Language schools in Beijing

[Petit_Scarabe]

Hi all,

I am planning on coming to Beijing soon and stay there for about 3 months in order to improve my chinese.

I first started learning chinese for 16 months while in Taipei but that was loooong ago and I stopped when I came back to France ... but I recently started again on my own, very seriously (1-2 hours a day). Taking Chinesepod.com as a reference, I would say that my chinese is intermediate/upper intermediate : I know more than 1500 characters, can now read some press articles, and can write too.

I plan on joining one of the language schools focusing on teaching foreigners and am looking for feedbacks on which ones are generally regarded as good and which ones as not so good.

I saw BLI mentionned in several posts, but it is a bit pricey for my taste.

If you attended any of the following schools (or any other) I would really appreciate your feedback :

http://www.iscbeijing.com/

http://www.1monthchinese.com/

http://www.globalchineseedu.com/

http://www.glexchange.net/

Thanks

[Scoobyqueen]

I really enjoy the teaching at BLI and can recommend it. They teach many of the embassy staff in the area and I think they recently added UN to their books. They are very professional and service-oriented too.

I have had some good contact with one month Chinese. Definitely very competent teaching and Matt, the owner, is really committed and has a well thought-out concept. However, I think they specialise in beginner`s Chinese.

What rate are you looking to pay say for one to one tuition?

[Petit_Scarabe]

Hello Scoobyqueen,

I'm looking at something between 3500 to 5000€ for a 12 weeks program, including accomodation.

BLI looks definitely great, but base fee i+accomodation+meals+miscellaneous costs would push it a little bit too much for me.

[njcheng]

Hey!

I just finished a 6 week program with East-West Connection (1monthchinese.com) and really enjoyed it. I picked it because program is small and my aunt had been one of their first customers. My teacher was absolutely fantastic. I had a year of Chinese at Stanford (and some disorganized Chinese in elementary school) but once I got here my level went quite quickly from late beginner to intermediate. I decided to stay here in Beijing for a year, and EWC helped me get set up with the University program through June. My classes here at BTVU are significantly better than my friend's classes at BLCU so I'm pretty happy.

The fees/dates page can be a bit confusing, but you can always email/call with your question and Wendy can help. She's pretty awesome.

Hope that helps some - can be a pretty confusing process.

-NC