Chinese Courses in China during the summer

corbett201
June 05, 2011, 02:48 AM posted in General Discussion

Can anyone recommend any courses to learn Chinese in China durung the summer? I'm thinking of taking a learning holiday. I'm interested in residential type courses at a college or university aimed at intermediate learners. I'm also interested in a group type thing where you can make new friends and have some fun. I don't really want to go to Beijing, I'm more interested in other places, and I also don't want very expensive things aimed at foreigners jetting in from the west for a short stay. I've been living in China recently and need something reasonable priced. Thanks anyone who can advise.

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xiaophil
June 05, 2011, 05:10 AM

I attended classes at Jiaotong University in Shanghai. Those were okay, but the usual problems applied, outdated and less practical material.  Overall though, a good experience.  Later I had the opportunity to sit in on an upper-intermediate class at East China University of Science and Technology.  The same problems applied, but at the upper levels I noticed the class sizes were very small.  The tuition fee is lower too.  So this is my advice: keep an open mind to the lesser known schools as you might actually get more student/teacher interaction.

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corbett201

Thanks very much for your kind response.

I'm kind of amazed to get only one answer in 2 days. I had some idea there was a lively friendly community here, guess I was misinformed.

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cinnamonfern
June 07, 2011, 04:11 AM

I'm sorry you haven't gotten much respone. Perhaps you just posted at a time when there were a lot of posts happening. It's very easy for them to get buried. I've never studied in China so I can't answer your question but hopefully this will bump your post so more people will respond.  :)

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bodawei
June 07, 2011, 09:40 AM

It's difficult to make specific recommendations without more information. In general most cities will have a multitude of options amongst the universities, private colleges and private tutors. You live here so the best thing is to have a look at the options yourself and see what you think. 

'During the summer' - I don't know whether that means the whole summer season or something that equates to North American holidays. Universities tend to be a little more rigid about terms, private colleges often go pretty continuously. 

Most options apart from private tutors will have a ready-made group - your classmates.