  The structure of the course followed a highly teacher-centered, didactic format.  The teacher walked us through the textbook, teaching various patterns of language, assigning appropriate homework and then testing us.  This is similar to how we taught French in Canada in the 1960s.  50 years ago!  A simple way to say it is that the teacher taught content, but nothing about HOW to learn it.  Language is presented through lifeless dialogues in a text book.  There was no practice of authentic communication.  This is not a criticism of the teacher who is simply following the syllabus as it has been laid out.  The effect is a loss of numerous opportunities for students to actually use the language and practice under the guidance of the teacher.
5)   - How would you rate the skills and performance of the teacher.  The teacher is an excellent communicator with a thorough knowledge of her subject and considerable skill in explaining things.
She was always well prepared for lessons, communicated expectations clearly and put much effort into assessment of the students learning.  She dresses well and arrives for class on time.  Did she actually teach well?  Its hard for me to say since much information appeared on the board in Chinese characters which I have not managed to learn.  Another problem for me was that she speaks very rapidly for a teacher.  In fact, she always seemed to be in a hurry.  Class activities were not always useful.  For example, we spent considerable time listening to students' prepared presentations.  While interesting, these were often hard to hear and understand because the students, obviously, are not teachers.
6)  - How do you think the course could be improved?  I left class every day feeling overwhelmed and defeated.  So my comments are purely personal.  One could reasonably say that I never should have taken the course in the first place because of my lack of knowledge of Chinese characters and because of my age (64) compared to almost everyone else (20s)  My biggest problem was that I often missed large parts of what the teacher was saying.  This could have been avoided if the teacher had spoken more lowly during the occasions when she was giving directions.  Of course I could ask if I was unsure, however that would require formulating a question in Mandarin.  Sometimes I had no idea what I had missed.  A second problem was the feeling of isolation concerning the age difference.  People in their 20s are simply comfortable with a faster pace of just about everything.  Class activities did little to create a community of learners among the students.  So the girls sat on one side of a long table and the boys at the other side.  This set-up made it impossible for the teacher to even look at us all at once.  If the students had been required to practice pieces of conversation more frequently we would have bonded more as a class.  There was little actual practice during class time.  Usually we were just listening to the teacher.  The teacher frequently used a pattern of asking questions of the class.  Sometimes she might ask 10  questions in the course of 5 minutes.  Many of these questions went unanswered which means we were all thinking of different answers in our heads - frequently wrong ones.  Many of the rest of the questions were answered by two or three students.  These answers almost always came from the girls' side.  Often their answers were inaudible to me.  As it was, students were listening to the teacher for well over half of the minutes of class time.
It would be more useful if the teacher were to teach a pattern of grammar, repeat it clearly several times and then devise an activity where the students need to stand up, walk around and actually use the pattern.  Practice makes perfect.  Whoever heard of 'listening makes perfect'?  Once this pattern has been established it would be much easier for the students to analyze and remember the grammatical rules.
7)     - Any further comments?  There should be emphasis on the creation of a learning community.  Language is an emotional business and the teacher should establish an atmosphere of positive support and encouragement among all the students. Less testing, authentic communication, positive re-enforcement and MUCH MUCH more practice.  Very respectfully, I suggest that teachers of Chinese language to foreigners take a look at some of the changes in language teaching that have taken place in recent years as a result of brain research.  Most of the knowledge of scientists about how the brain learns has been acquired in recent years.  The implications for language instruction are profound.

I present these comments in the spirit of encouraging continuing development in a worthwhile cause.
Although it was arduous and painful for much of the time, I am glad I took this course and I am very grateful to the organization and people who provided it.