I am wanting to improve my Chinese, for two reasons: I am applying to grad school this fall and I do not think my language ability is up to snuff, and if grad school falls through, then Chinese is a pretty good language to know in the business world.
So you constantly hear about going to China to teach English. I have found some companies on the Net, but I am leery of them. Does anyone have any information about who to contact, how to go about this, etc.?
And if going to China is out, then I would like to go to an immersion program in the US. The only one I have found is at Middlebury, but that is very very expensive. Surely there are some alternatives?
Additionally, my time frame is either the spring semester or over the summer. I am looking for no more than two or three months, really.
Go to China. There is absolutely no other way to immerse yourself.
There are thousands of places to teach English. When I was there last year, they were almost grabbing people off the street to employ them as teachers (particularly in Chengdu, though I suspect southern China would be even more fruitful). I met many people who had just been employed to teach English by dint of them being white, including a German guy who spoke heavily accented English as a second language - they had no idea he wasn’t a native English speaker.
Well, I took my ex-girlfriend on that route before - or more accurately, she made me go - and after that my wife, and both of them had a fantastic time.
Evidence: before she went to bed just now, my wife has been badgering me all evening as to how the hell we could go back to China ASAP.
Try looking for a program that’s associated with a US institution so you can contact them. Also look for programs meeting accreditation or certification standards that you’d be able to investigate.
Go to your local university’s career center and ask to see information on studying in China. In addition, ask if they have information on teaching programs. You may need to educate them about Mandarin vs. Cantonese.
I’m not in touch with the English teaching market. However, as a student of Chinese and student of China you’ve got 2 choices.
Pick an area where they speak Mandarin or something pretty close as the mother tounge
Pick a really cool area that you really want to check out and resign yourself to the fact that most people there speak Mandarin as a second language. Any major city will have people that speak decent Mandarin as a second language but usually with a light accent.
I can help litmus test if a place is either of the above. China is full of places where they don’t speak Mandarin and it is just a shithole.
China Guy, what can you tell me about Xi’an? A professor putme in contact with a school there. It looks like it has a lot of history, but what is the place like?
I’m not China Guy, and nor do I play him on TV, but here are my impressions of Xi’an written when I was there for a week last year. In short, I liked the main “within the walls” city a lot, but wasn’t so sure about the sprawling high-rise suburbs.
hmm, i’ve never been to Xi’an. really big tourist city, and I would definitely check the weather and air quality. it’s pretty north and should be semi-desert.
i’ve known a lot of people from xi’an, and they speak fadt with northern type accent. i’m pretty sure the xi’an dialect is difficult to understand. however given all the tourism, I suspect most people can speak reasonable mandarin when they want to.
personally, I much prefer sw china, especially if you are interested in non-han chinese culture and people. kunming , yunnan province for example has great food, weather and speak good mandarin, and has a lot of really interesting places to visit in the province. from tibet to ethnic thai, burmese, hmong, etc
