Chinese lessons where students don't speak English!

[tiamaria]

Hi guys!

I have a bit of a funny question to ask. I am a Chinese-Australian girl with a basic grasp of Mandarin Chinese already and am thinking of going back to either Shanghai or Beijing and improving on my skills.

What I want to ask is there a class that I can go to where I am forced to speak Chinese even to the other students and even in my free time (say if I make friends and we decide to hang out). If I'm in a class with lots of westerners, I know I'll just end up speaking English to them.

Had a bit of poke around and looks like classes where there's a lot of Koreans is my best shot. Anyone know of any like this? I know Wudaokou is a bit of Koreatown and BLU is near there.

I don't want the quality of the Chinese lessons to be bad though - I'd still like it if the teachers were proper native Chinese teachers.

Sorry for the funny question. Can anybody help?

[Hedge]

Hey,

check out Princeton in Beijing, they have a "total immersion" summer course at BLU, where you pledge to only speak Mandarin. I haven't done it myself, but I've heard the quality is great. Its Princeton:)

[fanglu]

I know this doesn't really answer your question, but in my opinion its really a question of willpower, rather than finding a particular place (putting aside language pledge-type courses).

You're going to struggle to find somewhere that doesn't have anyone who speaks english. I've taken courses in Beijing and Xi'an, and every class I've been in has had at least one native speaker of English and more than half the class who can speak it reasonably. Even if there's only a few english speakers, if you want to speak english you'll find them.

Actually my best experience so far in terms of immersion has been (surprisingly enough) at BLCU. Our class never really agreed to speak Chinese together, but since we were only allowed to speak Chinese in class it just became habit. Since we often ate together or went out together, it became, by default, immersion.

Oh and I'd be wary of trying to find a place that has a lot of a particular nationality. If there is a preponderance of Koreans in your class/school, you can probably expect a lot of Korean to be spoken.

Teachers will be native Chinese speakers anywhere I expect.

[andrewreis]

If you're going there to learn Chinese

chances are other people are going there to learn Chinese

chances are they cannot speak it either

chances are you will have non-Chinese conversations with them =D

But.. i think all the big university programs are taught fully in Chinese

So your'e in luck in that sense

[Shadowdh]

Having non english speakers in the class certainly helps and in ours (mainly asian) our teacher has also forbidden speaking english under penalty of a fine... it certainly helps...