1-month of free online Chinese lessons for 20 people - giveaway from Speak Up Chinese

[YuYang]

Hello there,

 

To celebrate the launch of Speak Up Chinese, my colleagues in Beijing are giving a month of 1-1 Chinese classes, free for 20 randomly selected people. That's two 50-minute classes per week for 4 weeks.

 

The giveaway is running until SpeakUpChinese.com launches later in February.

You can still sign-up here: signup.speakupchinese.com Or, there is more information on the blog: http://goo.gl/B3fUqa

 

I am part of the US team at Speak Up Chinese, so please feel free to email me with any questions: info@speakupchinese.com

 

Thanks for your time - and good luck!

 

Yu Yang (Michelle)

[roddy]

Don't know anything about speakupchinese, but seem to be associated with HelloChinese somehow. 

[YuYang]

Hi Roddy,

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

Indeed, Speak Up Chinese is the new name! We were in our Beta testing phase last year and have been making some updates accordingly, including with the name, before launching officially later this month.

 

You can read about that in more detail here: http://speakupchinese.tumblr.com/post/107902489606/its-2015-its-time-to-speak-up-chinese

[roddy]

Well, that's over 6 hours of free Chinese lessons, folks - who's taking them up on the offer?

[Bigdumogre]

I got in on that

Bumping this to get more people the chance

[YuYang]

Thank you, Bigdumogre! Everyone is welcome, of course.

 

FYI We had some nice support from Ollie Guest over at ChineseMusings.com (he helped us in our Beta testing), in case you'd like to read his e-newsletter about the giveaway: snip.ly/2RnK 

[studychinese]

OK, signed up.

[grawrt]

I signed up too.

[Pokarface]

I just signed in, tweeted, and sent an invite to more friends 

[Frederik451]

i signed up too. could really use some hours working on my 口语. I'm sure im not the only one studying chinese in a non-chinese speaking country, who feels this way 

[Tianjin42]

Looks a good deal. I will leave it this time - I am living in Beijing and get plenty of opportunity to practice in that sense - seems this would benefit people outside the country who are itching to practice with native speakers. Good luck!

[YuYang]

@Frederik451 - that's great, absolutely! Our mission is to provide real-time speaking practice for those who don't have easy access to native-speaking teachers or Chinese friends. Our classes are structured according to your goals, though, so it's not just casual practice (unless that's all you need, of course!).

 

@Tianjin42 - that's kind of you to leave it for others for now. 

 

FYI We have had quite a number of sign-ups but not overwhelming at this point. We are testing the website these days, to launch before next week, so there is still some time to sign-up for one of the 20 places. Thank you everyone for your interest and friendly support!

[Pokarface]

Hey! whoever wins and is a member of this forum must write a review of the new Speak up Chinese website/system 

(Just kidding, but it would be nice so that those who didn't win can see what's all the hype about)

[YuYang]

I think that's a fantastic idea, @Pokarface! We will be sure to invite any willing students to do so :-)

[roddy]

You could also ask anyone who tried your services while you were hellochinese to come along and post if you want. Or tell us a bit about yourselves - your teachers, how you teach, resources you use, case studies of students. There are lots of similar services out there and they all look the same. What's going to make you different?

[YuYang]

Roddy,
 

I'm happy to share below a little more about Speak Up Chinese:

 

• Our mission is to teach our students to speak Chinese with confidence. Each class includes a variety of skill-based exercises to ensure students’ comprehension. The goal is for you to be able to leave the classroom and use your Chinese to navigate the situations you face with ease, to speak up with confidence. This may sound obvious, but we have been told many times that other services fail to drill down enough and/or rush through material, and without adequate review.   
   
• All Speak Up Chinese teachers are qualified and experienced in teaching Chinese as a foreign language. I do not conduct lessons, but have PhD and MA degrees in Foreign and Second Language Education from Ohio State University. As a team we are all passionate about language education. Here are short interviews with two of our teachers, Helen and Molly.  
   
• We have foreigners in our team and keep an open dialogue with all of our students. This is important to us in order to always keep in mind the perspective of learners. 
   
• Speak Up Chinese materials are designed by our own academic team, and we have proprietary classroom software so once we are fully up and running we will be able to provide an immersive learning experience.
   
• We are a subsidiary of a larger education company in China, which allows us to access the resources we need to provide a high quality professional service while maintain a small, friendly approach.

 

I have asked a couple of students to write about their experiences on this thread. In the meantime, I’ve also added below testimonials from two of the students we have continued to teach during these last few months while we have not be publicly open.

 

Testimonial 1:
From Pat Sommer, who is in Los Angeles, California, and whose daughter Ellie is working with us before she takes the HSK 3 exam in April

“Speak Up Chinese is working well for my 12yr old daughter studying for HSK exam 3. Teacher Sunny, although bright and cheerful, does not tolerate laziness! Homework is doled out to challenge weaknesses and support strengths. She stays on top of my daughter's learning goals so that we can be confident of success in the exam room. Time and money well spent.”

Testimonial 2:
From K. H. Cotter in Waco, Texas (age 73)

“Everyone I know says it is nearly impossible to learn to speak Mandarin. That is what I thought until I found Molly Meng. Molly is an energetic teacher who makes learning Chinese fun. She is one of the experienced Chinese language teachers at Speak Up Chinese. 

“A popular quote says: “We learn… 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we hear, 30 percent of what we see, 50 percent of what we see and hear, 70 percent of what we discuss with others, 80 percent of what we experience, and 95 percent of what we teach to someone.” At Speak Up Chinese, I believe that I will get to the 95% level.”

 

 

I hope the above is helpful. Please feel free to ask any question.

[Ollie]

Hi,

 

I blog about learning Chinese at ChineseMusings.com and got a chance to test out the beta version of this site. (I'm also the guy who wrote the email mentioned on this thread, promoting the giveaway - http://snip.ly/2RnK ).

 

I thought I'd share my experience of the beta on this forum. The following extract is from the review I'll be posting on my site very soon.

 

Overall I was very impressed with SPEAK UP! CHINESE: I really like the idea of getting private tutoring without having to leave my house. I also really like that all the teachers are native speakers. Unlike with some native speakers, they actually knew and could explain relevant grammar. That helped us to avoid: “Why do you have to do this” / “I don’t know – you just do”.

If there was one thing I’d change, it would be to put a bigger emphasis on just speaking and less on this being a "lesson". I'd quite like to be practice just holding a conversation. Then again, the structured lesson I did was really useful – and did involve lots of speaking. 

To conclude, this is definitely something I'll use when it launches - especially when the lessons are so cheap compared to the cost of a tutor.

[Pokarface]

@Ollie, Nice insight! We might as well start writing reviews of the tutors at SpeakUpChinese.com since they'll have different teaching "styles". Haha, It'll be funny if they ever log-in to the forums to comment about their own reviews if that ever happened 

[Pokarface]

Guys and girls, don't forget to sing-up to, http://signup.speakupchinese.com/

 

for a chance to win a month of free 1-on-1 Chinese language tutoring with the instructor of your choice!

Me and 4 other lucky ones have already won! 

 

There will be 15 more winners at the end of February. China is enjoying Spring Festival this month, so let's be patient for the holidays to end and find out the rest of the winners  

[YuYang]

@Pokarface - thank you for your support (and congratulations!)

 

As you said, the giveaway is still open for now! signup.speakupchinese.com

 

We will announce all 20 winners once we launch. 

 

To keep up-to-date, you can always check out our blog (speakupchinese.tumblr.com) or Twitter (@speakupchinese).

 

新年快乐！