Confucius Institute, Manchester (Advanced Mandarin 5-6 course)

September 22, 2019 at 05:53 AM

Hello,

I’ve signed up for this course at the University of Manchester starting on 9 October and just wondered if anyone else has studied at this Confucius Institute before? What are the teachers like? (I’ve only been into the reception area and haven’t met any of the teachers yet.)

I passed HSK 5 back in 2015 and am hoping to pass the 6 soon. Has anyone on here taken the above-mentioned course before (perhaps at another Confucius Institute – I’m sure the course materials will all be the same)?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

September 22, 2019 at 01:29 PM

7 hours ago, Milkybar_Kid said:

What are the teachers like?

I've never attended any CI classes, or any other Chinese classes anywhere for that matter, but I've met probably a dozen or more teachers from the Manchester CI (as well as some of their parents) going back ten years.

As far as I can gather, the teachers are all either recent graduates or teacher trainees of some kind recruited from China by Hanban on short-term contracts. I've yet to meet or hear of a male CI teacher, though I'm prepared to believe they do exist.

All the teachers I've met were polite and articulate, and seemed committed to imparting Chinese to their pupils.

The quality of CI teachers, at least in my neck of the woods, is currently under threat; I can't really go into too much detail here, but Hanban has been quite uncompromising lately in renegotiating accommodation contracts for their CI employees in Manchester in a way that makes the prospect of working for them considerably less attractive than it once was.

October 7, 2019 at 04:48 PM

Zbigniew is right. I am attending classes at Confucius institute since last year and I met two teachers from Beijing. Both of them were still students, very young (early twenties), polite and their knowledge of English was excellent. They get back to China this summer and now I have new teachers.

April 20, 2020 at 09:02 AM

Just realised that I forget to reply to this when I completed my course all of those months ago. Anyway, I completed my course and it was great! The teacher was really helpful, provided a good amount of materials and I met some great people on a Wednesday evening. However, I must also point out that it's very teacher-dependent. I also met a few students doing other courses who weren't very happy with their teachers so your mileage really may vary.

March 31, 2025 at 12:18 PM

The course is good value. But after studying with Confucius institute Manchester for many years you do get teachers who push an agenda and seem to be quite narrow minded if you speak out against their view. While covid was happening many of the classes were propaganda about how china was managing the epidemic well and critisizing Englands response. It wasn't a debate more so a lecture at times. Along with weird classes laughing at British food. The teacher at the time Lucy who I now think is the head, completely put me off carrying on any study with them. Take their agenda with a pinch of salt , but the other students were friendly and helpful.

I speak fluently hsk6 now and lived in china many years but and felt this gave me a perspective that students new to learning mandarin might not have with how some of the teachers push their material.

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Confucius Institute, Manchester (Advanced Mandarin 5-6 course)

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