Keats 6hr/day 1:1 Immersion

This was a very successful experience for me! On the whole, the teaching was well designed, and it clearly focused on my needs and specific knowledge.

I had a strong background in Chinese, but have long since forgotten most of it, so I opted for one-on-one lessons for the maximum of 6 hours per day. I mixed up the month by doing 2 weeks at the main campus, 1 week at Xishuangbanna, and 1 week in Chengdu.

The teaching: very good. Six hours a day is not for the faint of heart and if you are new to Chinese you may want to go for four hours a day, but for me it was perfect. Both of my teachers (Ms. Su and Ms. Zhou) were extremely professional and taught to my personal knowledge base while still maintaining a clear structure with active advancement. They provided a good balance of letting me do my best with the language I had and also not letting me develop bad linguistic habits. They provided homework, lesson plans, and focused feedback every day, and they both genuinely seemed to enjoy their jobs and the classroom conversations. While I recognize this is of course their job, it's very motivating to have an enthusiastic teacher.

Locations: The Kunming campus was the liveliest of the three places I stayed, with up to 15-20 students at times during the two weeks I was there. It was very social and there were a lot of activities the school organized. At Xishuangbanna I was the only one at that site at the time, though there are reportedly often multiple students there; one of my teachers traveled with me and we stayed in a nice hotel and did activities every day. It was a great intensive experience and the place itself was very different and interesting. Chengdu is a fantastic tourist city and was a fun week to cap it all off. In my week there the volume of students was up and down, from 5-7 to a very big group; I had someone come visit me at the time and we had plenty of time and support to do our own activities -- the teachers and life advisors were great in helping us figure out how best to organize our own activities.