Learning English in Nanning

[Guest Tony n Terrific]

My wife and I have discussed her English speaking abilities. She is fair with it but she wishes to improve on it. She said there are a lot of ESL schools in Nanning and there are many to choose from. Does anyone have any recomendations for a good English school in Nanning, China Or possibly a self help home course in English as well as writing.

Edited May 27, 2008 by Tony n Terrific (see edit history)

[dnoblett]

There are some good websites for this, MIT for one offers free online courses, I don't know if "The Great Firewall of China" will block the links though.

 

I Posted this a while back:

 

http://candleforlove.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28355

 

As for schools, others may have Ideas.

[jim_julian]

Tony, my wife took classes for a few months at a very ordinary traditional ESL school in Chongqing. Not much benefit. I sat in on a couple of the classes on one of my visits and it was obvious that the quality of instruction and the knowledge of the instructor were not the best ... to say the least.

 

Our daughter had 90 days of free time in China before she came to the US and we surveyed a number of different types of English schools. She enrolled in Metro English. Metro has schools in a number of cities but I can't seem to find their website to see if they are in Nanning. Rather than the specific school I think it's the style that counts; points to look for ...

 

- At least 50% of staff are native English speakers (US, UK, Can, Aus, NZ)

- In addition to classes there is computer based training

- The school is open 12 or more hours per day and the students can spend as much time as they'd like

- They give a placement test

- There are core courses you enroll in and then lots of optional activities such as: as much computer lab as you like, conversation sessions by ability once or twice a day, American movies and TV available on daily basis, etc

- Each student is assigned a faculty mentor, you as husband, can talk to the mentor on the phone frequently (or e-mail) concerning your wife's progress.

 

We found several schools like this in Chongqing so I'm sure they can be found in Nanning. The charges were by the month with extra days given for holidays or unavoidable absence like a trip to GZ. The students were of all ages, from teens to seniors.

 

We found this type of school to be vastly superior to the "plain old class" type. Our daughter learned a lot and still chats with some of her classmates and instructors.

[C4Racer]

Jim has a excellent idea if you can find this type of school.

She also has some other options. I would stay away from the normal school where they add English. Like Jim, I sat in on a few classes during my first trip. It was quite apparent very few were really going to learn how to speak English very good. After this, I talked with my wife. We decide for her to get a personal tutor. This improved here English a lot. My wife is from Nanning, PM me if you want the name and phone number of her tutor.

[chef4u]

All great suggestions above. Lilyana went to Weibo School, located in the Tai An Da Sha Building. Lilyana said that everybody in Nanning knows this building... Before she started, her English was Mensa Mensa at best. She started at their beginners course and finished after completing the intermediate course. During one of my visits, she gave me an extra copy of her text books. So, we would practice English many of days when we would see each other on our web cams. I was amazed how quickly she picked up both speaking and reading....hope this helps. Please give my best to all....

[Guest Tony n Terrific]

Thank you fellows for your information.