My experience studying with LTL in Chengdu

[timmartin]

I studied with LTL language school in Chengdu for 3 weeks in June 2023, and I thought it might be useful to write up my experiences for the benefit of anyone else who was considering it.

 

My goal was to get more practice with Mandarin in a context where I could use it in day-to-day situations. I’m lower intermediate (HSK 4-ish) but lacking experience of real-life language. 3 weeks isn’t enough to learn a language, but I was hoping it would develop my confidence and fluency using vocabulary and grammar that I had already built up.

 

I went with LTL because they made the arrangements easy; I first started looking into it at the tail end of Covid when I wasn’t even sure that I could get a visa, so a language school with experience of working with western students seemed like a good idea. I also wanted to do a homestay, which ruled out some of the other residential language schools.

 

LTL were extremely helpful with all the arrangements prior to booking and while arranging the visa. One small misstep (they sent me a letter of introduction with a laser-printed signature, which was rejected by the London visa office) is apparently now resolved.

 

Immediately prior to traveling to Chengdu I had my first surprise: LTL don’t actually have a language school in Chengdu. They have lots of photos and copy on their web site describing the school and language community in Chengdu, but apparently that dates from before Covid and the school no longer exists. It turned out that I would be living and studying at my teacher’s home, with no other students or staff in the city. This arrangement has its advantages in terms of immersion, but it wasn’t what I had signed up for and I felt their marketing was misleading.

 

Unfortunately the teaching style didn’t suit me at all. I wanted to practise speaking and build confidence, but my teacher only wanted to work through textbooks and practice grammar. She picked textbooks at my level, but there was no flexibility beyond that and we just worked through the exercises one by one. I’m sure it had some benefit to my grammar but I didn’t feel like I was learning anything at all. I thought the point of one-to-one instruction was that the methods could be changed to suit the student’s goals, but apparently not.

 

Another interesting service LTL offer is the language “safari”, where you go out into the city and use the language in a real world situation with support from your teacher. This sounded like a great idea and really helpful to me, but it didn’t work for me in practice. We went to a Buddhist monastery and Chengdu museum. There was minimal opportunity for me to speak, and the things my teacher was saying were all beyond my level of comprehension. It was fun in terms of sightseeing but I didn’t learn anything.

 

All homestays are going to be different so there’s not much point in going into detail on my experience. The food and accommodation was generally good. I was hoping that the homestay would be an opportunity to practise language in an everyday context, but my teacher barely spoke to me outside of lessons. Everyone needs privacy and I don’t expect to talk every hour of the day, but I was hoping for more here.

 

Despite all the above, I had a great time in Chengdu! I met up with some friends via the Tandem app, who were all super welcoming and gave me lots of opportunities to practise my Chinese in real conversations. Some of these friendships and unique experiences made the whole trip worthwhile. Chengdu was an interesting city with great food and cultural experiences. All in all, if I were to book this trip again I’d go with a different language school, but I’m very glad I did it. If I was going again I would probably skip the language school and just spend time meeting local people.

[Jan Finster]

On 8/27/2023 at 3:06 PM, timmartin said:

LTL don’t actually have a language school in Chengdu. They have lots of photos and copy on their web site describing the school and language community in Chengdu, but apparently that dates from before Covid and the school no longer exists. It turned out that I would be living and studying at my teacher’s home, with no other students or staff in the city

 

This sounds a bit as if they were just hiring a freelancer....

[PerpetualChange]

Seems like kind of a disappointing trip, essentially paying just to do private tutoring in China. 

The whole vibe that this post gives out to me seems kinda like you were shacked up with a robot for week and not only did you not really get to experience much or China but you also did not get much in the way of personalized tutoring. 

 

At least, could you go out on your own "safari" without your teacher? 

[Jan Finster]

It is a shame as this could have been the ultimate immersion: living with the teacher and talking all day. If that teacher had any kind of business sense, she would have made the most of it so that other people will follow...

[7800]

On 8/27/2023 at 10:06 AM, timmartin said:

Immediately prior to traveling to Chengdu I had my first surprise: LTL doesn’t actually have a language school in Chengdu. They have lots of photos and copy on their web site describing the school and language community in Chengdu, but apparently that dates from before Covid and the school no longer exists. It turned out that I would be living and studying at my teacher’s home, with no other students or staff in the city.

That would've made my anxiety skyrocket. Did they simply not tell you there's no actual school before you signed up or you somehow missed that info? I'd be pissed, and anxious over what else they could have forgotten to tell me, if it's their fault.

[matteo]

 

On 8/28/2023 at 1:06 AM, timmartin said:

Immediately prior to traveling to Chengdu I had my first surprise: LTL don’t actually have a language school in Chengdu. They have lots of photos and copy on their web site describing the school and language community in Chengdu, but apparently that dates from before Covid and the school no longer exists. It turned out that I would be living and studying at my teacher’s home, with no other students or staff in the city. This arrangement has its advantages in terms of immersion, but it wasn’t what I had signed up for and I felt their marketing was misleading.

Sounds very dodgy, did you get a good deal price-wise at least? some (or most?) of these schools are very expensive, in my view because they are supposed to provide you with a high level of service and flexibility, besides obviously a study venue that is welcoming and softens up the cultural shock. As posh as it sounds, that's what most people need when they have just a few weeks off a year and have limited time and energy to deal with "surprises".

What did LTL say when you raised your complaint?

 

On 8/28/2023 at 1:06 AM, timmartin said:

Despite all the above, I had a great time in Chengdu! I met up with some friends via the Tandem app, who were all super welcoming and gave me lots of opportunities to practise my Chinese in real conversations. Some of these friendships and unique experiences made the whole trip worthwhile. Chengdu was an interesting city with great food and cultural experiences. All in all, if I were to book this trip again I’d go with a different language school, but I’m very glad I did it. If I was going again I would probably skip the language school and just spend time meeting local people.

Good on you for making the most of it and having a good experience in spite of the disappointment from the school! that's all that matters!

Would be really interesting to know how you set up these language exchanges (e.g. is Tandem a free app?how did you find people there who share your interests? what is it people you chatted with in advance or just met day by day? where did you meet, how did you arrange your conversation time etc.) and give some tips for someone who'd want to do the same! 

[timmartin]

On 8/28/2023 at 7:49 PM, 7800 said:

That would've made my anxiety skyrocket. Did they simply not tell you there's no actual school before you signed up or you somehow missed that info? I'd be pissed, and anxious over what else they could have forgotten to tell me, if it's their fault.

 

Not gonna lie, 2 days prior to flying out to China was peak anxiety for me! But I booked the trip knowing it was going to push my comfort zone a little, and I decided from the beginning that I was going to make the best of whatever happened. I should also emphasise how (aside from my tutor) every single person I met was warm, friendly and helpful. I came home impressed (and almost embarrassed) by the hospitality of the people I met with.

 

I'm pretty certain that I didn't miss anything where they told me the teaching arrangement before booking. They didn't explicitly promise anything that they didn't deliver either, except implicitly by all the content on their web site. It could have been that the person I was talking to assumed I knew more than I did.

 

If they had said "We've actually closed our school in Chengdu, but we can organize a local freelance tutor for you" then I'd think that was completely fair, and I'd be taking my own risk. I hope that's what they start doing in the future.

 

On 8/29/2023 at 2:53 AM, matteo said:

Sounds very dodgy, did you get a good deal price-wise at least? some (or most?) of these schools are very expensive, in my view because they are supposed to provide you with a high level of service and flexibility, besides obviously a study venue that is welcoming and softens up the cultural shock. As posh as it sounds, that's what most people need when they have just a few weeks off a year and have limited time and energy to deal with "surprises".

What did LTL say when you raised your complaint?

 

From the research I did, they seem on the expensive side compared to other language schools, but not unreasonably so. I figured I was paying extra for convenience and ease, which (for my goals, which was basically "tourism plus") seemed a good trade-off. I don't think it worked out like that, and I think one of the cheaper less internationalized language schools might have been better value, but on the other hand I don't think I ever would have had the confidence to make a booking like that, so in the end I'm still glad that I got there and had the experience.

 

Of course, different people will have different criteria; a lot of the research I did found advice for people wanting to study for a year or two and gain a qualification to work in China, which is a completely different goal from me. I don't know a lot about that, but I doubt LTL would be high on the list for someone with those criteria.

 

I gave them feedback throughout the process and ended up having a video call with the course supervisor (in Beijing, I think) but in the time we had available it wasn't really practical to change much. I could probably have gone to a different tutor or even a different city if I had been there longer.

 

On 8/29/2023 at 2:53 AM, matteo said:

Would be really interesting to know how you set up these language exchanges (e.g. is Tandem a free app?how did you find people there who share your interests? what is it people you chatted with in advance or just met day by day? where did you meet, how did you arrange your conversation time etc.) and give some tips for someone who'd want to do the same! 

 

Tandem is a free mobile app, although if you want to contact people in specific cities I think you need their premium upgrade for a few dollars a month. I've been using it for ages and met a lot of great people. A few months before going out I reached out to a few people in Chengdu. It's always a bit hit and miss (one person turned out after talking for 3 weeks to be living in Japan and hadn't updated her settings!) but some people agreed to meet me while I was there. I even met one person who wasn't learning English(!), so we were able to get together and have my first ever 100% Mandarin conversation, which was a great boost for me!

 

Tandem allows people to list their interests and you can filter by age or gender, but for the most part I find it best to just talk to lots of people. Some people who on paper have little in common with me have led to months-long conversations and real friendships. Some people who say they aren't interested in meeting up in person are willing to after they've talked to you for a while (don't pressure anybody of course).

[timmartin]

On 8/28/2023 at 5:34 PM, PerpetualChange said:

The whole vibe that this post gives out to me seems kinda like you were shacked up with a robot for week and not only did you not really get to experience much or China but you also did not get much in the way of personalized tutoring. 

 

Yes, I was a little focused on reviewing the language school. In fact, I had lots of interesting experiences while I was there. I climbed Mt Qingcheng, ate spicy rabbit brains, took a calligraphy class (100% Mandarin, I don't think the teacher spoke any English), saw the Teracotta warriors (and rode the high speed rail), stayed out late drinking with only the haziest idea where in the city I was (turns out the Chengdu metro is excellent but closes very early...) A friend even took me back to his hometown to have dinner with his parents, who spoke mainly Sichuanese and very little Mandarin. All in all I'm super glad I went. The only underwhelming experience was the panda base, and only because it's such a massive tourist trap.

[Jan Finster]

On 8/30/2023 at 11:15 AM, timmartin said:

, except implicitly by all the content on their web site.

 

I did wonder why they mention pictures of their "school" in e.g. Beijing,  but not in XiAn, Tainan, etc? Maybe several of their locations work the way it is done in Chengdu (?) I wonder, if Andreas, the founder, would elaborate on this. He struck me as very professional and open on this forum so far.

[zhouhaochen]

Disclaimer: I am the founder of LTL and NOT a neutral participant about all things LTL

 

Hello Tim,

 

Thanks a lot for writing about your experiences at LTL Chengdu. My name is Andreas I have been a Chinese Forums member for almost 15 years and I am the founder of LTL. Over the years I have had the odd argument on this forum, but as a life time China geek I consider Chinese Forums my spiritual home and so wanted to reply to you myself directly.

 

First, I am very sorry for your experience. The points you are raising are valid and this should not have happened like this. I will go through it in detail below, but in general, the reason (which in no way is an excuse of course) for all the various problems was that you were one of the first students to successfully sign up for a course and travel to China to study Chinese after COVID. When you emailed us first (Feb 2023) no school, university or any other institution in China had a single student arrive to China to study for more than three years yet. Our original team member who used to handle Chengdu enquiries pre-COVID had left LTL (after not being able to return China for three years, she at some point just gave up) and the new person who was handling your enquiry had just joined. When you emailed us, it was just about a month after Beijing and Shanghai hospitals were overcrowded with COVID patients, visa, quarantine and entry policies were still very unclear and everything was changing in very fast and unexpected ways. Usually we can rely on almost two decades of China experience, but in that moment, we had a partially new team and were learning about a new situation that was changing very quickly after three years of having been effectively shut down by COVID. That was back then – the situation now fortunately is very different.

 

I am saying this as a way to explain why some of this happened, but in no way as an excuse. Whatever COVID mess was happening back then, you should still have been properly adviced during your sign up. I was at work and supervising the new team member. It doesn’t matter how long China was closed for and how chaotic the situation was back then, I should have spotted the mistake that you were not told how the Chengdu program works and fixed it. I do take full responsibility for this.

 

To answer each one of the three issues you mentioned

 

1)       Not being informed about Chengdu being an immersion program: This is the part of your experience that worries me the most, should have definitely not happened, I am personally embarrassed by and we will make VERY sure will not happen again. I checked your email conversation and you were indeed not properly informed about the structure of the Chengdu program by your student advisor. This is supposed to (and now always is, but February just after the re-opening we didn’t have that yet) to be written in several emails, your sign up form and your student information portal. Every student knows is told this in the first email now and many times afterwards again, however for you this did not happen.

Differently to LTL Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei or Beihai where we have big physical schools, with very active student communities, centralized class rooms etc. (with the side effect that more English is spoken) Chengdu (as are Xian and Chengde) is an immersion program where the aim is to stop students from hanging out with other English speakers. At a physical school, however hard you try (and believe me we have tried) in the end a whole bunch of foreigners (many of whom at beginner Mandarin level) having a great time will use English for communication. The aim of the immersion programs is to change that by not having foreigners study together in the same location to ensure that after class, during lunch breaks or when looking to meet someone for dinner at night they do not have easy access to other English speakers and have to speak Mandarin instead. This is great for immersion and language progress but a very different experience to a physical school. Language progress is faster, but social life is definitely more difficult, as are some other things.

 

If someone wants this or not, is up to them to decide. Our job is to advise students about this properly so a student can make a choice to pick the program that fits for them. This did not happen for you, which I am very sorry for. You were the very first student who enquired and managed to go to Chengdu to study Mandarin with us in three years and we screwed up. We would have loved for you to come and study with us at one of our physical schools in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei or Beihai instead or give you the option to pick the Chengdu immersion program (knowing exactly what it is), but we just accepted your booking and focused on solving all the visa issues, instead of properly advising you about the program.

I can only apologize about this. The fact that it happened right after COVID with the first sign up for Chengdu in years and with a new team member is a reason, but not an excuse.

 

2)       Your teacher not being flexible and not teaching Chengdu Safari properly: I am very sorry about this and this should have been better. Again, not as an excuse, but as an explanation, when you emailed us your initial feedback about the teacher after the first few classes (“had my first few lessons today, all going well and I'm happy with my teacher” via email and “So far the teaching has been good” via the feedback form) everything seemed fine. You only told us during your last week that you were not happy with the teaching. We organized a call with you the next day to try to fix it, but by then you only had a few days left in Chengdu and there was only so much we could do by then. Still the teaching shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place. I would love to be able to say that during three years of COVID we did not loose any good teachers, but unfortunately we did. It was just too long for some to wait. The situation is much better now after six months of training and getting our operation running again, but that of course came too late for you.

 

3)       For the homestay, I am happy that the food and accommodation quality was good, but of course the main aim of a homestay is always a personal connection and the ability to speak Mandarin. Again your feedback at the beginning was very positive (You wrote: “The accommodation is everything I'd expect, I have no complaints with it. 康老师 has been a pleasant and welcoming host, if rather taciturn.”). When you told us about not being happy with the homestay, you had only very little time left in Chengdu and a change was not feasible then anymore. If there was one suggestion I would make for the future, it would be to let us know as soon as possible about any changes so we can make changes quickly. Still, I am sorry this didn’t work out as good as it should have in this case. I do want to note that we got some very positive feedback from other students staying with this homestay.

 

Ok, so that’s what went wrong. Here is what we have done / will do to improve:

 

1)       Not being advised properly to choose between a physical school or immersion program: This will not happen again. Every student emailing us now is being (and has been for some time, but not yet in Feb) very clearly told and advised about how the LTL programs in different cities work before choosing.

 

In case anyone is wondering, In China LTL has beautiful, centrally located, physical schools with active student communities and social events in Beijing (15 classrooms), in Shanghai (9 class rooms), in Taipei (9 class rooms) and Beihaihttp://www.ltl-beihai.com (10 class rooms). LTL programs in Chengde, Chengdu and Xian are immersion programs without a centrally located school (though we might change that for Chengdu next year as things keep normalizing after COVID).

 

2)       Teacher: Thanks for the feedback and after you talked about this with us back then we already did additional training both for teaching and Safari classes. The feedback for this teacher since then has been very positive, but we will again emphasize training.

3)       Homestay: Thank for the feedback that. We also discussed your feedback, both the positive parts (nice apartment and good food) and the to be improved (more social interaction) with the homestay back then and the one student who staid there since then really liked her stay.

 

On the plus side, I am happy that we could help you get your X2 study visa back then (no easy feat – your X2 visa was one of the very first ones issues in the UK after three years COVID closed borders), made the sign up process for you easy, your Chengdu home stay accommodation and food quality was good and that you enjoyed Chengdu as a city.

Personally, I actually quite like the Chengdu Panda reserve though I do agree it can get a bit overrun by tourists at times.

 

Again, thanks a lot for writing all this, letting us know and I am very sorry about the problems. If in the future you wanted to try out one of our physical schools, please send me a pm here directly and I will personally organize that program for you.

[Jan Finster]

On 9/1/2023 at 6:46 AM, zhouhaochen said:

n case anyone is wondering, In China LTL has beautiful, centrally located, physical schools with active student communities and social events in Beijing (15 classrooms), in Shanghai (9 class rooms), in Taipei (9 class rooms) and Beihaihttp://www.ltl-beihai.com (10 class rooms).

 

Thanks, Andreas, for the transparency and for the constructive way you deal with this.

 

On 9/1/2023 at 6:48 AM, zhouhaochen said:

Homestay: Thank for the feedback that. We also discussed your feedback, both the positive parts (nice apartment and good food) and the to be improved (more social interaction) with the homestay back then and the one student who staid there since then really liked her stay.

 

Does this imply you always stay at home at your teacher's place? I wonder since some teachers may eventually end up having 2 students (2x4 hours of teaching)? Do students get to meet their teacher online and discuss what they expect before booking?

[timmartin]

I've tried to stick to describing the facts and not speculating on LTL as an organization, but for what it's worth I buy the fact that my experience as one of the first post-Covid students means it's not entirely representative. The basic misunderstanding about an immersion environment vs. a language school is easily remedied and hopefully won't happen again. As with anything, try to get opinions from multiple people and don't just take my experience as your only source.

 

Also, although everything I mentioned above is feedback I gave them during the course, I accept that some of my feedback was slow and / or confused by some British politeness and understatement. The Chinese aren't the only culture with norms around how you express criticism! Always bear in mind that the person reading your comments probably doesn't have the same native language as you and almost certainly has a different cultural background.

 

On 9/1/2023 at 7:39 AM, Jan Finster said:

Do students get to meet their teacher online and discuss what they expect before booking?

 

In my case (which I assume is the same for everyone) I had a video call with a student advisor but not directly with my teacher. This was actually the best way to do it, because my Mandarin isn't good enough to have this kind of conversation and I doubt my teacher's English would have been good enough to do this discussion in English. I had some conversations with my teacher during the course about which parts were most useful to me, but I had to do that in Mandarin so my ability to express myself was a bit limited and I don't know how well we understood each other.

 

For the record, I like that the actual content of the teaching was predominantly Mandarin. My listening is much better than my speaking, so it worked well for me. That's obviously a personal thing, though.

 

If anyone has specific questions that I can answer I'm happy to do so, but I think I've said everything I need to. Thanks to Andreas for responding constructively, and thanks to LTL for a memorable experience, if not exactly what I expected.