Weak in reading...

[Pengyou]

First of all, thanks to the person - or people that put the section together on universities in China.  It is a great work!  Here is my situation:  I studied Chinese in 2003 for 2 years.  At that time, I was not very interested in learning how to read, so learned the reading enough to do the oral exercises and to understand the work.  I have continued to learn more Chinese since that time, as the vocabulary became necessary.  Right now, my oral Chinese vocabulary is probably about 2,000 words, reading only about 400 and writing even less than that - I do most of my written communcations by typing.  I speak Chinese often and actually speak much better and more fluidly than I did when I finished my studies.  I am still familiar with the grammar and sentence strutures that I learned. 

 

Two years ago I looked into a program in Shenzhen University but was a little discouraged.  They were basically going to put me back into an almost beginning level until I caught up with the reading part of Chinese. 

 

Do any universities have special programs to help people like me?  I want to take the Praxis teacher exam for Mandarin next May - I am not sure, but I think the Chinese level that I need to pass this exam is a between HSK 4 and 5. I have heard this but am trying to confirm. If my result is not quite high enough, it is possible to get a teaching job with the understanding that I have to pass the exam before the next spring, which would give me another year to improve.

 

Any suggestions?

[Flickserve]

People like you form a very heterogeneous group of learners. Basically, it is very unlikely a course administrator will stick their neck out and begin to even plan for such a person. From their point of view, it's not worth the effort before the person actually arrives.

Putting people back at the beginning level ensures they will know where you stand. Of course, if you prove to be more advanced very quickly, then you should ask if there is that flexibility to change modules. Or perhaps, add extra modules to the basic one (if that flexibility exists) to be studied in parallel.

I believe Chinese would not be unique in this respect. For instance, I did a non-university course in statistics and worked with statistics. Then I did a Masters course which everybody had to do the basic statistics module. Since I had a working knowledge of statistics, it was straightforward. It was a good refresher and I did brush up on some other areas. I simply added another module on at the time (which was very inexpensive).

If you think this is unacceptable to you, then working with a private tutor is the better option, especially as you have a specific target.

[Pengyou]

Thanks.  That is good perspective.  I have considered the private tutor option - do some universities provide this option?  The missing ingredient is the visa.  It might work if I had a goal to catch up to an established class by, for example, the end of the 10th week or the beginning of the second semester. That would also give me the whole of the spring festival to study as well.