It is possible to enroll in a Tibetan-language course at Lhasa’s Tibet University. Tuition costs US$1000 per semester; semesters run from March to July and September to January. There are two hours of classes a day and around 70 foreign students currently attend (including some undercover missionaries). For an application form contact the Foreign Affairs Office (0891-634 3254; fsd@utibet.edu.cn; Tibet University, Lhasa 850000, Tibetan Autonomous Region). Once you are accepted the university will help arrange a student (‘X’) visa and, after three months, residency status in Lhasa. Students have to stay in campus accommodation. It should also be possible to hire a private tutor from the university for around Y20 per hour.

Many travellers find it more convenient to study at Dharamsala or Kathmandu, although students say that the mix of dialects and high levels of English make them less effective places to study. Courses offered there include Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, Tibetan language and Tibetan performing arts.

Kopan Monastery (www.kopan-monastery.com) outside Kathmandu, in Nepal, is a particularly popular place to study aspects of Tibetan Buddhism.

The various Tibetan organizations across the world offer courses and meditation retreats. The Tibet Foundation (020-7930 6001; www.tibet-foundation.org) in London, for example, offers a 10-week Tibetan-language course for around UK₤130

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TEACH ENGLISH IN LHASA, TIBET

In our Teaching English in Tibet program, the school staff supports volunteers and helps them to understand the local curricula and teaching methods, and also helps to resolve communication barriers. Teach abroad in Tibet welcomes any English speakers regardless of their origin. Tibet has been isolated from the rest of the world for many years, so the English level of local students is poor. Therefore, English teaching in Tibet is truly a challenging and rewarding job which can make a difference in the lives of both students and teachers.  Contact Crossroads directly.

               

Others talk, this girl lived the dream of teaching English in Tibet. Here's a snippet from her very funny and enlightening blog.

"Last weekend was wonderful. My host family decided that it would be nice to go camping out in the grasslands and spend some time with the nomads there. Saturday morning I woke up to the family packing nearly everything they own into the car: pots, pans, seven or eight tents, including one large military-barracks-type one with canvas skin that was about an inch thick and smelled vile, pillows, blankets, an electric generator, light bulbs, a giant iron stove that weighed about 1000 pounds, an aluminum chimney, and a whole host of other equally random items. We drove for about three hours, out of the valley and up onto a huge wide plateau that was entirely flat and green for miles and miles. It was a surreal location – the air was crystal clear, and from where we set up camp the brilliantly green grass stretched out for probably 20 miles in every direction, flat as a chessboard, until way off in the distance a sheer wall of Himalayan rock leapt out of the plains entirely without warning; just grass, grass, grass, grass, mountain. Everything was so wide, and on such an immense scale, it was almost hard to tell where the earth ended and the sky started; it was like they were fused together, way way off.  

Want to get a flavor of teaching English in a remote Tibetan area to children who don't have the opportunity for much schooling, click here to read this interesting, and REAL, blog! You may also write to this teacher to find out how she got involved in this teaching opportunity, if she liked it, etc.

 TEACH ENGLISH IN TIBETAN ORPHANAGE