Just wanted to add my experience to the discussion for those in the future to consider. Take it as you will.

I can't compare others but can say my KCEL experience was not good. If you are a true beginner like I was, you had better hope that you get placed in a class with other true beginners. I joined the most basic class available. There were only three students. One however was far from a beginner. The teacher did nothing to address the discrepancy in level, advancing ever faster with this individual student. The other student in the class quit. I followed a couple weeks later in frustration.

The teacher claimed she was very sorry and there was nothing she could do. Granted its not easy to teach different levels in one class. But I saw very little effort from the teacher and generally got an attitude somewhere between I dont care/why don't you understand. Somehow the onus was mine alone.

I've since gotten a tutor, am making more progress, and enjoying the process considerably more. Maybe some get lucky and get put in the right class with the right teacher. But my opinion is KCEL doesn't really care much about their students.

Also trying to deal with the tuition, visa, fees — after quitting was not fun. I had no power because they already had my money...and I was subsequently nickle and dimed....I would never go back to KCEL, nor would I recommend it to others — I don't know about the other schools in Kunming but they can't be worse.

It is worth noting that the original thread posting is from 2011.

We have all had bad experiences with schools.

Basically one size does not fit all.
Basically true beginners will have real problems studying Chinese.

This is China, a culture where those who cannot keep up get left behind.
Resurrecting old threads (plural) and multiple posting makes it look like an attempt to punish someone. It makes it look like the school may not be the problem. Maybe BCD.

I have no connection with KCEL, but I have just read The Chimp Paradox, as recommended on here.

No school is going to be perfect and everyone will have bad experiences, but just because you personally have had a problem doesn't mean that the whole institution of KCEL "doesn't care about it's students" as you claim. This shows a real lack of reason on your part.

In a class you can't just rely on the teacher to hold your hand and give you everything you want. A student has to take responsibility and actively use the teacher as a learning resource. If you're incapable of doing that in a class of THREE, then I suggest you need to examine your level of motivation.

To be honest mate, posting the same whining post on three different threads just makes you come across as really bitter. Like you're trying to find someone to blame for your own lack of progress. If you find yourself in a class of more advanced students - wonderful! More motivation for you to push yourself, work twice as hard. Don't just complain about it and give up.

If you really can't keep up. I think most private schools would let you suspend your study until your skill levels have caught up, and then allow you to resume where you left off, on a later course. This means you don't ask for a refund, and they are usually happy. The only issue they would have would be the visa, but most things are flexible.

And the other thread is from 2009!

The same thing happened during Spanish class when I was studying in England. Sometimes teachers get carried away when one or two students are a little bit more used to the language than the rest of the class. In this case, me and two classmates had a bit more experience in Spanish and this attracted the teacher to make longer conversation with us. It's probably because she was a bit happier to be using more vocabulary words and thought that the rest of the class was the same.

When a few other classmates started to regularly ask what some words or sentences meant, or that they didn't understand something, I realised what was happening and went to talk to the teacher one day after class and asked her if it wasn't better to adjust the focus in the class and stay at the same pace with what was taught in the book. Since I am not a very talkative person, it wasn't a problem for me to sit back until we all got at the same level. Although for one of my other classmates, it was a bit frustrating.

What you and your classmate did was actually the opposite of what should have happened. It should have been the other student who left the class, or he should have at least waited until you got to the same level as him/her. However, sometimes people don't realise and can't see what's happening if you aren't explicitly saying what the problem is. You and your classmate could have talked to teh teacher after class and made her realise that there was an issue.

Having studied Chinese beginner courses, and failed, I have seen no material suitable for' true beginners'.

The pinnacle of teaching books, for most teachers, is the Beijing Language and Culture Institute/Uni series. One area where BJ WenHua Inst. really fails is tingli (list. comp.). The conversations may be rudimentary, but quickly become full conversations in natural mandarin (not dumbed down), full sentences in gr not yet taught. The best bit is that the Q&A in the book, although multiple choice, is all written in Hanzi. Basically you need to have finished the course to have learned most of the characters used. And this is in the first week.

The reason this posted across different threads is as far as I can tell KCEL does not have a reviewable profile. If they did I'd have written one and left it at that. My main intent was that in the future when people search gokmg about KCEL my opinion will be there to read. Some have great experiences with them, so people can weigh the good and the bad and make their own decisions.

If I had read a post such as I wrote, perhaps would have reconsidered. At a minimum I might have been better prepared for what was to come. If that came across as bitter... its simply because I was treated poorly there and walked away with a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe my frustration came through the writing more than I wanted it to. My main intent was not to be vindictive by slandering them online. A certain number of people will dismiss what I say as sour grapes. Thats fine.

I'm not going to backtrack and list all the ways my post was misinterpreted or all the false assumptions made about me. Other than to say I really don't know how some of you got from A to B. I guess I should have expected this from Gokmg. I don't think I'll be posting much in the future. Very little seems to come of any of it.

Maybe if you only posted once, things would have been different.

Fair enough dude; not knowing you personally and not having directly witnessed what you describe I guess it's not right to judge. But it seemed a bit odd posting three times, like you were on some kind of a school-bashing rampage