New Chinese School in Ningbo

[Ben Jenkin]

Hi,

We have just opened a new chinese school in Ningbo in ZheJiang. At the moment we are only teaching part time courses to local residence of the area. However, if demand is big enougth we will consider having full time courses with accomodation.

Anyone interested?

Check out our website to see what we are about

www.NingboChinese.cn

[freefall]

Might want to fix those spelling errors on your 主页。

I wish you luck with your new business!

[Luciano]

I guess I´m interested, but i would need more info on the program....

hope there are more people...

[Ben Jenkin]

We currently have 35 students and I expect to pick up about 10/15 more around January. Numbers are going downa bit at the moment as everyone is vanising for christmas.

The idea for the full time study programe would be about 15 hours a week of chinese and then electives of calligraphy, chinese tea making (we already run these 2 courses), and some others which have yet to be decided - I'm trying to get some kind of Kong Fu class, Tai Qi and chinese cooking class together.

Also we would run a trip out of the school every weekend. Places we would visit include

5 dragon pools

Xi Kou

Pu Tuo Shan

Zhe Jiang Da Xia Gu

I am just not sure if the numbers are there for a full time program as I would like to have at least 4 people in a class.

Oh and thanks for the advice on the spelling mistakes. I fixed it a bit.

[roddy]

Remember to provide accommodation at the deeply discounted rates you can get by buying in bulk and having local contacts, rather than at the inflated 'ah, they're only foreigners, they'll pay anything' prices that most schools charge - or at least change your name to Ben's Chinese School and Hotel.

[Ben Jenkin]

What kind of price are we talking about?

A fully equiped 2 bedroom flat is about 1300 - 1500 rmb per month. Obviously if we have more bedrooms and have maybe 5/6 people sharing we could decrease the price somewhat.

Also why change the name?

Ben

[woliveri]

My questions would be:

1. What books are you using? (BLCU???)

2. What education do your teachers have (formal teacher training?)

3. What training/teaching methods are used?

In my experience, here in Shanghai, there is a lot of emphasis on Writing, Reading, and Listening, but little on speaking even though there is a Kou Yu class.

Also, I'm not that thrilled with most of the material from BLCU.

[onebir]

Also why change the name?

If I'm not mistaken, Roddy is referring to the 'school' making lots of money out of accommodation, like a hotel. Hence his suggestion 'Ben's Chinese School and Hotel' if you do this....