Chinese Language Academy of New York Wall St.

I just completed Intermediate level A with Rachel Leu. I have nothing but positive feedback for the Chinese Language Academy and Rachel. Each class was very informative, fun, and engaging. Rachel is patient with her students and is a great teacher. I especially like how she would correct us if we were using the wrong tone. There were a few weeks that I couldn't attend the normally scheduled class and Rachel was very flexible setting up a separate makeup session. I plan to continue my Chinese language journey to the next level.

I have been taking remote classes with CLA for the past year and a half, the entirety of my Mandarin journey thus far. I started with group classes and eventually switched to 1-on-1 classes with Rachel. Every teacher that I've worked with so far at CLA has been passionate and encouraging. I've worked with Rachel for over a year now in both group and private class contexts. She has been an excellent teacher through and through. She has consistently encouraged me to push myself while remaining sensitive to work/personal life scheduling. Additionally, she has worked with me to tweak the class format if things were moving too fast or too slow, and has helped assign extra review for material that wasn't clicking. Overall I have received a lot of value from working with Rachel and everyone else at CLA and made a lot of progress in my Mandarin learning journey. I would whole heartedly encourage anyone looking to learn Mandarin to strongly consider CLA.

I took the Elementary class with Rachel, and she is excellent!! I have taken many language classes over the years, and her teaching skills is top notch. The classes are always fun, positive, and encouraging. There's also a lot of participation and practice in class. Great format, great class!

Having finished Elementary 1, I would say that this is a good place if you are a working adult and/or have a chronic illness. Your options as an out-of-towner are shorter evening classes twice a week or one long class on a weekend afternoon, both on Zoom. My weekend class was about 10 people and Ms. Rachel made sure to actually provide pronunciation feedback to everyone and answer questions as they came up. Also, she made sure to provide additional context, like how "xiaojie" might not be appropriate in all situations. Considering that I'm partly here for professional reasons, these kinds of etiquette notes are invaluable. The homework consists of listening and writing exercises, plus vocab flashcards. Also, you might get extras like TV recommendations. In short, it's like college classes.

Studying with CLA has been an excellent experience. The teachers are knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful. The class structure is engaging and pushes students to progress in an appropriate way. I appreciate the small class size and the range of different exercises, activities, and homework that we do. Starting from scratch, I'm now able to have conversations in Mandarin with my partner. The skills and confidence I've built in class have also helped me to continue learning outside of class too. I highly recommend studying with CLA - you won't regret it!