Lessons

I was surprised at how friendly and interactive my lecturers were at Shandong University. We were warned that Chinese lecturers can be cold and non interactive. Apparently this can depend on the age of the lecturers.
I had 3 hours of mandarin a day, every weekday. We started mandarin by practicing sounds as we soon learnt how the different tones can change a word's meaning entirely. We then moved onto sentences and conversations such as 'What country are you from?' 'I am from England'. We also learnt some Chinese songs and watched a Chinese film which was good. At the end of the course I had a 5 minute mandarin exam in which I had to read 10 characters, read some sentences then reply to some questions all in mandarin.
In our academic module we had a choice of studying 'Law, Urbanisation and Society' and 'Tourism Management'. I chose to study 'Tourism Management' as it was more applicable to my degree. In our final 2 lessons we had to do an oral presentation then a powerpoint presentation in groups on the eco-hotel we visited and a destination of our choice.
At the end of the programme I gave both lecturers a gift of tea or biscuits which I had brought with me from England.