Peter Beer from Australia (the gentleman on the left) & Ling Fang from Beijing (the lady on the right)
Cantonese Private Tuition (20/9,2011 – 24/10, 2012, 84 hours in total)
1. Content
‧ The structure of the student materials was clear and well laid-out. The New Words and Conversations etc sections all worked well to reinforce the vocabulary and subject matter
‧ The content flowed well, from simple everyday topics and vocabulary initially to more sophisticated topics as we moved into the intermediate stage.
2. Teacher
‧ Our teacher, Kaman, was very patient! It was sometimes difficult keeping the class on-track, as one of the students (my wife ) had a habit of leading the conversation off heading on tangents…. But we managed to cover all the relevant content each class
‧ I liked Kaman’s approach of writing relevant words etc onto the white (glass) boards. That helped reinforce various concepts and vocab groups also
3. Organization
‧ Time worked well – I needed a flexible structure because of my travel and it was no problem to do fewer classes a week or cancel if really necessary (giving enough notice)
‧ Communication with the management worked well via email. Very prompt and clear responses
4. Results
‧ We started at Beginners level, and after one year we had reached “Upper Intermediate” (Lesson 64). It helped that my wife is Chinese (but only speaks Mandarin), and I can speak reasonable Mandarin also, but still we made very good progress
‧ My vocabulary is now 500+ words (perhaps closer to 1000), and I can have a conversation (relatively simple), and even though my wife did not revise much each week, she can now understand a lot of Cantonese on TV or when communicating with local Cantonese speakers – so together we are in good shape!
So overall our experience was very positive, and we got lots of benefit from attending Hong Kong Language School. We might even come back for a refresher course at some stage in the future! And we will take Kaman out for dinner sometime soon too!!
