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Getting a Mandarin Tutor

By Lainey | November 24, 2007

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Tutoring foreigners is a lucrative profession among Shanghainese. A lot of Shanghainese get into tutoring for easy money and to meet foreigners. There are several kinds of Mandarin tutors:

Professional Tutors

These are the people who do nothing but tutor/teach Mandarin all day, and have certifications to back their profession up. The good ones are also part-time teachers in universities and language centers. Their rates are usually 150 RMB and above per hour, so it is best to schedule time with such tutors as a group so that you can divide costs. To get such professional tutors, you usually just approach your teachers directly and ask them if they do part-time. Teachers in Shanghai Jiao Tong University often do this.

SJTU
Some teachers part-time as professional tutors here at Shanghai Jiao Tong University


Part-Time Tutors

Getting a part-time non-certified tutor in Shanghai is easy, but to get a quality one can be quite tricky especially if you don’t know what to watch out for, and what questions to ask. Luckily, I have been through the same ordeal (and learned from it!) and can recommend some ways to make sure you get the best tutor:

  • Know that the lowest rate for a Mandarin tutor is 20 RMB per hour. I did not know this, and went ahead and signed with a young lady who had a going rate of 50 RMB. Not only that, she had asked me to give a down payment of 7 sessions, which was totally absurd come to think of it, given that she really had no teaching credentials to her name. 50 RMB is actually not too bad if you compare the other people who end up paying 100 RMB or 150 RMB per hour just to get a Mandarin tutor. Paying 100-150 RMB per hour is only justifiable if you are getting your tutoring from a seasoned Mandarin professor.
  • Ask what school she came from. This will help you size up whether his/her methods are somewhat valid, and whether she has some sort of aptitude for tutoring. Good schools to be affiliated with are Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tongji University and Fudan University among others.
  • Ask what other work she does aside from tutoring. Again, some people just get into Mandarin tutoring for fun. You would like to have a tutor who really does this for a living. If she does translations and other tutoring jobs for a living, then chances are that she sort of knows what she is doing
  • Listen to your tutor’s accent: By this time, you can hopefully distinguish between a Shanghainese accent and a standard Mandarin accent (a.k.a. the type that you hear in Beijing). Choose a tutor with a standard Mandarin accent, else you will have difficulty understanding her, and feel stupid as a result.

    • In the future, make sure to ask what school your tutor came from and test her diction. Don’t settle for someone with a heavy Shanghainese Mandarin accent or else you and your tutor will just spend a lot of time repeating phrases.

    Topics: Studying in Shanghai |

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