best beijing program that lets you live off campus

[venture160]

hey, I am currently with CET here in Harbin, and I am looking to get to a bigger city and live in my own apartment, I just heard back from IUP about the spring and they are full with a LONG waiting list. Does anyone have some suggestions?

venture160

[trevelyan]

Have you considered getting a part-time job and hiring a tutor? If you have the discipline to sit down one-on-one with a private tutor for two or three hours a day....

[wiley]

As a graduate of both cet-harbin and IUP, and an observer + practicioner of many different methods of chinese study, I would say the following:

When I went to CET-Harbin they did almost nothing to work with my tones, I suspect that they just thought I was hopeless and didn't even bother telling me there was a problem. That did me no service in the long run.

I went to IUP directly after CET and the difference was dramatic, they took my horrid tones head on as a core problem with dramatic results after several months. Both CET + IUP have small class sizes, the difference is that at IUP they place a high emphasis on spoken language and are just generally more professional. The atmosphere is very intense and the students are extremely serious as a rule. The environment is conducive to studying hard. One major drawback worth mentioning is the high (nearly 100%) loss rate of teachers with 3 or more years of continuous teaching experience. IUP is where talented + dedicated chinese teachers get broken in and then go on to other, higher paying jobs with lower pressure.

The other (perhaps more relevant) thing about IUP is that it is incredibly expensive considering the market. I wouldn't consider going there without a scholarship. Here is the reason: Diqiucun in Wudaokou offers classes at 12 kuai an hour. My current roommate is an american who took a summer course at middlebury (his first exposure to chinese) and has done two hours a day at diqiucun for about a year and a half. He just makes sure to study every day and has for a year and a half and you have to trust me that the results are dramatic. They would probably be more dramatic if he had gone to IUP for a year and a half, but he has gotten very close results for about 1/20th of the price of IUP. I've studied chinese for over 6 years and spent a year as a professional translator at a hospital, and he frequently recognizes characters that I don't.

IUP is awesome to go to if someone else is paying, for everyone else: work hard every day and go to diqiucun. Thats my two cents.

[venture160]

hey, my problem is that IUP is full, I would LOVE to go there, but it is full, any other suggestions?

[Brantavius]

Wiley (or others who can answer my questions):

I'm new to Beijing and would like to take Chinese lessons. I live a 12-kuai cab ride NE of Bei Da, and I'm wondering if the place you mentioned is near where I live since I think I remember reading something about a place called Wudaokou near me. Can you tell me if it is and possibly how to get in touch with Diqiucun to arrange to attend classes? Thanks.

[roddy]

Sounds like it's no further than Beida. I'm sure this information is on here already, but Diqiucun is just north of the Subway station at Wudaokou. Get to that subway station and head north from the junction that KFC is on, and it's in what used to be a hotel one or two minutes walk. Just look for the floods of Korean and Japanese students going in and out. They will let you sit in a class or two for free, so I suggest you just go down and try it out.

I agree with what's being said about the difference between the high and low cost options - if you are dedicated and conscientious, you can narrow the gap between the two a great deal.

With reference to 'that lets you live off campus' - are there any programmes in Beijing that don't let you live off campus - I would have thought all universities now accepted that students are going to stay in their own places now.

Roddy

[StealthyBurrito]

Regarding wiley's post (sorry if this is off-topic as IUP is no longer an option), I don't think the lack of emphasizing tones is really so much out of laziness as a teaching philosophy. It seems to me that some philosophies emphasize grammar, vocabulary, and usage over tones. If you think about it, it makes sense. As an American, I would rather have a foreigner speak with an accent but with correct grammar, vocabulary, and usage than the other way around. Plus foreigners really have more trouble with tones and it takes comparitively far more time to correct tones than it does to practice grammar, learn vocabulary and word usage. Besides, it's fairly easy to guess the correct words given a correct context.

Also, I believe the high turnover rate at IUP is also partially attributable to shitty administration. But yes, you are right, Qinghua and Beida work their Chinese teachers to death with overpacked schedules.