A Day in the Life of Next Step China’s Intensive Tutoring Program

By Holly Priestland

Obviously every person’s schedule will be different depending on how and when you want your lessons scheduled. I had one lesson in the morning and one in the afternoon, which suited me, but some people may prefer to have it all grouped into the morning so their afternoons are free to go see more. Personally, I knew I would be coming back to Beijing again, so having time to visit the tourist areas wasn’t as important to me; getting my level of Chinese up was my main priority!

I had one lesson that started at 10 am (enough time to sleep if you got in at 3am… or to get up and do your homework from the day before!) until 12. In the first lesson I was studying from New Practical Chinese Reader 3, a well respected and often used series of text books (also the same series we use at university). Having one-to-one teaching here is really important; when you are going through the text, you can adjust the speed you study at, choose whether you want to focus on vocabulary, grammar, or general reading skills etc.

Because of the time my lesson finished I would sometimes go for lunch with my tutor, which was great for my Chinese! I think this is one of the best aspects of the Next Step China tutoring program over other programs; the tutors are not just your teachers whilst in a lesson who just leave after their time is up, they actually care and are there to support you and help you improve your language as much as they can. Afterwards, I would still have a couple of hours in which I would normally do my homework from the first lesson and learn all the new vocabulary the best I could (you learn A LOT). Self study is the main factor that decides how fast your Chinese will improve, so I personally spent a lot of time doing it. However I would stress that it is not necessary if you do want to have time to do other activities so I wouldn’t take the amount of studying I did as a guideline!

Then I would have my second lesson in the afternoon. You have a separate tutor for each lesson and the material you study is different. I said I really wanted to improve my spoken Chinese, so the textbook I had for this lesson focused on spoken Chinese and commonly used colloquial phrases. I liked the book I used in this lesson so much that I have actually continued to study the 2 books after it in the series with my Chinese tutor in Dalian. My flatmate also had her lesson at this time, so afterwards we would normally do something together before going to dinner with everyone!

Some days I would also be doing review tests (every few lessons) and general vocabulary tests to check how well I had been studying. The amount of homework you get varies but generally I would be writing sentences for all my new vocabulary most days, just to check you are understanding what you are learning. Again, anything you don’t want to do or think you would like to add is easy to do, but I liked having homework and tests as it meant I was much more motivated to study!!

Although it obviously shouldn’t be your main priority (or should it?), I would quickly like to add that the nightlife around Wudaokou (the area you are staying in) is really fantastic and also really safe! You can meet a lot of other students also studying Chinese and it is nice to hear their experiences, as well as relaxing at the end of a long day of studying (and maybe shopping). If you aren’t one for the nightlife scene, our flat had a great TV and DVD player, so sometimes my flatmate and I would do some marathon sessions of TV series you can buy around the area! And obviously did some studying as well…

All in all, I think this program is a great choice for anyone because it is so flexible and will be tailored depending on your priorities in coming to Beijing and how you want to spend your time. The tutors are all properly qualified and experienced, and there is no better or faster way to improve your Chinese.