Best Chinese language school with no accommodation?

[minni]

Hi!

 

I'm currently living in Beijing and thinking of enrolling into a language school to improve my Chinese in 2014. My level's HSK4 so not a complete beginner. I already have an apartment here, so I would be interested in recommendations for language schools/universities without mandatory accommodation.

 

I'm a little confused because browsing different school websites I get the idea that for studying in BLCU, BNU etc. you have to live on campus. Is this true? Is the fee different if you rent your own place?

 

I live in Dongzhimen area, so would prefer a school that's not in Wudaokou... Any recommendations? BNU? BICC? Others?

 

The school needs to be able to issue 1year student visa. But I guess all the established language schools can. My budget is around 20,000 RMB for a year's study, is this realistic?

 

Cheers!

minni

 

[ChTTay]

You don't have to live on campus at all. At least at Tsinghua/BLCU they don't even have enough dorms for everyone.

The fee for accomodate is not included in tuition feeds. The tuition for Tsinghua when I went was 12,500 RMB per semester. If you decided to live in Tsinghua student dorms, you would pay an additional, separate fee. Not sure what that was.

[lanzhoumian]

Tsinghua costs about 13,000 RMB per semester http://is.tsinghua.edu.cn/EN/non-degree-programs/chinese-language.html. 

If you want to study in central Beijing, have you considered a private language school? I know that the school I studied at offers a semester program http://www.livethelanguage.cn/learn-chinese-beijing/semester-program/ and from my experience language progress at a good private school is much faster than at a government university. The groups are certainly much smaller. The cost is higher than your 20,000/year budget, but I think any decent Chinese course would be, unless your aim is less to get ahead in Chinese and more just to be in China, while also doing some studying. In my experience it works out cheaper to study in a better program even if costs more, because you just won't have to do it as long to get to the same point. Just the cost of accommodation for having to study a few months longer makes up for any difference in tuition fees, never mind the lost time.

For visas you would have to ask the schools, they organized mine without problems, but I wasn't there for a whole year.

[roddy]

The universities can certainly handle a student visa. Private schools you need to check - BICC has said it can, others maybe not. Off the top of my head other universities handier for Dongzhimen would be UIBE and maybe Beijing International Studies University and the Communication University? Not sure about what the commute would be like for those last two. Oh, and also 中戏 on Nanluoguxiang?

 

I don't think there are any universities in Beijing (or anywhere, now) which demand you take their accommodation. 

[minni]

Thanks so much for your responses!

 

中戏 looks awesome. I just need to find some recommendations.

 

I'm currently studying in a private language school, and even though I enjoy it, it's substantially more expensive and can't provide with a visa. I'm not going to go through the visa hassle again, I need an institution which is able to offer me a legit X-visa.

 

Any recommendations on these mentioned schools? BNU? BICC? 中戏?

[ChTTay]

Maybe look into UIBE but i would try speak to people who go/went there (on this forum perhaps!). A classmate of mine at Tsinghua was there on an exchange a year a go. At that time, there were just 3 levels of class. He was in advanced at UIBE but started in pre-intermediate at Tsinghua. Maybe because he was on exchange they have separate classes, less people etc but i'm not sure!

[zhouhaochen]

Just a quick follow up on lanzhoumian, LTL can offer legit X-visa invitations.

[roddy]

Few more names mentioned here. What would LTL tuition be though?

[zhouhaochen]

@minni: please keep in mind: I work at LTL!

 

For a Chinese language semester at LTL (maximum 6 students per class, CBD school, full service etc.) the cost is 21.780CNY (1 semester = 18 weeks, 20 lessons per week) for one and 39.743 CNY for two semesters. As that is more than what universities charge, let me quickly explain the reason of that difference though.

 

Instruction time

For 18 weeks with 20 lesssons at LTL  you get quite a bit more instruction time out of this than at a standard university semester, because

1) Classes are not lost because of a public holiday. At most universities, you start in September and right afterwards the university closes for a week or more for National and Mit-autumn holiday. LTL teaches is either open on the holiday or the classes lost will be made up. 18 weeks of tuition are real and actual tuition, nothing gets lost because of national holidays.

2) Classes last 55 minutes instead of 45 or 55, which makes quite a difference if you add it up over a semester.

 

Group size

Maximum six, average 3-4

 

Teachers

I would argue that we have the better teachers and curriculum, but that is obviously a matter of opinion. I had some very good teachers back in the day at BLCU as well - I had some really shitty and demotivated ones who just didnt give a f**k there too though. No teacher like this would be able to continue his/her career at LTL.

 

Service

I think we are great - but I am not the one to judge. I know I spent a whole night in the hospital with one of our students last month when she needed emergency surgery though.

 

Community

We are much smaller than most of the university programs. Maybe about 30 full time students most of the time, which can mean less people to get known to, but also a much tighter community where everyone knows each other and you meet friends very quickly, as we have quite a lot of school dinners, trips etc.

 

Levels

Our semester group classes go up to B2 level. If you are higher than that we cannot offer you a semester group program. I would argue that at that level 1-on-1 is way more effective than sitting in a room with a dozen Japanese and Korean students with a very different language background and learning requirements, but if you want a group class at C1 level, we cant do it, because I don't think those groups work very well and we also do not have a lot of interest for them.

 

Details on the Chinese language semester page. I can think of a few other reasons why it might be a good choice, but want to keep this post short and as I work at LTL, I am obviously biased.

 

Our semester program is basically a cheap way of getting our normal standard courses. It is exactly the same as our standard small group classes, just that while with our standard Chinese classes you choose your start and finish time, as well as course duration flexibly. With the semester program those are fixed and there is no time flexibility: Two intakes per year, each program lasts exactly 18 weeks. For fixed programs like this it is much easier (and cheaper) to plan teachers, class rooms and other resources, which is where the lower price comes from.

[minni]

Thanks. However, way beyond my budget.

 

Any recommendations / experiences on studying at UIBE, BeijingShi, Academy of Drama?

[hibicc]

minni: BICC is the only legit private school to provide the JW202 form. If you would like to study in China for a year, you'll need a X1 visa and for that you need a JW202 form. Tuition at BICC is 32000RMB for non beginners.

 

Starting from next year we will start long term beginners class, twice a year (February and September), tuition for that class for a whole year will be 22400RMB. 

 

If 32000RMB is in your budget then I would suggest you to come to BICC for a day of trial lessons. 

 

A year program at BICC is 44 weeks long.

[roddy]

What say you to that, Zhouhaochen?

[zhouhaochen]

@Roddy: Obviously I would never comment on another school or program posting on here.

 

For me and LTL (and this is just about LTL, nobody else) the aim has been from the beginning to teach a student Chinese as quickly as possible - and not for as long as possible. It is of course possible to reduce costs, pay teachers less, have bigger classes, spend less money on controlling teaching quality, homestay selection etc. and then offer a cheaper price per hour. There is a legitimate demand for just that: a low price and I think most of the universities do a good job at it.

 

I based all LTL programs on what I wish I had gotten when I first came here and it was pretty obvious to me that one does not need a year to get to the level that most students are after two semesters - this can be done much faster. In my thinking spending money on better teachers, smaller classes etc. ends up not costing more, but less, as it takes less time to get to the same level, which means less accommodation, living etc. costs. Also it obviously saves a lot of time.

 

Our semester program is a huge reduction of the cost for students who want all that but do not require time/duration flexibility and we are trying this for the first time this year, I hope it works. However, even this is not the cheapest option offered. There are and always will be others who are willing to safe costs in areas that we feel we need to spend money on if we want to protect our brand name and teaching quality. So there will always be cheaper options - which is perfectly ok for me.

Everyone has different requirements and when the two main parameters are to study Chinese for a year for less than 20,000, we are probably not the right choice

 

@minni: I had a friend who studied at 中戏 for a semester and had good things to say about it, especially in comparison to BLCU (where he and I had studied together previously). That was a few years ago, but probably still valid feedback. We have two students who just changed to LTL from Beijing Communication University and they had not a good word to say about it, so for that one maybe be careful (also, from Dongzhimen it is pretty far). I heard good things about BNU and from Dongzhimen it comparatively easy to reach. I have never been or met anyone who studied at any of the institutions mentioned on here, except the obvious ones in Wudaokou, which you said you weren't that interested in. So my advice: check out 中戏 and BNU (both are not too far from Dongzhimen).

[tysond]

Personally, I do buy the argument that time is money...  When (long term China resident completely fluent) friends of mine heard about the intensive course my wife did they did comment that it was about what you'd lean in a semester at a university.

 

@zhuohaochen I was interested in hearing your response to this

 

BICC is the only legit private school to provide the JW202 form

 

This isn't my situation but just wondering if you can provide the documents for visa invitations.

[roddy]

He did say, a little further up the topic, that "LTL can offer legit X-visa invitations"

 

I'd be interested in hearing from both schools if they're doing this in their own name, or via a partner. 

[zhouhaochen]

LTL can offer legit X (Student) visa invitations, issued in our school's name for all full time LTL students.

[hibicc]

BICC can offer visa invitations and JW202 form, issued in our school's name. We got a new student from Philippines on Friday whose student visa (x2) was rejected before because she failed to present the JW202 form at the Chinese consulate in Manila. 

 

[roddy]

Minni, how's your hunt for a school going?

[minni]

Thanks for asking, Roddy! Very slowly I'm not in a rush though.

[roddy]

That's ok, we're very patient...