Because for some students in Sweden it is not possible to follow traditional university courses of Chinese as a second language, at our university we have developed several distance courses covering the whole first year of Chinese studies. In this paper I am focusing on pros and cons of distance courses of Chinese language compared to the traditional ones, both from the students' and teachers' point of view.
While traditional courses have advantage in the fact that teacher can more easily create supportive environment in the classroom, the interaction between the teacher and the students in distance courses is limited by the technology used (in our case: an e-conference software is used). A wide variety of teaching approaches can be used and both students and teachers get immediate and direct feedback. It is also less difficult to create good learning atmosphere.
However, we have realized that distance courses are actually preferred by some students, who would have "mental blocks" in classroom environment. Moreover, distance courses lead to a higher motivation to prepare for the lessons due to smaller groups where everybody has to participate. In effect students either use the almost individual help provided by teachers and prepare regularly or simply drop out.