LTL Mandarin School with Chinese homestays

[DinhAnn]

@LTL Thank you for replying so quickly.To be honest, the prices are more expensive than expected, my parents are a bit reluctant about the homestay option (they afraid that I won't get along with the host family) so I need more time to think about it. Anyway, thank you again for your reply ^^

[zhouhaochen]

@DinhAnn Yes, because the heritage speaker program is all 1on1 classes (it is fully tailored to you and your needs, as each Chinese heritage speaker has very different needs) the cost is higher. However, there are a lot of different price options. If you are looking for an affordable course that still comes with the full LTL teaching quality, have a look at the semester programs http://www.livethelanguage.cn/learn-chinese-beijing/semester-program/

It is not 1on1 of course, however we have an average class size of 3 (2.85 to be exact) with a guaranteed maximum of never more than 6 students per class. So there is still a lot of individual attention and time to speak for each student.

The semester program with a special discount for the program which makes it quite cheap, however it has fixed starting and end dates so you have to be a bit more flexible with your time planning than with the normal courses, where you can choose the dates and duration very flexibly.

For the homestay - assuming you are a generally polite and friendly person that wants to get known to your family - getting on with the host family should not a problem. Most students form very long term friendships with their families, keep visiting them again when they travel to China etc. For a bit more of an idea what it is like to live with an LTL homestay family, have a look at this TV documentary of the first 4 weeks of one of our students living with an LTL homestay  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBAagAJtfJ4

Also, even though it is very rare that this is required, if you wanted to it is possible to change the family too (the last time a student requested to change his homestay family was in 2014, so it's really not a frequent occurrence, however the option exists).

If your parents really do not want you to live with a homestay though, you can also choose a shared apartment http://www.livethelanguage.cn/learn-chinese-beijing/apartment-offers-in-beijing/

The small room (which at 15sm, is actually not that small) option also comes at a very attractive price if you want to keep it within the budget.

 

Any questions, please let me know at any time.

[zhouhaochen]

We have re-designed our whole website and now have a new section for our Chinese courses in Beijing https://www.livethelanguage.cn/learn-chinese-beijing/

 

Also, to avoid confusion:

As LTL has now three different schools (Beijing, Shanghai and Chengde https://www.livethelanguage.cn or https://www.ltl-school.com), we have one page that covers all three and then also separate pages for Beijing (http://www.ltl-beijing.com/) and Shanghai (https://www.ltl-shanghai.com/)

It is all the same school and programs, just the city pages gave us the option to write a bit more in depth about what is being offered there for anyone who already knows that they want to learn Mandarin in that city and the general one has information about all three destinations we offer.

 

Any feedback, suggestions and (constructive) criticism regarding the new website is most welcome!

[zhouhaochen]

After years of so many students struggling to remember our school name (language life? living language? language for life?) we made the difficult step to just stick with LTL Mandarin Schol and drop the "Live the Language" name (though this of course remains very much what we do). That means we also changed our web domain from www.livethelanguage.cn to www.ltl-school.com.

The structure of the website, our Chinese courses, homestays, Chinese immersion programs etc. remains the same of course.

[zhouhaochen]

So while our school building is under lock down for the National Day military parade (we are unfortunately right on the parade route) we finished our new Chinese language course and accommodation prices for LTL, please see attached. The website will be updated in the next few days. Courses according to the old prices can still be booked until the 1st of November, from then onwards the new prices come in effect.

 

祝大家国庆节快乐

LTL Course & Accommodation Prices 2020 BJ SH CH TP XA CD SG.pdf

[Flickserve]

Singapore! Didn't see that one coming.

[zhouhaochen]

Yes, we thought about it for quite a while whether it is a good place, but I think quite an interesting option. While they do speak with an accent and English is widely spoken, but Mandarin has become the main Chinese language and its widely spoken. It is also quite a different experience to mainland China (with different politics/surveillance/environment/legal system/internet). I lived in Singapore myself for two years and its a very unique city/country (I also got addicted to chicken rice).

We are just starting there, so all very new (thats why there is no Chinese Forums thread for it yet) and we are still learning, but we included the prices in the brochure already to have everything together.

[zhouhaochen]

Quick update from LTL Mandarin School Beijing regarding corona-virus. The situation is changing quickly and we will have to adapt to government regulations, however the current situation is the following: We are offering normal classes at our Beijing school. We might move some of them to online next week, depending on teacher availability (not all will be able to travel back) and regulations by the government. However ALL classes will be provided as planned, so anyone staying in China will be able to continue as planned, though it might have to be online, which is not ideal, but that's what the current situation allows. There are also loads of very bored homestay families at home who do nothing but talking to their host students in Chinese all day, so personally I assume Chinese learning progress at the moment is at an all time high.

 

Also, for anyone who has their travel plans interrupted to Beijing due to the virus we are offering the option to change their course to our Taibei school at no extra cost. This includes people booked into our heavily discounted Beihai (Guangxi Province) School programs, so in case you booked a course there at the current -40% discount, you are in luck!

Anyone who has a program booked at LTL Beijing for later in the year, we are offering the options to cancel your course at no cost up to a week before arrival. So you dont need to decide now and can simply wait to see how the situation develops. You can also choose to take the classes online in your home country if you want. We have a lot of highly qualified Chinese teachers who usually wouldnt do online teaching sitting around at home right now with nothing to do. Its not a bad opportunity actually if you are ok with an online course.

 

 

[zhouhaochen]

Virus Chinese teaching update for next week: Classes at LTL Beijing, Beihai, Shanghai, Chengdu and Xian remain all online in accordance to local government regulations. In Chengde we teach face to face (only one student).

We actually had one new student arrive in Beijing this week - a brave guy but he is having a great time with his homestay though, as actually all our other students who are still in China. There has never been a time where homestays have more time to chat, cook and play games at home.

LTL Taiwan and Singapore are running normally.

 

Not a single class was cancelled and all courses are being offered (though online where we are forced to do so by government regulations). We are in good spirits and keep teaching. This virus thing will finish one day.

[zhouhaochen]

With new local infections having re-appeared in Beijing since last week, it is not possible to take face to face classes at LTL Beijing again. Hopefully this will change again soon, in the meantime all Classes are online for both online 1on1 classes and for group online classes.

We are still working at the school, but unfortunately students cannot come for classes.

 

May the gods make this all end soon....

[alantin]

Hi,

I first found your website a little over a year ago and was very interested in applying for say a 4 week home stay + 1on1 program. The Covid happened.

I expect you are not having many home stay students at the moment and I wanted to ask you your thoughts on how things are going to get back to normal? Whenever that is..

 

I suppose travel will begin to ease up when more and more people get the vaccinations but I was also wondering if you have any ideas or rumors on when we might be expecting it to be possible to have a normal home stay experience without quarantines or remote lessons while living a block away from the school etc. A year from now? Two? Or do you see your business somehow changing for good as a result of the pandemic?

[zhouhaochen]

Xian

@alantin

Actually we have students staying with homestays all the time at the moment, at all schools in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengde, Chengdu, Xian and especially Taiwan.

It is absolutely possible to have a normal homestay experience at the moment and our students do. The problem is how to get into China or Taiwan. Once you are inside you can study your course pretty much normally.

It is possible to travel to Taiwan in some cases, depending on your background. Mainland China currently is completely impossible. Whenever this will change I have no idea and dont dare to predict.

 

 

How this will all end I dont know. I am definitely worried about it, but I strongly believe that in the long run people will continue to want to study Chinese immersed into Chinese culture in high quality programs with homestays, services, support etc. The question is how to get through until then.

For us these are our online Chinese programs which are doing quite well, especially Flexi Classes which is something that does not exist for Mandarin at all so far, so this is quite exciting. Also online Mandarin programs for kids and teenagers have become very popular and we have become somewhat of a specialist for teaching kids Chinese online (we have a special team for it in Shanghai now), which is something we have done offline for a long time, but never online before covid. So there are also new things coming around.

Overall, I can tell you though you did not want to run an immersion Chinese language school last year or at the moment. We are all about meeting people, making friends, getting into the culture, being close with each other and Covid is really not good for that approach.