Keats School, Kunming - A Query

[abcdefg]

#120 -- They always seem to have a good cook and the meals are tasty and varied. Good value for money.

That being said, there are important pros and cons to eating at the school versus eating outside. If you eat at the school, you will be eating with other foreigners and talking English 99% of the time. You gain no knowledge about how to order food in Chinese or ask for a spoon or second cup of tea. But it's easy and convenient, and will let you socialize with some of your classmates. Perhaps make some friends.

You might want to pay for meals at school the first week or two and then try going out on your own after that initial brief time period so that you can better learn how to manage "outside the cocoon." Depends on how adventurous and energetic you are. If you can't hack it outside, you can always sign up for school meals again.

[mprager42]

Hello folks!

I'd like to report about a very positive experience I had with the Keats School in Kunming. I contacted the Keats School to see whether they could help me with an application for a fellowship by performing a language evaluation. Just a few hours later, they responded to my e-mail saying that they would be happy to. I e-mailed them the evaluation form, and within another few hours we'd scheduled a time for the interview. The instructor, Qiuyan, was prompt and professional, and the whole process was over in less than half an hour. She scanned and e-mailed the form back to me, ready for me to submit to my program.

All in all, it was a pleasure to work with Qiuyan and Joy at the Keats School. I chose to approach them about my language evaluation because I have three colleagues (both Americans) who have studied there for several weeks in the past and very much enjoyed their experience and found that their language abilities and improved substantially within a short amount of time. Based on my own experience, I'm very impressed of the professionalism and good customer service that the Keats School has to offer. 5 stars!

[Scoobyqueen]

abcdefg wrote

If you eat at the school, you will be eating with other foreigners and talking English 99% of the time

Why is this actually? I just had a look at the website and there were photographs of the school with a sign in the background saying please speak in Chinese. (I am thinking about going hence this background research)

I have been to several schools in Beijing and we were required to speak in Chinese during breaks though many people did not adhere to it.

I have been to other language schools in Europe and this has not been a problem keeping up (European languages).

Is it something about Chinese that people feel they cannot use it to speak with other foreigners and have to revert to English?

[abcdefg]

#123 -- @Scoobyqueen, I don't know why it is that way, and I really wish it weren't. You're right, the signs are there on the walls of the dining hall as well as in other public gathering spots in the school, such as the lobby and the library. But I've never seen any push by staff to encourage students to actually use their Chinese during breaks or at mealtimes.

A couple times when I've asked about it, staff members have said they think it might be because most, though not all, of the students living in the school dorm rooms are beginners. When I've asked about it at other times, I've been told it might be because the non-resident students are of many differing levels. I don't think either of these is a good reason not to try harder to make Chinese the "Lingua Franca" while on premises.

Personally, I wish there were some sort of "language pledge" required or at least offered as an option. Even though I no longer live at the school (have my own apartment,) I still usually go there five days a week and am reluctant to mix much with other students when I know that it will involve a reversion to English as the main method of communication. I see that as a huge step backwards, since most of my friends here are locals and I always use Chinese with them.

Similarly, I dislike going to the school's group activities because they always involve interacting in English. This whole issue is something I wish the school did better. In my opinion, management needs to change this aspect of the "school culture." After writing this, I realize I need to sit down and have a kind talk with them and just hope they don't think it's being meddlesome.

[Scoobyqueen]

Thanks for your feedback on this. In fact, I would be reluctant to go to a particular school for that reason, or at least I would not want the meals there if they involve speaking in English. My time for such an intensive courses is quite valuable. I have seen it work at BLI (no longer exists).The teachers would go past and make sure we spoke in Chinese. With the beginners, we spoke slower and used simpler words and it did work for some of the time.

I am not sure why the students would feel this is a good idea. Many of the students will presumably not have English as their mother tongue and therefore asking the brain to go through two foreign languages might actually interfere with the learning process.

[abcdefg]

I am not sure why the students would feel this is a good idea. Many of the students will presumably not have English as their mother tongue and therefore asking the brain to go through two foreign languages might actually interfere with the learning process.

Funny that you mention this, because it's true. Walking into the dining room to get hot water for tea, one always hears a din of oddly-accented English. One never hears Chinese.

I'll re-post in a day or two after I have a talk with the boss.

[Scoobyqueen]

I think a lot of the "reviews" on this thread are by one/few time posters. Is the school as good as they say?

I think it might be difficult to get to Kunming. I guess via HK or Chengdu. Would you just take a plane? Seems quite an expensive trip if one is only going for a couple of weeks.

[abcdefg]

I think it might be difficult to get to Kunming. I guess via HK or Chengdu. Would you just take a plane?

When I fly to Kunming from the US, I usually change planes in Guangzhou or Shenzhen. Can also fly non-stop from Hong Kong. It's about a two or two and a half hour flight from any of those three "gateway" cities.

I think a lot of the "reviews" on this thread are by one/few time posters.

I'm guessing that they have been encouraged to post after finishing a course of study. I've been using Keats off and on since 2007. Keep coming back in part because I like Kunming and have friends here, and in part because I'm now friends with the school's owners. (I am not entirely impartial.)

In all fairness, you can probably find the same quality of teaching at other schools, but Keats does get a large number repeat mature learners who fly in expressly for an intensive two or three weeks year after year.

[abcdefg]

Follow up: I had supper last night with the school's owner and headmaster. We discussed improving the school's "Chinese Immersion Environment." She had already realized the need for improvement; we had been thinking along the same lines. She and her daughter had put together some new policies and she gave me a copy, plus asked me to post them here after I told her there was an ongoing discussion. They will go into effect tomorrow, but management realizes these policies will need to be re-evaluated in an ongoing manner and perhaps modified to best meet the goal.

Policies for “Please Speak Chinese”

1. Teachers will actively encourage students to speak Chinese according to their Chinese speaking levels during the breaks.
   
2. The TV in the dining room will display Chinese language news or other Chinese channels during mealtime in order to help students improve their listening skills and to reduce communication in English.
   
3. The school will organize “Chinese Only” activities every two weeks such as group dinners, day-trips, Chinese movie watching, and seminars. Students are asked to only use Chinese during the entire activity. If a student speaks English during the activity, he/she will be asked to perform a short show for the other students as a small penalty.
   
4. The school will organize two “Chinese Speech Competitions” every year in June and December for elementary level, intermediate level, and advanced level. Prizes will be awarded.
   
5. Students are welcome to post their Chinese essays or short articles in the “Chinese Essay Corner.” They can be typed, but extra points will be given if they are written by hand.
   
6. Students are asked to always first try to use Chinese when communicating with Keats staff except for emergencies. The Chinese communication can just be simple words, or even just pointing to words in a dictionary, phrase book or electronic device and can be supplemented with gestures. If a student manages to use only Chinese for an entire week, he/she will receive one hour of free one-to-one Chinese instruction for that week.
   

We hope that students will endeavor not to speak English at all while on the premises. All the items listed above will be included in the Terms and Conditions, which will be given to new students once they arrive. If students agree, they will be asked to sign a pledge. Keats School is working towards creating an “Absolute Chinese” immersion learning environment to speed language acquisition.

Footnote: I have no affiliation with Keats School, but have gone there off and on since 2007 and have become friends with the staff. I would like to see them excel in meeting students needs.

[Keats 2012 summer student]

Hi,

I studied for 12 weeks at Keats during the summer of 2012. It was one of the best and most value-for-money experiences I’ve ever had!

I enrolled onto Package 1: Intensive One-on-one Chinese + 3 meals (Chinese Food) – and also paid for accommodation at the school.

In summary, the school is fantastic and I strongly recommend it over similar language schools because of the following key points:

• The staff (teachers, senior managers, cooks, etc) are all very experienced and truly put the students first – your happiness and successful learning is truly their first priority.
  
• The teaching is fantastic in my opinion – made more so by the fact that Keats encourage regular feedback from students and operate a very good internal review system across all lessons – which is put on display for students.
  
• The accommodation, school facilities, food, assistance and help are absolutely outstanding.
  
• Kunming itself is a brilliant city – not too big, not too small, fantastic nightlife, beautiful tourist spots, and brilliant facilities – like local gyms, badminton courts, swimming pool, football pitches, etc. There is also a fantastic and friendly ex-pat community, which play competitive sport and enjoy going out.
  
• I made some great friends with other students at Keats and the staff there and remain in touch with many.
  
• In my final week at Keats I was conversing happily in Chinese for about 80% of my total lesson time. A highlight for me was describing a movie I had watched the night before! I was blown away! (I would describe my progress as average or typical of a Keats student – many students did far better than me even. It all comes down to how hard and creative you are in your studies.)
  
• The majority of learning done at Keats has remained with me – I still receive huge praise for my language speaking and listening ability - nearly 12 months later, despite having done very limited self-study since.
  
• All of the above mean that Keats offers fantastic value-for-money in my opinion and I recommend it above any other similarly marketed mandarin language school.
  

Going into detail:

The staff at Keats bend over backwards for its students – this isn’t to say that they will spoil you, it is merely stating that the school staff provide a fantastically high-level customer service, and therefore in my opinion, satisfaction.

I was picked up from the airport, and shown my room by a friendly member of staff that was waiting for me very late at night – this made a great first impression. I was explained everything – where to go the next morning, who my points of contact were, and where everything was. The next day I was given a tour of the city by a teacher, which helped me get my bearings significantly.

My room was very clean, tidy and well-equipped. I suffered badly from the high-humidity and heat at night initially, so the school kindly provided me with an electric fan which resolved the problem.

I became ill a couple of times – something I am prone to when going to a new city in China. The school were incredibly quick to provide me with medicine, or take me to the hospital where I could get Western and Chinese medicine – your health and happiness is their priority. They would happily re-schedule any classes that I missed so that I could concentrate on rest and recuperation before being well enough to resume classes.

The food was incredible. About half-way through my stay, the school hired a new cook – someone with more experience as the previous cook needed to leave for family reasons. The new cook provided an even better selection and variety of delicious and healthy Chinese food – as a direct result of feedback from one of the students, who felt the food had gotten a little repetitive over the previous few weeks.

I am heavily into a ‘healthy body = healthy mind’ mindset (I run marathons and love playing competitive sports), so Keats’s meals were very important to me and I can honestly say they were better than I could have ever imagined – very healthy, very delicious, and a huge selection. Keats welcomes feedback on every level, including its food.

The 1:1 tuition takes place in one of many of Keats’s classrooms. They are modern and well lit, with a marker board.

I requested a new teacher on my 2^nd day of study at Keats school, as I felt my initial teacher lacked the experience I would have liked in order to carry me through 3 months of study - focussing on the HSK syllabus.

This was a very big decision on my part and I was very nervous about making this request as I didn’t want to hurt my teachers’ feelings. But Keats’s senior management put me at ease because they are ‘very’ approachable and really value student feedback – they encourage it often, especially at the start of your tenure at Keats as they know that this is a crucial point in your language learning experience.

I was reassured immediately when senior management said that it was no problem for me to be assigned a new teacher, and they were very understanding of the reasoning behind my request. Literally the next day I had been assigned a new teacher – someone with more experience that suited my learning requirements better (HSK), so my lessons continued without any hold ups.

My previous teacher was very good, and fortunately nothing was taken personally, an indication of how well Keats managed the situation - incredibly professionally and swiftly.

No other students requested a change of teacher during my 3 months at Keats – I was clearly a rare case. I believe that Keats also typically encourages students to change teachers after a couple of months – as a normal learning procedure, as they realise this variety helps develop students faster and helps keep lessons fresher.

My lessons remained very structured and thorough. 4 hours a day is a lot, so the teacher typically gave me hourly breaks so that I could have a comfort break and get a drink. It was also no problem to postpone a few classes if I was tired or hadn’t slept well.

Lessons vary depending on your teachers’ style, and they can easily tailor them to suit your needs or preferences. Typically, my lessons involved learning a series of new words – which the teacher would write on flashcards for me, reviewing old words, forming sentences with old and new words - using key sentence structure which you would also learn progressively. You are also taught the grammar and punctuation rules. My teacher would also ask me to translate sentences from English into Chinese and vice versa.

On Monday’s I’d typically be asked to talk about my weekend, and then try to understand my teachers’ weekend.

I chose to learn a little bit of pinyin (Roman alphabet) rather than hanzi (Chinese characters) as I wanted to focus on speaking and listening rather than reading and writing Chinese characters. My teacher helpfully provided me with hanzi on my flashcards for future self-learning.

Keats has its own branded text book which is actually fantastic, although I didn’t use the textbook in lessons – my teacher always prepared a thorough and varied lesson, which was fantastic.

Occasionally your teachers will take you into the town for an outdoor lesson, so you can learn new and useful words and phrases – or you can just chill out if you like. People in Kunming tend to speak in their local dialect – this is something very common across all of China. However, you can easily ask a local if they speak standard mandarin. All educated people in China learn standard Mandarin at school, so you should not really have any problems provided they have been educated.

Homework would typically involve reviewing old and new words. Making new sentences using learned and new words, and learned and new sentence structures. My homework would typically take me just over 1 hour every night which I found perfectly reasonable and achievable.

The Keats school stays open until quite late in the evening as senior management tend to work incredibly hard around the clock. This is great if, like me, you like to return to the classroom to complete homework in the evenings. It also means you can ask senior management for help on your homework, or sit and chat with them. Jayden and Sheila (senior management) were particularly great at assisting outside of the classroom on any homework matters or development queries.

During my time at Keats, the teachers encouraged us to partake in a day’s activity performance with the teachers on a weekend – a special celebration. It was fantastic, a lot of the students performed instruments, sang songs, created funny plays - where they imitated teachers, etc. The teachers performed similar plays and performances. There is a real spirit about the school – everyone is really warm and friendly.

Students are very varied – all ages, shapes and sizes, religions, backgrounds and cultures. Meal times are great times to chill out and have fun with other students. Keats is particularly great for families who would often come for a few days or weeks at a time. It was actually really refreshing to be in an environment with such varied people.

I’ve noticed that Keats appears to have received criticism about Chinese not really being spoken during meal-times. During my time at Keats, English was typically spoken by students at meal-times. I don’t think this is a negative reflection on Keats, as they encourage you to speak Chinese at meal-times. However, the reality is that when you study mandarin solidly for 4 hours every day, and then do homework for 1-2 hours each night, you actually just need to speak English at meals times for your own sanity, more than anything else.

If I were forced to speak mandarin at meal times – as a beginner, doing the amount of lessons I was – I think it would have likely had a detrimental effect on my general well-being and therefore counteracted my learning development. I’d have probably burnt out and felt very frustrated at not being able to express myself fully.

The thing you very quickly realise about learning a new language is that it is a ‘process’, which times time. It’s best to nurture this learning process naturally, and accept that some days you will feel like you are a great student, and some days you will feel like a not-so-great student.

I’m sure that Keats senior management would happily accommodate a separate arrangement for you if you insisted on speaking mandarin at meal times. They may also have now introduced measures to further encourage students to speak mandarin at meal-times – I’m simply not sure though.

Many students organise weekend trips. I organised a trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge which was epic, and I also visited incredible caves and stone forests. Many students go to the gym and play sports too. It’s very easy to do and very cheap.

The nightlife in Kunming is actually really cool. There are a couple of ex-pat bars, but mainly Chinese bars which are also a lot of fun. The Chinese are very friendly provided you don’t misbehave and just want to have some harmless fun – same as anywhere. Very often I would go out to the local night spots and locals would buy me drinks the moment I started speaking mandarin to them.

Often I would do KTV with a load of Keats’ students to celebrate special occasions like birthdays or to commiserate people leaving – it would be tremendous fun. I noticed that often students with lower social skills or ones with less confidence would often very quickly develop into confident people during their time at Keats. Keats school and the way it integrates everyone and everything in a friendly environment builds character very easily.

I particularly recommend you enrol at Keats if you feel that you would like to also develop more confidence and a great set of friends, along with a new language.

I joined the ex-pat rugby team and football team which were fantastic. I also had a couple of language partners (native students at local universities that wanted to improve their English) who would happily exchange language learning.

I got a part-time job teaching at a local school on Saturday evenings which was a great little earner and very fulfilling.

Teaching jobs are very easy to get – I don’t even have any teaching qualifications. You often hear of part-time students that earn their living teaching English, and enrol in group classes at Keats part-time.

Overall, I cannot recommend Keats highly enough. It truly is awesome!

Other information – I noticed people don’t like ‘1-time posters’ on this forum – the complaint largely being that these ‘1-time posters’ are motivated to be biased for some reason, or perhaps not real students at all, and merely doing the school a favour by posting a very favourable review, and then disappearing and avoiding follow-up questions, etc.

Let me explain my perspective and why it is likely I will be a ‘1-time poster’.

Keats requested that I write a review before I left Keats’ school, as they naturally care about positive feedback helping their business – let’s not forget, they are a business at the end of the day, and want to compete with other schools, ergo, positive feedback about their school helps their cause and can raise business for them.

I left Keats with the full intention of writing an honest review of my positive experience at Keats. I did however forget to do this, but Keats did not chase me in any way. I’ve simply found the time to write it now!

I will likely be a ‘1-time poster’ not because I’m a ‘fraud’ or anything untoward – I simply have a life to be getting on with! Full-time job, girl friend, etc… I cannot really dedicate my spare time to check the forum and respond to follow up queries.

With that in mind, I hope anyone reading this appreciates and recognises that I’ve done my level-best to go into enough detail that I hope it answers most, if not all, of your questions/concerns you may have.

Thanks for reading, and I wish you all the best if you are about to start (or even continue) your mandarin learning journey.

Take care,

Keats 2012 summer student

[abcdefg]

#130 -- Great. A totally glowing "hit and run" review half a year after the fact. Also, you forgot to praise the light bulbs and the toilet paper.

[nath]

Hi all,

I've thoroughly researched this, and am about to hit the buy button for 20 weeks of elementary level classes at the school. Before I do however, I was wondering if anyone could give me some feedback on their experience in classes? My worry is that I am between levels, not being a beginner anymore, but still having issues with tones and the like. Grateful for some feedback from all you lovely people....

I should add that Keats have told me I can change classes if it's too easy/hard, but as someone who has been in China for 9 months now, I don't want to go back to learning my numbers, hello, goodbye etc,...

[abcdefg]

I didn't attend elementary classes there, so I can't say for sure. Mainly wanted to direct you to this page where they have course descriptions:

http://www.keatsscho...s-in-china.html

They design Elementary 1 to serve this group: "Students who have studied Chinese for at least 4 months(160 hours) and are able to recognize 250 Chinese characters and use 350 Chinese words."

And Elementary 2 is set up for: "Students who have studied Chinese for at least 6 months(240 hours) and are able to recognize 350 Chinese characters and use 500 Chinese words."

They also list a beginner level that is more basic than Elementary 1. It's almost surely too easy for you.

It's always difficult to get a perfect fit between what you know and what is being taught in class. It will also vary some from teacher to teacher and according to the level of that particular group of students. As a general rule, I usually stretch to the highest level I think I might be able to do, then if it is too much, I drop back a level.

And if you need specific extra work on something like tones, you can arrange for some additional tutoring on the side. I've always found Keats to be flexible and helpful.

[roddy]

Going to merge this, trying to keep to one topic per school.

[nath]

Thanks Roddy...and to abcdefg for the feedback. I should add that I have just found out Keats have changed the course booklet for next term. They will now use Short-term Spoken Chinese Vol.2 for the elementary level ( http://www.amazon.cn/%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E5%8F%A3%E8%AF%AD%E9%80%9F%E6%88%90-%E5%85%A5%E9%97%A8%E7%AF%87-%E9%A9%AC%E7%AE%AD%E9%A3%9E/dp/B00116CRXA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372067022&sr=1-1&keywords=%E9%80%9F%E6%88%90%E6%B1%89%E8%AF%AD%E5%8F%A3%E8%AF%AD+%EF%BC%88%E4%B8%8B%EF%BC%89) At least for the elementary level anyway.

[abcdefg]

#135 -- Hope it works out well for you. I've used some other books in that series (Short-term Spoken) and liked them just fine.

[wthierry]

HSK Program Feedback

 

My name is Will, I am 38yo and I come from France. I’ve been working in the mobile phone industry as a software engineer for the past 15 years. I often had to cooperate with chinese people in the past. They sometimes were my customers, they sometimes were my managers. Even though the professional language we used was always english, I thought at one point that it would be useful to learn chinese. It seemed to me that it would help me to understand them better, not only on a language point of view but also on a culture point of view.

 

My previous company gave us this opportunity 4 years ago. We were initiated to the pronounciation, to the tones and also to some basic chinese conversation. According to me, learning a language is worth it only if you’re able to use it in the real life and I must admit that this introduction to Chinese language was not enough. Even though I was able to produce some basic sentences, I was clearly unable to understand chinese people during my business trips. I decided to come to Keats during 2 monthes in 2010 in order to improve this. Few weeks one-on-one chinese courses later, my chinese was definitely better. I won’t say I could understand all of it but this was a big step. Back to France, I kept on studying it on my own but this is not that easy while abroad. Business, family, activities are all time consuming, studying chinese too.

 

At the beginning of this year, my company had to face a big merge with another chinese company. Many people from the US and Europe including the french subsidiary located in Paris were fired. As the mobile phone industry has slightly moved to Asia during the past 15 years, job opportunities in Europe are less and less. I thought this was the perfect timing for me to improve once more my chinese skills. This time I was looking for a diploma, an official paper saying to the recruiters I was really able to speak chinese, giving me more chances to find a better position. That is why I came to Keats School at the beginning of this year, go though HSK 4 certification and put this achievement on my resume.

 

HSK is the official PRC standardised exam to assess Chinese language proficiency of non-native Chinese speakers. HSK is conducted at six levels running from 1 to 6. HSK level 4 is for students who have studied Chinese for two academic years, 2-4 classes per week and achieved 1200 words and related grammar points. I would be in Keats during approximately 6 to 7 monthes and teachers warned me it would be tough to reach such a level so quickly. Anyway, I was decided to work hard on it. On October 20, 2013, I successfully passed HSK 4 with a mark of 266/300.

 

While involved in the HSK program at Keats, I had 6 hours chinese per day (3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon) and two fully dedicated teachers. Since HSK certication is composed of three main parts (listening, reading and writing), each teacher would focus more on some parts of the exam.

First of all, I had to learn all HSK 4 words included in the official list. This implies understanding the exact meaning of each word and ensure I know how to use them. This also implies being able to read the associated chinese characters. To do so, teachers pick up new words from the list and prepare some dedicated HSK oriented work everyday (listening to sentences, short texts or dialogues including those new words, filling blanks, flashcards games…). Objective here is to be very familiar with all the vocabulary as quickly as possible. Considering that we would study those new words in the morning and in the afternoon, that we would also review them day after day, each student should be able to learn 30 to 50 new words and associated characters everyday depending on their capabilities. Teachers will also ensure I know all the important grammar points, their structure and how to use them using all sorts of exercices that they would prepare in advance. Once I knew the whole vocabulary, exercices became more and more difficult. Using all sorts of books selected by the Keats HSK group, teachers were trying to fit more and more with the official HSK exam conditions. At some point, when they thought I was almost ready for it, we started to go through some real HSK exams to check where I still could improve.

 

You should know HSK 4 is much more difficult than HSK 3. Regarding the listening part, dialogues and short texts can only be listened once. Teachers will give you some clue on how to detect the key words, how to ensure your answer is correct. Even though you are not able to understand every single word, their methodology will help you a lot. I achieved 97/100 on this part using their method.

Regarding the reading part, timing is tight. You should be able to read quickly and focus on what is important. Teachers will let you know that it is not useful to read and understand every character. Actually, there are even some characters that you never met before during the official HSK exam and this is made on purpose. They expect you to use some logic when replying to the questions. Teachers will teach you how to quickly detect where are the important characters so that you can improve your speed and answer correctly. I achieved 95/100 on this part using their method.

Regarding the writing part, timing is here also very tight. I knew this was my weak point as I started to write chinese character at a late stage. Teachers helped me to enlarge my knowledge, helped me to improve my speed so that I achieved 74/100 on this part. You should work on it everyday as it is very easy to forget them.

 

I discussed many times with other Keats students about the difference between HSK courses and one-on-one courses. Some of them were really sceptical about the content, telling me that the words would maybe not be that useful in the real life but they are wrong. According to me, HSK content is related to the chinese language foundations and are very often used by the chinese people within their everyday life conversations.

Some others told me that I should go to university, it is much cheaper over there but there is a huge difference between Keats and university. Keats will provide you with 2 fully dedicated teachers, they will be completely devoted to you. University deals with group classes. It was clear that being only one student in a class was a great opportunity for me to improve my oral chinese skills everyday.

 

HSK program is a strong personal investment and it should not be under estimated. Once you have completed the 6 hours chinese lessons everyday, you still have to review all of it in the evening and do your homework. Maybe you should forget about going to the bar every evening. Organisation is the key point and you must know where are your weaknesses if you want to achieve a high score. Teachers in Keats are flexible and you can advise them you want to focus more on one part when needed, that’s what I did while preparing the exam. As I was travelling in Asia from times to times, they were also very comprehensive with it and would modify their organization so that it could fit mine and I’m really thankful for it. Now it is time for me to look for a new job and I wish the best to the newcomers preparing HSK certification in Keats. Thank you to all the teachers involved in my HSK preparation.

[abcdefg]

Informative write up. Sounds like you had a lot of drive and got the help you needed. Six hours a day of one-to-one over a period of 8 or 9 months is no walk in the park. Keats has a lot of resources and provides a high quality learning environment. Wish you success in your job hunt.

[Helmut]

I am 68 years old and still looking for challenges. One of my dreams was to study Chinese language. Searching a school, which offers ’1 teacher-1 student’. I found Keats School in Kunming/Yunnan.

From the very beginning my teacher encouraged me to talk Chinese, though my vocabulary was very poor. She continued with her lessons with subjects I like. For me it was the best introduction in Chinese language I could get. I started speaking in various situations.

[black dragon]

Kunming has very bad Mandarin accents.