The Bridge School

I am very happy with the school I selected for Mandarin from among hundreds of possibilities, ranging from university courses to private tutors. It is called the Bridge School (www.bridgeschoolchina.com/). They have long-term training contracts with many corporate clients (e.g., ABB, BMW, ExxonMobil) and embassies (e.g., Germany, Canada), as well as The World Bank, and have been around since 1993.

I go Mon/Wed/Fri from 9.30 - 12.20. The first hour is devoted to grammar and sentence structures. The photo is of our teacher for that part, who is strict, old school, but very good. The other two hours are devoted to speaking practice, using the new sentence patterns / vocablulary, so we really get to speak a lot. There are about 7 of us in the class (2 French women, an Australian, a Belgian, a Finn and a Fillipino). At this level, we use a mix of pinyin and Chinese characters (the next level uses only Chinese characters).

I am amazed myself at how much I've learned in only three lessons this week. By the time you come for a visit, I think you will be surprised at the progress (at least I hope so). It's getting easier day by day.