Confucius Institute, Manchester (Advanced Mandarin 5-6 course)

[Milkybar_Kid 29]

Hello,

 

I’ve signed up for this course at the University of Manchester starting on 9 October and just wondered if anyone else has studied at this Confucius Institute before? What are the teachers like? (I’ve only been into the reception area and haven’t met any of the teachers yet.)

 

I passed HSK 5 back in 2015 and am hoping to pass the 6 soon. Has anyone on here taken the above-mentioned course before (perhaps at another Confucius Institute – I’m sure the course materials will all be the same)?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Zbigniew 102]

 

7 hours ago, Milkybar_Kid said:

What are the teachers like?

I've never attended any CI classes, or any other Chinese classes anywhere for that matter, but I've met probably a dozen or more teachers from the Manchester CI (as well as some of their parents) going back ten years.

 

As far as I can gather, the teachers are all either recent graduates or teacher trainees of some kind recruited from China by Hanban on short-term contracts. I've yet to meet or hear of a male CI teacher, though I'm prepared to believe they do exist.

 

All the teachers I've met were polite and articulate, and seemed committed to imparting Chinese to their pupils. 

 

The quality of CI teachers, at least in my neck of the woods, is currently under threat; I can't really go into too much detail here, but Hanban has been quite uncompromising lately in renegotiating accommodation contracts for their CI employees in Manchester in a way that makes the prospect of working for them considerably less attractive than it once was.

[Moon rabbit 2]

Zbigniew is right. I am attending classes at Confucius institute since last year and I met two teachers from Beijing. Both of them were still students, very young (early twenties), polite and their knowledge of English was excellent. They get back to China this summer and now I have new teachers.

[Milkybar_Kid 29]

Just realised that I forget to reply to this when I completed my course all of those months ago. Anyway, I completed my course and it was great! The teacher was really helpful, provided a good amount of materials and I met some great people on a Wednesday evening. However, I must also point out that it's very teacher-dependent. I also met a few students doing other courses who weren't very happy with their teachers so your mileage really may vary.