online study vs language school

[abcdefg]

@abcdefg what were/are your language goals? I am using HSK just as a method to improve my fluency and ability to communicate more smoothly at work and life generally

 

Sounds as though our goals might really not be all that different. But I had no desire to pass, or even take, any of the standardized tests like HSK because I didn't need them for academic purposes and was not convinced they actually measure daily-use language proficiency in an effective way. Did not want to waste time and energy on them. (Maybe that was wrong; I cannot say.)

 

When I worked with the middle school teacher mentioned above, every day at the end of our two hours together, she made up some questions about what I needed most to remember from that day's material. She asked them as she wrote them down, in order to be sure they were clear. Then she quizzed me on those things the next day right at the beginning of class, sometimes changing the actual phrasing. And once a week we did a review of the week's major learning points and I took a comprehensive quiz, part oral and part written.

 

She also was very intuitive in a good way. If I stumbled over material during class, even though I finally managed to get it right, she revisited those difficult areas once or twice more, later in that day's session. It could have been vocabulary or it could have been grammar and syntax. But usually by the time we finished for the day, I knew those "hard parts" pretty well.

 

Furthermore, she could sort of predict where I would stumble today based on analyzing where I had difficulty yesterday. So she would take those parts slower, being careful not to overwhelm my dull and struggling mind. Kept me from getting too discouraged.

 

I once asked her why Chinese public school education had such a poor reputation, since obviously she was a skilled and creative teacher. She coughed twice and then explained, that over half the kids had no desire to really master the material even though they craved good test scores. They were searching for some kind of "magic bullet." Also, during the academic year, her class had 50 or more kids in it. Most of her energy went into what could best be described as "riot control."

 

But with only me, one-to-one she could pull out all the stops and really shine. Plus it was obvious I was motivated. We worked well together; she brought out the best in me and I brought out the best in her; we both had lots of fun.

[onebir]

^Great teacher - the better TLI teachers were like this. One on one you can make really fast progress with a teacher at this level.

 

I've done similar things teaching English, but my (formal ) grasp of grammar is mediocre & hampers me a bit.

[Flickserve]

abcdef

Nice write up of the methodology! Sounds great

[fabiothebest]

Can anyone give more info about Tutorming? Any update? I'm especially interested in the price per lesson and knowing if it's possible to book individual lessons or only pay for many hours in advance. @hongputaojiu I read they asked you to pay for 100 hours upfront. Do you remember the price? 100 rmb for 45 minutes + time for questions and answers or 45 minutes total?

 

I read that @lechuan subscribed and meant to have like 2 classes/week. Maybe he can give some useful info about the website.

[阿童木]

Hi Fabiothebest

 

I didnt end up using them. The main issue was the connection was not great, lots of lagging which made the conversation difficult. But their technology was good as you could re-watch your lesson in full.

[jgraham11]

1 on 1 settings are ideal in my opinion. Since Op is in China though you've already got the best class, China itself! haha

[mackie1402]

On ‎5‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 0:30 PM, hongputaojiu said:

thanks guys. yeah im in hangzhou. the issue for me has been with the language schools that I have been to visit (and its been a lot!) has been:

 

I know it's been a while, but just curious. I'm in Hangzhou myself. You said you weren't too satisfied with the private schools you tried? Don't suppose you could say which ones? I've been looking about but I couldn't find many! In fact, I only found 1 which wasn't affiliated with a local university. Would be nice to hear your feedback about whichever school you went to. Thanks!

[lechuan]

Hi @fabiothebest,

 

I actually paid for 150 hours up front, as the price was quite a bit better than just 100 lessons. I don't know their current price, but I think at the time I had calculated it at about US$11.25 per lesson. In theory, for that price, you're paying for a group lesson, but in reality, I have always had a 1-on-1 lesson. It could be because I'm at a higher level (started at level 7, currently at level 8), so maybe there's less students at the higher levels? We talk exclusively in Mandarin at this level, but after my first lesson, I requested to have all explanations in Mandarin with English as a last resort after my first lesson, so all teachers have been doing that. They keep a profile on you so that any pertinent information is passed on to the next teacher.

 

They recommend 3 classes per week, but I only have 2 per week. I usually find that I get about 30 new vocab per lesson, so 2 a week is plenty for me. It's 45 minutes total. At level 7/8, the entire lesson is pretty much a discussion based on the material, so you can ask questions throughout the entire thing. It's definitely not lecture format. I'm not sure the format of the early levels, but I'm sure it's highly interactive (hence why it's called tutoring instead of a course).

 

As for booking, You can book up to 12 hours ahead of time. 7-days-a-week, 24 hours per day. They have a global network of teachers in order to cover all time zones.

 

I'm really happy with the service so far. I usually rotate through different teachers, you get to rate each teacher at the end of the lesson, and they'll try to match you up more with the teachers you give higher ratings to. Depending on the teachers internet connection, there will be more more or less lag. But I've gotten used to it now, so it's not too much of a distraction. Teacher quality has varied, but it's always been between Good and Excellent, with most of the time being very good. You also see a video of your teacher (but they can't see you). You can have your lesson in-browser, or via iOS/Android apps. I recommend a headset for either one.

 

Tutorming has been very receptive to feedback, you can leave feedback after each lesson, or email them directly. They'll personally follow up to try and make sure you're satisfied. Once there was technical issues and the teacher wasn't able to connect, but they quickly arranged a substitute for the remainder of the class, and refunded the lesson credit (so it was free).

 

Lessons have been very interesting, much better then what I found in my textbooks. For example: The Night Marker, Blood Types, Goodbye to a friend who died, Environmental destruction, After a car accident, Guilt after the taxi driver almost hit an old grandma with the car but you were in a rush to get to a business meeting so you didn't show concern, Getting sick, Cancer, The funeral of a deer, Touring China, taking a cruise, etc. You also let them know your interests, then they try to gear the lessons more towards your interests. I started to get lessons on business and real estate that I wasn't really interested in, so I told them, and they updated my profile so I wouldn't get these.

 

In order to get the most out of the lesson, at least at my level, I recommend the following approach:

1) The vocab and lesson material is posted about 12 hours before the lesson. I go through all the lesson reading and add all the new vocab to my Skritter list. I then learn as many of these new words as I can before the lesson. This way you're not spending your lesson time asking "_______是什么意思？"

2) There are questions in the lesson and places where you have to make your own sentences. I prepare these ahead of time too so that I don't spend time in my lesson trying to think of a sentence while the tutor is waiting.

3) If you do #1 and #2, you can then spend most of your lesson time on the reading and discussion, and getting corrections and feedback from the instructor

 

Sometimes, you might have a lesson spread out over two session, really depends on how well you prepared and how much new material there is. Sometimes you end up chatting with your instructor more, which I didn't like at first because I just wanted to cover the whole lesson, but then I realized that I was also learning a lot through chatting and getting corrections.

 

 

 

After the lesson you can view a video recording of the lesson, so you can review as much as you want. There are also homework exercises you can do, you leave the teacher feedback, and they also leave feedback for you.

 

Teachers have been from Taiwan and China so far, and they have all had a standard accent so far.

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

[fabiothebest]

Thanks @lechuan, it was very helpful. The hourly rate (even though they are actually 45 minutes) is comparable to other online classes. I guess I'll have a demo class, I have nothing to lose. I like their platform technologically speaking and I like that they are backed by a strong group like Alibaba. Also the support in case of problems seems good from the testimonials on their website but also your personal experience. It could be a good way to improve my Chinese skills. The only thing I'm concerned about is having to purchase many hours in advance. Do you know if I can book single classes or max 5-10 classes/time? I calculated how much you probably paid for 150 hours and it's too high for me. I'd like to pay a reasonable price (that can be eventually 15-20$/hour if quality is good) but being able to pay for classes when I want according to how much I'm willing to spend for studying Chinese. I guess you can pay for many hours on Tutorming and then credits don't expire, so you can book classes  when you want (also not very often) although the point is that I'd avoid to pay a big sum upfront in a unique payment.

[lechuan]

Hi @fabiothebest, maybe try to have a trial lesson, let them know you're interested, and see if you can negotiate a smaller package.

[fabiothebest]

Yes, that's the only way to do. Thanks for your info.