BCLU Semesters

[newbie2006]

Hi

I am planning to go to Beijing to start from new Mandarin for 6 months. My question is whether I can start the course for 6 months at a different date from September and February.

IE Could I start a 6 month session in March?

Also, I'm taking a career break at 39 and wonder what the mix of ages is like. Would another Uni have a more 'mature' crowd'?

I intend to try to look for work in China afterwards but am unsure what the job market would be like for an expat middle manager?

N

[yonitabonita]

Do you mean the BLCU? Beijing Language and Culture University?

I don't think that BLCU, or any other university will let you start a 6 month course at any time other than the beginning of each semester. I guess from their perspective, it would be too administratively difficult. For maximum flexibility, I'd look into a private school ie Diqiucun etc.

As for age mixes. I can't speak for any other university, or other people's experiences, but I certainly felt old at the BLCU. (I'm 30) I'm older than all my teachers, and all the students in my class. Going from first principles, this experience will be the same everywhere. Like you, I'm on a career break. Most friends that are my age are getting their second car, paying off their house mortgages, and having kids. It's not to say there aren't older people around the university. We're just waaaaay outnumbered. It can sometimes be a bit of a solitary experience, but not altogether bad. It's fun listening to my classmates talk about their latest date, their drunken antics, general world views. I've often thought they'd make wonderful documentary material.

I'm not aware of any sort of 'over 21' social gatherings outside the X country Chamber of Commerce meet, greet and schmooze networking evenings. Maybe someone else might know..

good luck

[bianfuxia]

Hi Newbie,

This is my first post too.

I am a 33-yr old "career breaker" just winding up my first semester of beginners' Chinese at the BLCU. I'm a white-boy from Australia (info provided as a cultural back-ground to what follows).

Here are my observations. I hope they are helpful to you.

1. I was in a class of 22. There was a German guy around my age and a Japanese fellow a little older. Everyone else was about 18-25, mostly in the lower range of that bracket. They are all nice people and we socialise together, but I think you would find yourself amongst the oldest of your class. You may well be older than the teacher.

2. In my first class, which I left after kicking up a stink and demanding to be switched (like many things at the BLCU, this is nominally "against regulations" - but I really insisted), I found it quite difficult to adjust to being back in a classroom environment. I don't mean a learning environment, but a school class-room environment. It is NOTHING like university in Australia or the UK, where I have studied, or, I assume, Western Europe or the US. For a week or two I really objected to be being treated like a 12 year old. I was all "I'm a lawyer with xxx salary and xxx staff reporting to me, blah blah, wtf etc". I got over it soon enough but it can be a shock.

3. The teaching environment is VERY school-like and nothing at all like learning languages at uni in Australia (I studied German for 2 years there). Here is what you will do as a beginner: (more observations about the environment follow after these dot points).

. recite after the teacher - first simply sounds, then words, then ultimately whole paragraphs. You'll recite it as a class. With 22 people, I actually believe this is a poor technique. Sometimes you can't even hear your own voice and consequently you can't tell if your tones are out, or even if you're actually saying the right word. The outcome appears to be that the class can recite a passage - not necessarily understand it or use those words flexibly in other scenarios. Rather like learning the lyrics to a song in another language.

. answer questions based on these recited texts. The teacher will move around the class and ask you questions drawn from the text. They expect the "right" answer. They seem surprised if you offer up something different. To her eternal credit, the lovely teacher I had after I switched classes would say something like "Ah, well your grammar is correct, but," and then she would say the correct answer for me to repeat. If you want to know what to do, find a Japanese or Korean student and copy them. As a "general" rule - I don't mean to stereotype - they seem more comfortable with this approach than western-educated people (at least initially).

. come exam time you will get examples from the various texts you have covered in class. In the grammer test, you have to correct sentences drawn from these texts. In the spoken test, you have to read out a text that draws heavily from the ones you studied in class.

. that is more or less it. Each lesson you cover a new subject area (it could be the weather, or studying, or describing your home town) and you'll wind up knowing a small text off by heart.

. each lesson you normally cover a new grammatical point that is incorporated into the text.

4. Overall I feel that there must be a better way. That said, we covered a lot of vocabulary and a lot of grammar. It must be a good basis. But after one semester, I am pulling out to try a different approach.

5. Alot depends on you. If you want, you can easily find something in common with 18 year olds. I have lunch with my classmates, we talk about all kinds of things, and I always work that little bit harder not to come over as the "dreaded mature age student" that I used to hate when I was an undergrad! We've hung out at the soccer during the World Cup, and always found plenty to talk about. But if you want to shoot the breeze with people about career issues or mortgage problems you'll probably have trouble finding someone who is interested (probably among your own age group too, hah hah, god knows if someone raised that with me I'd roll my eyes and get the hell out of there! But as you're on a career break I assume you want to get away from all that crap.

6. It's easy to make friends in a huge place like Beijing. You can easily meet people out, but also over the internet. There are plenty of cafes and such places where you can find notices about activities too. Just the other day I learned of a film club down the road from BLCU on Chengfu Lu. The flipside is, it is hard to make Chinese friends as a beginner - in my experience. Perhaps when my Chinese is better...

Overall assessment: BLCU as a career break is not a long term option. I think it provides a good basis and gives you the basics to be going on with on your own, mixing up with maybe a smaller school, some tutoring, language partners etc. Particularly as a raw recruit, I think these latter ideas only become plausible after a little basic training. There's not much point to having a language partner when you can only say Ni Hao. Once you've got the basics though, I think you'll find the BLCU approach far too restrictive.

As a social experience it really depends on you. There are plenty of mature 18 year olds out in the world and there are probably equally as many really petty superficial people in their 30s or even older.

Anyway I hope this helps.

I stress that these observations are my personal opinions only, drawn from my personal experiences. The next person may have an entirely different view.

Good luck!

Richard (aka Bianfuxia aka "Batman")

(At BLCU they will give you a dumb Chinese name generally based on the nearest phonetic translation of your name. I got li cha de （里查德）which I don't like at all. Later I decided I wanted 蝙蝠侠

which I am told means Batman. (I saw the cartoon and thought "cool" and asked how to say "Batman"). I haven't tried to change it at BLCU because I don't want them to think I am being rude or flippant. But if people ask me my name, I will say (as soon as I learn how) "well, my nickname is bianfuxia". Perhaps that should be my "study goal" for today.

So: last piece of advice - choose a name you like and ask them to use that when you first enrol.

[adrianlondon]

I'm 37 and will be starting at BNU this September. I'll probably be the oldest in my class (and be surrounded by teenage Koreans and Japanese) but I don't care.

BNU is pretty strict; BLCU is more flexible and I think you could start a SHORT course whenever you like within reason, but not semester-long ones.

[newbie2006]

Hi All

Thanks for the reply. It's a gamble whether to do the course. I'm in the running for expat jobs in China but am just missing the basic language skills (I guess speaking more than writing).

I've read everything and am a bit more confused which school to go to now.

I'm not really in favour of the repeat system but I guess that will be the same everywhere, except private schools.

I've heard good and bad about all the places but very little about the methodology at Beida?

Also, is it a real hassle for foreigners to rent an apartment (good one) inHaidian?

Txs for the help:)

[Radial]

I took the a one month program at BCLU during December/January... and I was one of only a few older students (46 y/o) in the program. We probably had a few more... because of the short time period.

I found the teachers very good and the program very solid. Yes, they tend to go by the book... but they have a lot of experience in teaching Chinese... and it is worthwhile to follow they suggestions and guidance.

There will always be a little bit of a dilema... because of the number of students in the class... and the variety of levels. Try to get yourself placed correctly early. I have learned the hard way that it is usually go to be back a few levels (where you are the star of the class and reinforcing your base)... rather than at the cutting edge (and not understanding anything.)

You might consider living nearer to the business district, so that you can interact easily with the business community. I stayed in Sanlitun... which meant a commute in the morning... but a better base for the afternoon and evening...

Regards

[Madot]

Well, I guess I'm going to be the "Grandma" of the course when I go to BLCU in September! I will, in fact, be celebrating my 60th birthday in Beijing in November. I did something similar in Italy a few years ago, however, and it was fantastic. Age didn't matter at all. Of course there I was a super-advanced student and here I will be a beginner... But it seems to me that being language students in the midst of a foreign culture, you have a great deal in common already. So who needs to talk about the kids, the mortgage, etc.?

More worrying to me, as a former language teacher, is the class repetition and memorisation business. Pity if that's all they do. Can anyone else comment on this? Is this the usual way it's done at BLCU?

Mado

[Roee]

"1. I was in a class of 22."

'nuff said.

Personally, for the purpose of obtaining language skills, I would never attend any class that has that many students. 22??? Pass.

I have no doubt that a less "experienced/known" school where the class only has 5 would be far far more effective.

[yonitabonita]

Madot,

I was at the BLCU for semester 1 this year. Originally I'd planned to stay for a year, but I feel so strongly that the teaching method is wrong (for me at least), that I'm putting myself through a mountain of administrative hassles just to get out.

Admittedly, a lot of the dissatisfaction I feel with the BLCU has to do with the fact I'm from a Chinese ethnic background.

But aside from that, my experience of the "read everything out loud with the rest of the class" to be pretty useless. My experience was exactly the same as that described by Bianfuxia so there's no need to repeat it all. I drowned in that sea of tones. Every time we recited, each person in the class seemed to interpret each word in a different tone. The harmonising might have sounded nice but it wasn't particularly useful. If you're a beginner and unsure of tones, I imagine it could well be a nightmare.

That said, I imagine it will be the same everywhere other than some private schools where Western pedagogical methods are used. My teachers and their teachers would have rote learned and recited. Unless they've gone on to learn other methods of teaching (and not many have such an opportunity), this is the only way they know how to teach.

My coping strategies:

- getting language cds and doing them on my own.

- going to Diqiucun after class

- making sure I got interesting material to read to break up the mindnumbing boredom of the BLCU texts. Boring texts are ok if you just have to face them for a little while, but we were expected to be VERY familiar with the content of the text for exams, not just the grammatical points they may have contained. This required memorising slabs of paragraphs. I shudder still. Anyway, I used textbooks that teach how to read Chinese newspapers, Chi/Eng story books on Chinese mythology etc. I know you're a beginner, but somewhere along the way you might want to look at doing this.

Newbie 2006:

No problem getting an apartment for foreigners. I found mine looking at That's Beijing's website which has more accommodation listings than I can handle. Alternatively you can go to Sculpting in Time Cafe and look at the notice board to the left of the entrance. Stacks of stuff but I've never them out. Anyway, easy peasy.

Hope it's helpful.

y

[Madot]

Yonitabonita,

Thanks SO much for sharing all of that. Shame about all that repetition. There's so very much more they could be doing, but as you say, one tends to teach the way one has been taught, especially if not given the opportunity to study abroad.

Just one dumb question-- you said one of your strategies was to go to Diqiucun. What's that???

And, by the way, were you doing the very beginners' course? Is there any kind of 'in-between' course? I mean, I am not a total beginner, but there's no way that I know the 800 characters which they said were required for the intermediate course. Is there nothing in-between?

Mafan nin le. But thanks for your help.

Mado

[yonitabonita]

No worries at all.

Diqiucun is a private school in Wudoukou within walking distance from the BLCU. They only charge 12 yuan per hour of teaching which is extremely cheap. They also run a whole load of courses: speaking, newspaper reading, learning Chinese through movies, HSK training etc. A quick search on this site should get you their contact details etc. but their site is in Korean. If you don't read Korean, it's not very helpful. What makes Diqiucun attractive is that you get 3 classes for free to try out the teacher etc. If you don't like the style you can change and change and change again. (for free)

I didn't go in as a complete beginner, but near enough. I studied Mandarin 12 years ago, as a beginner. I did the placement test and they put me into into a class which started at chapter 30. I'm not sure how many characters chapter 30 assumes, but my guess is less than 800. They have classes that begin at chapter 45, 60 etc.

I hope this answers your questions.

Y

[newbie2006]

HI

Thanks for all the feedback but I have some more queries regarding BLCU.

Could you start a 3 month course within a semester say November this year? Then at the end of 3months sttart another 3 months?

Or are all courses starting at the semester times regardless of length?

N:)