Manda School of Chinese, the first Chinese language school in Hangzhou, has disappeared. Strictly speaking, it has not disappeared, but whose name has been changed to Chinesetown Language Institute. Obviously, there has been major management overhaul. I notice that its website is very confusing. Just to cite some examples. Is its official name Chinesetown Language Institute, or Chinestown School of Chinese, as shown on its contact page? And look at the title on the home page “lean chinese in china’s best Tourist city”. Does the visual look strange to you?
Onto another Chinese language school in Hangzhou. A new language school emerges and it is Mandarin Capital. It was first set up in Beijing and now expands to Hangzhou. If you know of the quality of teaching of the school, do drop a note here.
The TEFL Academy is a private company in China whose main business is teaching English. It now expands into teaching Mandarin at Hangzhou. I mentioned the school before in this blog. It recently set up a new website, call itself great wall mandarin.
There are Nova Language Training Centre, and Babel Language Centre. As TEFL, their main business is teaching English but now they also offer part-time Chinese language courses to expatriates.
All the schools mentioned above are located in the yellow dragon area of Hangzhou. Nova and TEFL are even located on the same floor, and in the same building. Except Babel, all other schools are in modern office buildings with nice classrooms.
Yellow Dragon is a prime business area in Hangzhou - no wonder all the Chinese language schools crowd into the area. It is about 10-minute bike to the famous West Lake, and the third Starbucks in Hangzhou opened there in May 2006, a testimony to the rising importance of the area. The first two Starbucks are in the West Lake area.
For the contact details of the schools, check out the listing here. As for the quality and atmosphere of the schools, then you have to do your own research.
2 comments ↓
Well written blog. I would like to add, Babel Language school is nothing more than a small dirty office run by a woman named Camilla Wang. They are for profit and will lie and cheat at any means. I was involved in a group of teachers that did one of their summer programs two years ago, having 7 years experience teaching in China and more than 15 years teaching abroad, it was the worst run operation I had ever experienced. Some of their actions were outright criminal, which involved threatening teachers with deportation and prison if the teacher did not work their ridiculous schedules.
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