Students will be met at the airport. The program begins with a three-day Orientation that will allow students to get acquainted to each other, to the school neighborhood, and to Beijing and begin Chinese language classes. Students will move in with their host families at the end of the Orientation.
Students attend classes on weekdays from 8am-2:30-3:00pm. Students attend 20 Chinese language classes each week. You will also be strongly encouraged to take a formal language pledge to exclusively speak Chinese each morning at school, not just in classes with your teachers but during breaks and with your classmates. Students also take China in the World, a class taught in English, which meets four times times per week and provides context for students' experience in China. Students will also participate in the Global Citizens Initiative, which includes two Skype sessions with our counterparts in the SYA Italy Summer program.
For the first half of the program, we encourage you to eat lunch in the school cafeteria. Your tuition to SYA includes this meal. After the school cafeteria closes in mid-July, students are given money for lunch and can choose from inexpensive options near the school.
Students can choose two of the three extracurricular offerings: martial arts, Chinese painting or calligraphy. Optional taiji classes are offered two mornings each week. Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays are spent on group excursions to places of interest in Beijing.
Students are expected to be home for dinner each evening. Students must return home by 9:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, unless they are with their host parents or at a school function.