What Sets Us Apart
Here at Chinese School Online we believe that our teaching team sets us apart from other Chinese schools and study methods. Whether you are living in China or not, it can be notoriously difficult to find a professional, fully-qualified and experienced Chinese teacher – it’s important to remember that not everybody who speaks Chinese can be a good teacher – it takes much more than this.
So we have made it our mission to ensure that our team is made up of the very best teachers from all over China – we’re extremely careful about our selection process and we maintain our high standards in the following ways:
Full-Time Only
Unlike many other Chinese schools, we hire all of our teachers on a full-time basis, ensuring that the entirety of their energy and professional focus is on their students. They spend each working day in the CSO classrooms, teaching, prepping and developing new resources at our Beijing campus, so if you need to change a class time your teacher will be able to reschedule easily. We value our teachers very highly, which means that we experience very low attrition – you’re highly unlikely to lose your teacher after a month or two due to ‘employment issues’.
Qualifications
Our teaching team come from a wide range of academic backgrounds and they’re all graduates from leading Chinese universities, educated to at least degree level and often hold a masters qualification in their chosen field. We ensure that our teachers hold a diverse range of degrees in subjects such as business, law, finance and Chinese culture, to name but a few, so that, if required we can match you with a teacher who has specialist knowledge in your area of interest.
Experience
Most of our teachers also have majors in teaching Chinese to non-native speakers and have at least one year’s teaching experience in addition to their native language skills. They receive ongoing training that is specifically tailored towards online Chinese courses, and we’re confident that, whatever your learning requirements, we have the right teacher for you.
Location
Our teachers are trained to teach Mandarin using the standard Beijing dialect and accent, and are all based in the capital city. This is hugely important when you bear in mind that not all Chinese people speak Mandarin Chinese – more than fifty individual languages are spoken within the country’s 1.4 billion strong population, with countless more local dialects on top of that. So, it’s essential to learn in, or from, a city where Mandarin is the local dialect. Not only is this true of Beijing, but the standard Mandarin dialect is actually modeled on the speech of native Beijingers. As a result, Beijing has an unparalleled reputation for producing ‘text-book’ Chinese speakers, and foreigners who learn Chinese in Beijing are generally regarded as having ‘authentic’ tones, pronunciation and expressional range.
Diversity
Our teachers live in Beijing, but they are recruited from all over China. We recommend that you change teachers once every two to three months in order to experience new teaching styles, familiarize yourself with different accents and voice pitches, and ensure that lessons stay fresh and exciting. However, if you find a teacher you’re really making progress with we’re happy to keep things as they are for as long as you want.
Passion, Patience, Diligence
Every member of our team is passionate about the Chinese language, and keen to pass this passion on to their students. You’ll find that our teachers are extremely committed to their job – which is to ensure that you are able to learn Chinese in an enjoyable, professional and patient environment. We’re so confident in the quality of our teaching team and our programs that we offer a money back guarantee if you’re unsatisfied after your first month of classes. So why not get started at our Chinese school online?
