Vocal Coach / Pronunciation Teacher in Beijing

[zander1]

Hey everyone,

 

I am planning to head back to Beijing this summer and while I am there I am hoping to find a pronunciation coach / tutor to help take my spoken abilities to a higher level. 

 

I am at a reasonably advanced level of spoken Chinese and am not looking for a teacher who typically teachers foreigners (my experience has been that with some exceptions it is very hard to find one that is sufficient strict with their standards) but perhaps someone who teaches dialect-Chinese speakers wanting to improve their putonghua. Someone who works with people working on the radio / TV would be ideal. My budget is pretty flexible if I can find the right teacher.

 

If anyone has any experience with this or advice on where I might look, it would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks!

[Wippen (inactive)]

I have been using a coach to do that in Beijing. She is a graduate of teaching Chinese as a foreign language.  I have been impressed with her as she is able to provide all sorts of graphs that explain when for example sometimes a tone is longer. Also she pinpointed where my problem areas where in tone combination and she gave hints on pauses when reading aloud. She usually gives me 笔记 afterwards. I have known her from c 2011. She now charges 150 Yuan an hour.

PS She helped me with a radio interview.

[zander1]

Tøsen that is amazingly helpful, thank you! Is there any chance you could pass on her contact information to me? I’m coming to Beijing in June and she sounds perfect. 

[Wippen (inactive)]

I will send you her details per private message once she gives her approval to do so. You could ask for a Skype lesson in advance just to check if this is what you want.

Also a teacher is only as good as the briefing, I have found over the years. The more precise a briefing will yield better results. So for example if you want the teacher to speak fast deliberately so, you should emphasise that too.

 

By the way I recently calculated out how many one-to-one lessons I had had over the years with some 20+ teachers: 1200 hours. I am wondering how many others have had. I feel it was a lot but the results do not match the amount of hours.

[roddy]

If she doesn't mind, we have no problems with her coming along to introduce herself, or you just posting the contact details. People like this are in high demand.

[anonymoose]

I'd be interested to have her details also, if she's willing.

[Tomsima]

4 hours ago, Tøsen said:

By the way I recently calculated out how many one-to-one lessons I had had over the years with some 20+ teachers: 1200 hours. I am wondering how many others have had. I feel it was a lot but the results do not match the amount of hours

 

is this one-to-one skype or in person or both? General conversation classes or focused on pronunciation alone? In terms of skype conversation classes I've probably done around 150 hours or so. I thought that was a lot...theres only so much bad signal I can take before I get back on a mission to find a good teacher in person.

 

I've always wanted a 'pronunciation coach', but ive found it almost impossible to do over skype, not just because of bad audio, but also because of how difficult it is to find a flow when the person isn't right there in front of you. Its just not the same when you're conducting yourself through an orchestral piece of a sentence whilst making ostrich-like neck stretches to get that damn second tone out and there's noone there to chuckle at you whilst correcting.

[Wippen (inactive)]

40 minutes ago, Tomsima said:

is this one-to-one skype or in person or both? General conversation classes or focused on pronunciation alone? In terms of skype conversation classes I've probably done around 150 hours or so. I thought that was a lot...theres only so much bad signal I can take before I get back on a mission to find a good teacher in person.

Around 1000 classes in person in China with a teacher. This has covered newspaper articles, business texts, presentations of a chosen topic (150 hours around). Typically I get the text in advance, then the teacher asks me about the gist. Then I read aloud. We go through vocabulary and then we dicusss. In the next lesson, I will re-tell content of last lesson. I have spent at least one hour for each lesson preparing for it. This was a great tip I once got from a strict Chinese teacher. Additionally maybe around 200 skype lessons. These have been pronunciation for work-related terminology (sensor electronics, radar,  chemical stuff for example).

 

The pronunciation Coach has alway recorded the texts for me and she has asked me to record my version and send in advance of class ( and then pulled it apart)

40 minutes ago, Tomsima said:

there's noone there to chuckle at you whilst correcting.

 

Yes that negative feeling is a good reinforcement.

 

In total I have done 5000 hours of Mandarin - everything included: self-study reviews, in-class, but also SRS (though it is not my favourite activity)etc. In addition to normal conversation with people of course which I don't count as studying.

 

What have others done?

[imron]

11 hours ago, roddy said:

People like this are in high demand.

And just like that Tøsen's tutor had doubled her rate, and was increasingly difficult to book a time with

[Wippen (inactive)]

7 hours ago, imron said:

Tøsen's tutor had doubled her rate,

Then she would cause me to lose face

[DavyJonesLocker]

Leaving quality of teaching aside for a moment, Some tutors spend a lot of time  preparing texts and correcting assignments so what you pay for the hour while you are with the tutor is not only consideration as to value.