Confucius Institutes

[Jive Turkey]

The Confucius Institutes are supposed to be the PRC's version of the British Council. You can read about the institutes at Hanban:

http://www.hanban.edu.cn/kzxy__projects.htm

or on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute

Has anyone here studied at one of these institutes? A few months ago, the newspapers here in HK reported that Hong Kong Polytechnic was going to open a Confucius Institute, but their website has no information other than a press release. I'm quite curious about the teaching materials and quality of instruction. According to the Hanban information, the institutes use a series of textbooks called "Great Wall Chinese" [长城汉语]. There seem to be six books in this series. They are shown on the BLCUP online bookstore, but there is no description of them. Has anybody seen these books? How high do they go? Has anybody heard any comments about the quality of teaching at the Confucius Institutes? The quality of the Chinese courses here in HK is pretty low; I'm hoping that the Confucius Institute will have something better to offer.

[roddy]

If Hanban's involved, the chances are no - forums where Chinese teachers gather are full of complaints about Hanban's bureaucracy, incompetence, etc, and I've seen the Hanban seal of approval given to some pretty poor teaching materials. Perhaps the fact that these institutes are presumably going to have to attract students to cover running costs will help.

Roddy

[GV.979]

The Confucius Institute claims to be "non-profit". No matter which country, most gov. run organizations are not run as well private.

By the way Roddy, could you tell us any websites where Chinese teachers congregate?

[roddy]

You can try the Second language learning forums on Beida's BBS (not sure if it's officially Beida's or what now, and there's also Reallychinese.com.cn's forums. I had a quick flick through looking for stuff about Hanban, but didn't see any - you'll just have to trust me.

Hope the institutes are a success, but can't help feeling dubious. Am I right in saying that the British Council, Goethe Institute and Alliance Francais generally have good reputations though?

[GV.979]

Hope the institutes are a success, but can't help feeling dubious. Am I right in saying that the British Council, Goethe Institute and Alliance Francais generally have good reputations though?

Well said. Dubious would seem to be the appropriate word to use in relation to those "non-profit" institutes.