Private schools in central Beijing for upper intermediate/ advanced students.

[yonitabonita]

Having moved away from Wudaokou, I decided I'd check out some of the private language schools on the east side to save myself a commute.

I'm an upper intermediate/ lower advanced student, and have been out to several schools to see what they have. Here's what I found:

School: Canjie Mandarin School.

Location: Heng'an Building, South of the Zhaolong Hotel, 6591 0933

Advertising offers: Group classes at all levels, all subjects. They have a maximum of 5 per group.

Price: 30 rmb per 50 minutes. Each class is composed of 2 x 50 minutes. There's also an option to take 'super small classes' (2 people) for 840Y per month. Private classes: 70Y per hour.

They have no upper-intermediate to advanced classes nor any specialised Chinese classes currently running. There's one advanced HSK class with 2 people in it but it's up to chapter 15, and is only due to run for another fortnight. I sat in anyway. The teaching was good, clear explanations, clear structure, the teacher seemed nice. One student was absent, but the other student in the class seemed very diligent. She had been studying for 10 years and was already doing a degree at a Chinese university. I went in the day and the classrooms were empty.

I wasn't keen on joining a class that's about to end in a fortnight. They tried to get me to do a private class and promised that if they were to find another student willing to do an advanced level class then they'd roll me over into a regular class.

I attended an intermediate class with my husband, since he wanted to try it out. There were 2 students in that class but one was absent. The teacher was nice, but she wasn't very good. She followed the book very closely, and when asked to give examples beyond that of the text book, she wasn't able to. When one student asked for elaboration on a point, she said she had to hurry on to cover the materials for the day.

Admin: Were attentive and responsive.

School: Juncheng School of Linguistics

Location: Two branches. One in Wangjing, the other at the East Road of Beijing Railway Station. The walk from the subway was pretty seedy.

Advertising offers: group classes at all levels, all subjects. They have a maximum of 10 per group.

Price: Regular Chinese courses: 3,150Y Monday-Friday, 3 hours per day per 3 months. There's visa assistance, and will give accommodation assistance. HSK courses 1,200Y per month, Monday to Friday 13:30-15:30. Private classes 80Y per hour (at the school)

There's a one time registration fee of 100Y

When I asked whether they had advanced HSK classes they said that they did. I asked to see the texts, and they pulled out a textbook with 初中级　written on the cover which I thought was a bit sneaky. When I pointed out that this was not 高级　they admitted they didn't in fact have any advanced HSK classes currently available. However,they have an intermediate HSK class which would be great for my revision blah blah. When I said I wasn't interested in this, they told me about a newspaper reading class that's about to begin. There's no text for this class. Like the school mentioned above, they suggested I do a private class. When I said I wasn't interested in private classes, they tried to hard sell this newspaper class.

There didn't seem to be any students around the place though I was there in the day. They said that there was a mix of Japanese and 'western' students at their school. Maybe the bulk of students appear after work.

Admin: generally tried to help. They were patient but gave me a bit of a hard sell.

School: Frontiers

Location: Dongzhimen and Jianguomen.

Advertising offers: Courses designed for all levels, from beginner to advanced, as well as specialised courses in business Chinese, HSK, current events etc.

Price: 1470Y for 42 hours. (payment done as a packaage) Private classes are 80Y per hour.

I went to the Jianguomen branch and very quickly found out that they had no classes at all. The branch is new so they have no students yet. They asked their manager if they could set up an advanced class for me, and a beginning/intermediate one for my husband and the answer as usual was - 'get them to pay for private class then roll them over when...'

I went to the Dongzhimen branch to see if it was any better. There were plenty of beginning classes designed for the complete beginner. There were also some lower intermediate classes, but alas the most advanced class they had was 桥梁　part 1. I asked if they were going to do part 2 any time soon and they said they wouldn't. I enquired about whether there was any possibility of starting up an advanced HSK class. The person I spoke to quoted a chengyu and asked if I knew what it meant. I said I didn't. She said that if I didn't know what it meant then attempting the advanced HSK would be very very hard for me. I got the message.

English is in abundance at the school, notices around the school, pamphlets etc. I'm guessing the students are mainly westerners.

Admin: were really nice to my husband. They got him to read a text and write some characters and found a class for him. I went away with a colder feeling. I didn't get any reading or writing test. Just one chengyu question.

Conclusion:

Trying to lift your mandarin shuiping above the comfortable intermediate - getting by pretty well - stage can be a bit difficult on the eastern side of town. The demand is high for beginning Chinese and not at all for upper-intermediate to advance levels. Of course I didn't check out other schools in this area which are advertising in ThatsBeijing on the basis that their fees were entirely prohibitive. I also excluded a few schools like the Bridge school, which I'd heard good things about, based on the fact that they emphasise speaking, but not writing and reading.

I think I'd rather commute to Wudaokou and go to Diqiucun. The classes can be big and the teachers can sometimes be crappy but they at least run the classes I want any time I want them.

[gato]

Have you tried Taiwan Language Institute (TLI)? They seem to have a very well run operation, from what people have written about it. They have two branches in Beijing, one at Wangfujing, another in Chaoyang.

Here is an earlier thread:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/8099-taipei-language-institute-beijing-dongcheng-query&highlight=tli

[roddy]

Thanks for taking the time to do the write-up, sorry you didn't have more success. Have you considered putting an ad in the usual places to see if you can find someone else to make up a class? Might be more effective than waiting for a school to turn someone up.

The person I spoke to quoted a chengyu and asked if I knew what it meant. I said I didn't. She said that if I didn't know what it meant then attempting the advanced HSK would be very very hard for me. I got the message.

That's kind of funny. I like to think that if you'd known it they'd have told you your Chinese was perfect and there was no need for further study.

[Ailisi]

Hi Yonitabonita!

Interested to see your email about your search for upper-int/early advanced classes. I posted a thread recently hoping to find like-level students who might be interested in getting together for a small group class at a private language school on the east side of Beijing. I daresay you are at a higher level than me. I've been stuck in an expat job with cobwebs growing all over my Chinese ~ but looking to study full time from mid-July. If you're interested in discussing it, let me know. : )

Ailisi

[yonitabonita]

Ailisi

Definately interested in not commuting to Wudaokou. If you're willing to do Advanced HSK prep classes with me, then please PM me and we'll sort it out over email. I've only studied Chinese for just over a year so I daresay that my Chinese is no where near good enough to be intimidating to anyone.

Y