Just thought I'd drop another line to say that I think CLO is the best !  When I first started on Level 4 it was a bit of a shock having many more lessons without "set pieces" and english guidance....you see, I listen to the podcasts going to and from work, and trying to make sense of the explanations given in chinese was a bit dangerous, to say the least ( particularly when I had to keep refering to the english transcripts, Haha ).  But now I'm getting used to it...there is so much repetition that my understanding is becoming more "instinctive", and I'm preparing for each

I stumbled upon this excellently programmed podcast back in Spring and I am ever so glad that I did, because I think it is one of the major reasons for my improved listening ability. One of the things I believe Stanford’s program doesn’t get right is the listening speed. We learnt grammar properly, vocabulary was good and we spoke about as fast as beginners at our level ought to, but we sucked at listening. This is because the teacher always spoke at a slower-than-normal speed which we could easily understand.