UIBE Business Chinese Program

[otterbaby]

Hi,

I am looking into the UIBE Chinese Language Training Program for Business Chinese next semester from March - July. The curriculum aims at improving students' spoken and listening proficiency in business Chinese, and teaching business writing and newspaper reading. http://www.uibe.edu.cn/upload/up_dfs/ehy.htm

I am a Business major from the US, and I think this would be more helpful for me in the future. Is there anyone who has studied there or has heard of the program? What did you think of it, and would you recommend it? How does this compare to other Chinese language intensive programs?

Other questions are -- how was the housing, the teaching, the interaction with other students (int'l and/or local)?

Where is UIBE located, and how far is it from the central Beijing city (BNU, BLCU, BeiDa)? How long does it take by bus?

Thank you in advance for your feedback!

[luozhen]

I studied for one semester in 2005.

The first question is how is your Chinese? There's an English program with Chinese language classes and a full immersion Chinese program. I took the full immersion classes because I wanted to accelerate my business Chinese, but it wasn't the best method because my Chinese wasn't good enough to understand all of the lectures (although having a business background helps). They say they go a bit slower for the foreigners, but its basically the same class that's taught to freshman Chinese students.

The language classes centered on general business conversations, a lot of import/export, although the newspaper classes had more variety because it was usually the headline business story for the week.

The other classes were hit and miss, but I think it depends on what you want to learn. There was customs regulations and taxation, which I found dull, but also a good economic survey of China. Many of the students were Thai, Korean and Japanese and they're probably going to work for import/export companies. A lot of business material in China focuses on this area of business, if you want finance or other topics, you won't find it there unless they've changed the courses.

I mostly studied on my own in China before going to UIBE, but the language classes were similar to ones I audited elsewhere while teaching. But the language classes had about 20-30 students, a bit large in my opinion, and then both were combined for the business classes, which were lectures.

I didn't care for the housing and got an apartment. If you're in the university housing you'll be around foreigners. If you want to meet Chinese students, they're always looking for language partners. They also had an intramural baseball team when I was there and foreigners were welcome to join.

I think there's a subway that goes near the school now (line 5). When I was there it took about 15-20 minutes by bus to reach Line 2. From there it was about another 10-15 minutes into the center of Beijing.

[jonny.potter]

hi,

Although i only did a Tefl program for 1 month at UIBE (I now study at Tsinghua) i found the university to be very good. The housing if you live on campus is good, you will be in an international dormitory which is more like a hotel as your room gets cleaned nearly everyday and the beds get changed etc. Also the room i stayed in was big and even though there were 4 of us in one room it still seemed big. There was a large bathroom and in my room i got my own desk and wardrobe. There were effectively 2 bedrooms inside the room i stayed in and one bathroom. There were about 15 rooms like this in my block and there were about 8 blocks i think, so there are enough foreign students to provide a bit of home comfort.

As far as Beijing universities go, for location its the best (in my opinion) The nearest subway is about a 10 min walk (Huixinxijie nankou) and its on 2 different lines. the uni also has amazing bus links (maybe 40+ within a 5 min walk of the west gate) and its very easy to get to Dongzhimen and Yonghegong to change to other bus or rail links. Also the street the uni is on has many restaurants, the headquaters of China Daily newspaper, hotels and a bar street within a 5 minute walk where every tuesday and thursday there is an all you can drink 30 kuai bar.

Interaction with the Chinese students is also a lot easier than at some of the larger campus universites. I mangaged to make a lot of chinese friends even though i was only there a month. However it is obviously importnat to make an effort as i have found within the Chinese university campuses Chinese students will rarely make the first move to get to know you but if you start a conversation with them rarely will they give you a one word answer.

I am not sure what the teaching standard is like but the university as a whole is respected, however as the previous post said depending on your chinese level it may be better to do either 1 or 2 semesters worth of chinese and then do a business course in chinese as opposed to learning business chinese. I think you can do this at UIBE too.

Hope this helps, all the best

[nicefreak]

Hey there!

I am really interested in this Business Program of UIBE. I am not sure if my Chinese is sufficient (I did a year of GaoJi Chinese in Yunnan), thus I'd like to check out the uni. I will be in Beijing on the 8th of June (Monday). It would be great, if anyone studying at UIBE right now could provide a class schedule for that day.

Any hints, about the Chinese Level (HSK, etc.) needed to complete the course would be great as well!

Cheers!