My name is Sarah Fish. I am 81. I knew very little Chinese when I arrived. How was I going to survive 2 weeks of intensive Chinese course? I have to laugh when I think of that now. What a positive experience this has been! I really wish we could be here a little longer. The teachers are extremely encouraging, evaluating first how much someone knows, and then starting from there.

One thing I really liked was that I was able to work with my teacher to make an individual plan of study. Another really nice thing is that you live at the school, you feel completely safe.  You always have a group of people who are willing to do things with you on the weekends or in the evenings. They are serving you all the 3 meals a day, the food was excellent.

We use a lot of games to learn grammar and new words. We have really good teachers, really patient. She helps us a lot. Our class is really nice and we have people from all over the world, different countries. We often discuss topics in Chinese in our class. I live in the dorm of Keats. It is very convenient. I don’t have to spend time traveling. You can just focus on learning Chinese.

I have studied at Keats for 2 semesters. I highly recommend Keats School. If you are very interested in taking a Mandarin course in China, I would suggest you come to Kunming. Kunming people are very friendly. The weather in Kunming is great. So I recommend that you study Chinese at Keats in Kunming.

I am a graduate student working on my doctorate degree at Columbia University. We were able to really focus on speaking especially interview-style speaking and we are able to really up my Chinese reading and writing skills, so when I go back to Columbia, I can take formal Chinese classes. It has been a really good experience and I really love my teacher.

About studying Chinese here, I think the living condition is very convenient because the dorm is very close to the classroom. Our teachers really enjoy teaching Chinese. They are also very passionate. Compared with other cities in China, Kunming has really good weather.

They really care about what our interests are, what questions we have, what requirements we have. Then they adjust our Chinese language program content according to the situations. One teacher and one student, so it is easy to keep your focus for the 6 hours of immersion Mandarin lessons. It is very convenient to study, live and eat in one building.

I have really enjoyed the Chinese course in China at Keats and meeting the teachers here and the students. We have a lot of fun in class. It is a really great school to learn with good teaching methods and a really good textbook, examples and games, and everything.