Info on learning at Yantai Uni

[Caroline]

Does anyone know anything about the mandarin course for foreigners at Yantai University? Travellers Worldwide have just started to send English people to it but no-ones done it so far. Also, I have heard it's predominantly Japanese and Korean students who sign up, will this make it harder for me to keep up?

I would be grateful if someone could give me some information as I'm quite in the dark at the moment.

[cellofallon]

Hi Caroline,

I'm presently a student at Yantai Uni for this semester, so I'm happy to oblige with some info on the courses here.

At present as you suggested the majority of students come form Korea, there are actually very few Japanese students. I'm in the higher level classes as I've been studying for a while. There's me, two French guys, a Japanese guy and the rest of our classmates are Korean. However i,I don't feel this is a disadvantage as at this level my reading is on a par with my Korean classmates if not higher. You don't actually do a lot of writing in class, most of this is done in your homework, you're only taking notes in class.

However from your message I take it you are a begginer? Well, good news, at Yantai uni at least this year they have a special year one class for "ou-mei" students, that is non-Asian students. That class right now has students from Spain, Germany, Canada, the UK and the USA. This way the class is adapted more to meet the learning needs of these students. However, although they have this special class this year, does not necessary mean they will next year, as I imagine this will depend on student numbers.

The quality of the teaching is quite good here although still Chinese style. Probably the thing that the students complain most about is the dorms. They are not that great, but adequte, however restrictive- they lock the doors at 10.30 and you have to bang on some windows to get in. But the cost of living is fairly cheap, so you can get yourself a fancy 2 bedroom apartment for about 2000 yuan a month, or a less fancy one starting from 1000. Most landlords are looking for year contracts though.

Last word of advice, apply directly. Fees are just 750 US dollars a semester if you go direct, any agency is bound to add their own fee onto top. You can apply directly to the emails on the Yantai Uni website.

Feel free to ask other questions you may have...

Tracey