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OPDS (Overseas Personal Development Service) Chinese Study Tour
Professional Qualified Mandarin Teachers and Chinese Partner Students take you through a life long experience of
China!
Formed in 1996, the company has over ten years’ experience of doing business in China. Through our well established
offices in Beijing and London, OPDS offers you a wide range of programmes in the areas of training and educational
tours. The unique experience you will gain will enhance your life tremendously.
The Chinese Study Tour is based in Beijing and has a two week core programme, which you can extend to three weeks.
It caters for three levels of Chinese (elementary, intermediate and advanced), to enable students of similar abilities
to be grouped together for teaching purposes. A typical three week programme is shown at Appendix 1. Class sizes will
be kept to a maximum of 10 students.
Programme
General Chinese
General Chinese lessons are offered four mornings per week in Week 1 and five mornings per week in weeks 2 and 3.
Students concentrate on all 4 major components of speaking, listening, reading and writing. Activities are designed to
improve fluency, pronunciation and grammatical accuracy.
Academic Chinese
For students who are studying Chinese as an academic course in high school or university, up to three afternoons
per week can be devoted specifically to their examination needs, either in a group setting or on a 1:1 basis. These
classes incur a small additional charge.
Teachers and Teaching Materials
Only qualified and professionally trained teachers are recruited on to the programme so that maximum benefit can be
obtained from the classroom time. Some teachers have experience in teaching GCSE Chinese. Only Chinese is allowed to
be spoken while the student is on the school premises.
Each student will receive appropriate teaching materials commensurate with their level of Chinese that will be used
for teaching purposes.
Activities
The OPDS Chinese Study Tour specifically contains a wide variety of sporting, social and cultural activities that
will appeal to the group at large. On the first day in school every student will give a brief introduction of themselves
so that they can identify others in the group with whom they may wish to make friends outside the classroom.
Age Range
The flexible programme can cater for students from age 9 upwards.
Accommodation
Host Family
We strongly believe that you will benefit most from the cultural aspect of the visit if you stay and mix with a host
family who have children of the same age as yourself. Every effort is made to match your age, ability and interests
with that of a Chinese student. All host families will be personally vetted by OPDS staff to ensure their suitability
for the student.
School Residence
Student residence accommodation can be provided in shared rooms for same sex students.
Meals
Students usually have breakfast and evening meal in their chosen accommodation and lunch is taken at school. Some
days, however, have allocated visits to restaurants or food markets so that students can appreciate the variety of
cuisine on offer in China.
Transport
Where students elect to stay with a Host Family, it is the Host Family's responsibility to ensure they are safely
transferred to and from the school every day, according to the programme.
Airport Transfer
From the moment you land in Beijing you will be met by a member of the OPDS team who will transfer you to your chosen
accommodation.
Management Control and Communication
The programme is managed on a daily basis by the OPDS Beijing office, who have Chinese staff fluent in English and
Mandarin. These staff report to OPDS Head Office which is managed by Sunny Jiang, to whom any questions can be addressed at
any time. Sunny can be reached on 00 44 20 8660 8869 or 00 44 7808 400 698 or by e-mail on info@opds.co.uk.
Please visit the OPDS website for both the UK and China.
© 2006 Clifton College
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