Renison Continuing Education offers non-credit Chinese language and culture courses so you can build your confidence and deepen connections with your Chinese peers, colleagues, and relatives!
Learning Mandarin may be easier than you think! Only about 3,500 Chinese characters (out of 80,000) are necessary for everyday conversation.
REGISTRATION AVAILABLE for Private Tutoring - contact renison.ce@uwaterloo.ca
Spring 2026 Registration Opens the week of February 16, 2026
Fall 2026 Registration Opens the week of July 6, 2026
Winter 2027 Registration Opens the week of October 12, 2026
PLEASE NOTE:
These courses are not available for UW degree credit. Our courses are designed for adults. Students must be a minimum age of 15 to register and participate in a Renison Continuing Education course. If a student is between the ages of 15 and 17, a parent or guardian is required to complete and submit a consent form.
Spring 2026 Course offerings (CL)
| Course code and title | Dates | Day and time |
|---|---|---|
|
Conversational Chinese 1 - In-person Prerequisite: none This course is for students who have no previous knowledge of the Chinese (Mandarin) language. The course seeks to develop basic listening and speaking skills in Mandarin by exposing students to basic sentence patterns through engaging in simple dialogue and using a Roman character spelling system that is easier to master. |
May 26, 2026 to July 28, 2026 |
Tuesdays, 6:00pm to 8:00pm ET |
|
Conversational Chinese 2 - In-person Prerequisite: CL 110 This course seeks to expand listening and speaking skills by introducing carefully tailored sentence patterns with grammatical explanation, which will build from simple to complex language points. |
May 27, 2026 to August 5, 2026 | Wednesdays, 6:00pm to 8:00pm ET |
|
Conversational Chinese 3 - In-person Prerequisite: CL 120 In the third level of Conversational Chinese, students will be introduced to more sentence patterns and vocabulary with a focus daily life and interactions. |
not offered this term |
For more information, please contact: renison.ce@uwaterloo.ca.
Private Tutoring Options
We may be able to offer you one-on-one tutoring with one of our instructors should we not be offering a course that suits your needs this term. The fee for this service is $800.00 CAD (plus HST) for 10-hours of tutoring. For more information, please contact: renison.ce@uwaterloo.ca.
Spring 2026 Registration
Regular Registration OPENS week February 16, 2026
Regular Registration Deadline: 9am ET Monday, May 11, 2026
LATE Registration continues until 11:59am ET Friday, June 5, 2026
Certificate policy for Chinese courses
Tuition fees, discounts, & cancellation, withdrawal, & refund policy
Fees
Tuition: $299.00 CAD (credit-free language and culture courses) + HST
NOTE: As of March 2023, Renison continuing education’s administrative fee has been incorporated into the total tuition price as listed above and will be charged to all registrants.
One-on-One Tutoring: $800.00 CAD (10-hours of private tutoring one-on-one) + HST
For more information please contact: renison.ce@uwaterloo.ca.
Tuition Discounts
Tuition discounts are no longer offered for language courses.
Cancellation, Withdrawal, and Refund Policy
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The administrative fee of $15.00 CAD is non-refundable unless the course is cancelled.
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If a course is cancelled, the tuition fee (inclusive of the administrative fee) will be refunded to students in full.
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Students cannot defer their payments.
*The administrative fee applies to all students regardless of whether they have previously taken a Renison continuing education and/or Renison non-credit course previously.
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Students may withdraw from a course up until 9am ET the Monday before the week classes begin for a full tuition refund, not inclusive of the $15.00 CAD non-refundable administrative fee.
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Students may be refunded 80% of their tuition, not inclusive of the $15.00 CAD non-refundable administrative fee after the originally posted registration deadline (the Monday before the first week of classes), up until 9am ET the day before the second class. After this date, refunds will not be issued.
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NOTE: registration deadlines may be extended at the discretion of CE staff; the refund and cancellation policy applies to the originally posted registration deadline (9am ET the Monday before the week classes begin).
Requests to withdraw should be sent in writing over e-mail to renison.ce@uwaterloo.ca.
Registration deadline: 9am ET two Mondays before the week classes begin
– SPRING 2026 TERM – before Monday, May 11, 2026 9am ET
80% refund deadline: 9am ET the day before the second class
– SPRING 2026 TERM –
Tuesday classes =
Class 1 is Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Class 2 is Tuesday, June 2, 2026
80% refund deadline = before Monday, June 1, 2026 9am ET
Wednesday classes =
Class 1 is Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Class 2 is Wednesday, June 3, 2026
80% refund deadline = before Tuesday, June 2, 2026 9am ET
Thursday classes =
Class 1 is Thursday, May 28, 2026
Class 2 is Thursday, June 4, 2026
80% refund deadline = before Wednesday, June 3, 2026 9am ET
How to register & How to pay (CL)
How to register
Registrations must be submitted through our student portal. Follow these steps to register for a continuing education course:
- Visit the Continuing Education Courses page in portal.
- Select ‘Details’ next to your course of interest.
- Select ‘Details’ next to the course session you want to register for (if there are no course sessions listed, dates have not yet been confirmed for upcoming classes; please check back later).
- Select ‘Add to Cart’; if you are not signed in to or signed up for an account, you will be prompted to do so now.
- Once in your shopping cart, select ‘Checkout’.
You will receive confirmation of your registration through e-mail to the e-mail address attached to your account. For questions about your course, please contact renison.ce@uwaterloo.ca.
If you run into issues with registration, signing in/up, or have questions about portal, please contact renison.sage@uwaterloo.ca.
How to pay
Upon checkout in our student portal (see How to register for further instructions), you will be prompted to pay via online credit card payment.
NOTE: alternative payment options may be available, please contact renison.ce@uwaterloo.ca for more information.
Course descriptions (CL)
This course is for students who have no previous knowledge of the Chinese (Mandarin) language. The course seeks to develop basic listening and speaking skills in Mandarin by exposing students to basic sentence patterns through engaging in simple dialogue and using a Roman character spelling system that is easier to master.
Prerequisite: none
Course code: CL 110
Term Offered (subject to change without notice): Spring, Fall, Winter
This course seeks to expand students' listening and speaking skills by introducing carefully tailored sentence patterns with grammatical explanation, which will build from simple to complex language points.
Prerequisite: Conversational Chinese 1 or equivalent
Course code: CL 120
Term Offered (subject to change without notice and based on previous term enrolment for the prerequisite course): Spring, Fall, Winter
In the third level of Conversational Chinese, students will be introduced to more sentence patterns and vocabulary with a focus daily life and interactions.
Prerequisite: Conversational Chinese 2 or equivalent
Course code: CL 130
Term Offered (subject to change without notice): Spring
This course begins training students in all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) while also introducing everyday Chinese cultural norms and customs. The fundamental rules of learning Chinese script are introduced and the easier forms of basic strokes and character components are studied.
Prerequisite: none
Course code: CL 115
Term Offered (subject to change without notice and based on previous term enrolment for the prerequisite course): Spring, Fall, Winter
This course further develops students discourse ability in both speaking and writing. The reading content is expanded in order to strengthen the student's reading comprehension.
Prerequisite: Integrated Chinese 1 or equivalent
Course code: CI 125
Term Offered (subject to change without notice and based on previous term enrolment for the prerequisite course): Spring, Fall, Winter
By the end of this course, students should have mastered four types of simple Chinese sentences, six question types, and four-hundred basic Chinese characters.
Prerequisite: Integrated Chinese 2 or equivalent
Course code: CL 135
Term Offered (subject to change without notice and based on previous term enrolment for the prerequisite course): Spring, Fall, Winter
We may be able to offer you one-on-one tutoring with one of our instructors should we not be offering a course that suits your needs this term. The fee for this service is $800.00 CAD (plus HST) for 10-hours of tutoring. For more information, please contact: renison.ce@uwaterloo.ca.