Mandarin Training Center, National Taiwan Normal University

[OneEye]

Roddy asked me to do a write-up on MTC now that I've finished my first term here, so here it is. Hopefully it will be helpful, because there really is a dearth of good information on the internet about studying Chinese in Taiwan, and I believe MTC is the biggest Chinese school in the country. Most of the info out there comes from two sources: Forumosa.com, which mainly consists of people bitching about living in Taiwan and about how terrible it is to learn Chinese here (I can assure you, it is not); and random blogs with pretty scattered information, mostly written by people who come here for a summer in between semesters at college. Maybe this will go some way toward filling in the gaps and providing some useful information for people who are actually serious about learning the language.

So you have an idea of where I'm coming from, I am a 26 year-old, married (not to a Taiwanese) American guy who started self-studying Chinese as a very part-time hobby in college. Eventually, after a few starts and stops, my interest in the language developed further and I decided to go to grad school for Chinese studies, most likely specializing in something related to Early China (Han dynasty and earlier). My perspective will of course be different from an English teacher who is at MTC because their Taiwanese spouse said so, or an overseas Chinese whose parents forced them to come, or a college kid here on a year abroad, etc. I was here on a scholarship (which I highly recommend applying for, as it seems pretty easy to get from what I can tell), but since it was only for one term, it no longer applies.

This will be a long post, but I've broken it up into sections so it will be easy to find a certain topic. So let's get started.

Registration and Orientation

Registration was pretty much the same as at any similar school, from what I gather. You're shuffled through a huge line where you're handed a bunch of info and not told much, and then you pay your money, are given a number, and sit down in a big lecture hall. Thoroughly bewildered (and likely still jet-lagged), you wait for your number to be called, then sit with a Chinese teacher who quickly evaluates your Chinese speaking and listening ability. She then writes down which placement test you should take (unless she already can tell you need to start at the beginning), and you're put into a computer room where you take a placement test with audio and written components. Note: if you don't read Chinese, you'll likely be put into the beginning course, unless your speaking is good enough to be placed with the overseas Chinese students. I've only known of this happening to one student.

There is a booth set up where you can buy a SIM card for your phone if you haven't yet. I recommend getting one at the airport when you arrive, if you can, but this is a convenient second option if your Chinese isn't up to the task of walking into a Taiwan Mobile store and getting a card. Note that without an ARC you can't get on a contract, so it's pre-paid only. Most of your communication will likely be done via SMS, so it can easily work out to be cheaper than a plan anyway.

A few days later you have orientation, where they explain how the school works, take you on a tour, give you your schedule, and give you an opportunity to buy your textbooks at a slightly discounted price (10% or 15% off, I can't remember). The tour is done in groups of 10 or so, divided based on native language. At my orientation, there were tour groups for English, Spanish, Russian, French, and German speakers, even though the first part of orientation was only in English, Spanish, and Chinese. My tour group consisted of one Brit, four Dutch, one Belgian, and three Americans. After the tour, the give you your schedule. This is when you find out the result of your placement test.

Then you're taken to the booth with the textbooks, where you can show your schedule to the employees and they will give you the book you need. If you test into a lesson other than lesson 1 in your book and you're in the intensive course, buy the next book up also if you want to take advantage of the discount now. I'm not clear on how quickly the regular course goes, but I'm really of the opinion that you should take the intensive course if you can anyway (more on this later). Be aware that you can find used books at stores near the school, but if you're like me and prefer clean pages to write all over, this is the best time to buy it new. I believe the discount extends through the first several days of class as well.

Course Information

There are two types of courses at MTC: regular and intensive. Regular courses meet for 2 hours per weekday, intensive 3. However, since you're required to have 15 hours of class per week in order for your visa to remain valid, regular students are required to take 5 hours of "supplementary" courses per week, which I'll talk about first. They're divided into three types. Library time counts for up to three hours per day of supplementary coursework (you'll find that most Taiwanese laws are written with grey ink), as does listening lab or video lab time, so it's feasible for your supplementary hours to consist only of "study hall". Speaking of video lab, they apparently have a huge selection of Taiwanese, Mainland, and dubbed foreign films and TV shows that you can watch at your own pace. I've not been to the video lab, so this is just what I've heard.

Otherwise, there are free, large group courses and smaller, paid courses that count as supplementary. An example of a large group course is "Practical Chinese for Everyday Situations" (that might not be the real title, I can't remember), where the teacher gives handouts with really useful info on things like night market food or popular day trip spots, complete with where to go, what to do there, what bus to take, etc. I've heard good things, but have never been to the course. There's also a "Singing in Chinese" class where you learn pop songs, which is popular with the KTV-loving Japanese students, and a "Chinese Movies" class where you just sit and watch a movie. The small, paid supplementary classes consist of things like erhu, calligraphy, kung fu, Chinese cooking, and even beginners' Taiwanese courses. There is a course called "Learning Chinese from Chinese Medicine" that I've heard is excellent, but it apparently fills up very quickly.

On to the real courses.

Whether you're in the regular or intensive course, you will be placed into one of 9 levels. The lower levels are divided into sub-levels, though once you get to Level 6 there are no more sub-levels, presumably because there aren't enough students at the upper levels to justify splitting them further. Level one is, obviously, straight beginner. Level 9 is either News Broadcasts or advanced Classical Chinese courses. At the lower levels, the overseas Chinese who can already speak are generally placed into different courses than everyone else so they can focus on reading and writing. I know hardly anything about that, so I'll stick to the laowai side of things here.

Whether you're in the regular or intensive course, the materials are the same, but the pace is different. Up through Level 5, there's a pretty standard progression that nearly everyone follows. I've heard that after Level 4 some people are able to skip right into Level 6, but that depends on how you do on your "finals". Here is the standard progression through Level 5:

Level 1 - Practical Audio-Visual Chinese I

Level 2 - Practical Audio-Visual Chinese II

Level 3 - Practical Audio-Visual Chinese III

Level 4 - Practical Audio-Visual Chinese IV

Level 5 - Far East Everyday Chinese III

Level 5 - Practical Audio-Visual Chinese V

Technically, Far East Books I, IIA, and IIB are offered as alternatives to PAVC, but in practice it's not really done. Of course, theoretically, if you really want to use these books and can find a few other students who do too, you can request the class and they will provide it for you. There is an alternate book for Level 4 called Taiwan Today. I have a copy, and it is excellent, but I haven't seen it on the schedule this term or last. I'd recommend using it (and the Far East books) as supplementary material and just stick to PAVC, which is actually quite good when combined with a good teacher.

Also, for Level 5 there are alternatives to Far East III and PAVC V, such as Radio Dramas, Chinese Folktales, or Business Chinese Conversation I. Students taking these classes aren't unheard of, but generally the path above is followed. Note: the nominal standard is to take both Far East III and PAVC V, in that order, but in practice I believe few people take PAVC V, and I've heard it's by far the worst of the PAVC series.

For reference, by the end of PAVC Book 4, you will have learned nearly 5000 vocab words and 2000 characters. In reality though, you will have been exposed to far more, because most teachers will throw tons of extra vocab on the board for you to learn if you so choose. It isn't required, but it's a great idea, even if you only learn it passively. I learned nearly 2500 vocab words total in my first term because I learned almost every extra word she taught. Learning the extra vocab should also go a long way toward testing out of Level 5, too.

After Level 5, your options open up, though there is still usually one course that is much more common than the others at each level. You can take Classical Chinese courses starting at Level 7 (though there is a Level 5 Classical course that is almost never offered), or you can continue with the modern Chinese courses. The courses obviously become more specialized in the higher levels, so you can choose according to your interests (academic, business, news, etc.). Here are the most commonly offered higher-level courses in modern Chinese, with an asterisk next to the most common:

Level 6 - Business Chinese Conversation II

*Level 6 - Learning Chinese with Newspaper I

Level 6 - Listening Practice (Intermediate-Advanced Level)

Level 7 - Learning Chinese with Newspaper II

Level 7 - Learning Chinese with Newspaper III

*Level 7 - Thought and Society

Level 7 - News & Views

Level 7 - Selected Financial News

Level 7 - The Independent Reader

Level 8 - Selected Articles from Various Journals

Level 8 - Contemporary Short Stories from Taiwan

Apparently not many students continue past Level 7, because I've seen very few Level 8 classes per term. There are some interesting-sounding classes at Level 8 though, like Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Literature (one class for Poetry & Prose, one for Short Stories), A Reader in Post-Cultural Revolution Chinese Literature, Contemporary Social Problems, etc. The only modern Chinese class at Level 9 is Taiwan TV News Broadcast, and I haven't seen it offered either term. I have a feeling that these higher courses are more likely to be offered in the summer term when grad students come for refresher courses, but I'm not sure.

As for Classical Chinese, theoretically they offer quite a selection, but in practice I've only seen one class actually on the schedule (Romance of the Three Kingdoms). Again, if you can find a few friends (4 total people I think is the requirement) who want to take Classical Chinese with you, you can request the course and the administration will make it happen. In fact, even if there's something not on the official course offering that you and a few friends want to take (only at the advanced level, I believe, since at the lower levels everyone's needs are more similar), they will make it happen. They also offer one-on-one courses, which I will probably have to resort to for my Classical Chinese courses next year, but oh well. Maybe I can arouse enough interest in Classical Chinese among my classmates by bringing it up as often as I do and there will be a few people who want to study it with me, but I doubt it.

Anyway, the course offerings are as follows. Level 7 has courses like Shadick's "A First Course in Literary Chinese" or "Senior High School Chinese Reader". You can also take a course on the Four Books or one called simply "Classical Chinese", which may be 王力's 古代漢語 (the name of the class is the same as the book, but I'm not sure if that's the actual textbook used). At Level 8 you have "Advanced Literary Chinese", "300 Tang Poems", "300 Song Poems", "Chinese Literary History", and even "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Level 9 has courses like 古文觀止, 史記, 老子, 莊子, etc. I assume all this means that there is someone at MTC who can teach these courses, but who generally teaches modern courses unless there are enough students interested.

As far as regular (普通班) vs. intensive (密集班), I'd again recommend the intensive option if you can. Intensive courses are offered for all the "standard" Level 1-5 classes, and for Newspaper Reading I in Level 6. They may offer it for other courses if there is enough student interest, I don't know. The easiest way to ensure that you are in a class with more serious students is to take the intensive course. You will still have a few students here and there who are lazy, but they are very much the exception. The intensive course move quickly, and you will fall behind easily if you don't do your homework, but you also improve quickly. Students who come with zero Chinese are able to function with things like asking directions, ordering food, and making simple conversation by the end of one term. By the end of Level 2 (middle of your second term if you're intensive and started at zero), day-to-day life is pretty easy. So it's quick.But don't believe them when they tell you it takes 4 hours of homework and studying per day to keep up. It's more like 2 hours, although sometimes you will need more time.

If you feel yo've been put into the wrong class, or if you want to switch teachers, change to intensive from regular or vice-versa, you have the option to switch classes in the first week. It's pretty easy to find out which teachers are good, especially after you've been here a full term and know other people at your level. My teacher at the beginning of this term was really overzealous with the busy work, so I asked around and switched teachers. My new teacher also likes homework, but it's useful homework, so I don't mind.

Classes/Teachers

The day after orientation is the first day of class. Get to the building early, because the lobby gets extremely crowded with people waiting for the elevator just before class starts. The wait can get absurd and make you late. Courses start at 20 minutes past and end at 10 minutes past, so somewhere in the middle of the hour is best if you don't want to wait. The wait is less severe if you have afternoon class.

Regular courses have no more than 10 people, and intensive courses no more than 8. The higher levels tend to have fewer students. Students literally come from all over the world. I have friends from America, Canada, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, Korea, Russia, Poland, Panama, Honduras, Mongolia, and Spain. There are a really high number of Japanese students though, I've noticed. They (stereotype warning) tend to be more studious than most Westerners, and I've found both through my own experience and through talking to others than classes with a higher proportion of Asian students tend to be harder-working and as a result have more dramatic improvement in their Chinese skills. On the other side, having everyone in your class come from a different country makes for really interesting discussion.

Teachers range from awful to wonderful here, much like any school. I haven't heard a lot of complaints though, which must be a good thing. My teacher last term also teaches at ICLP, and she was really fantastic. My teacher this term does not, but she's also really great. My original teacher (whose class I switched from) is apparently really well-known in CSL academic circles, but she was awful. She would mock students in front of the class when we made mistakes, seriously. You have 5 class days I believe to switch, so if you get a bad teacher, switch immediately. After 5 days, the office won't do anything about it no matter how much you beg.

I feel the need to reiterate this: if you're not willing to work hard, don't come here. MTC is not as intensive as ICLP, but you do have to study hard to be successful here. Most of the complaints I've heard about how awful MTC supposedly is comes from people who seem to expect to be spoonfed the language by the teacher without putting in any effort outside of class. There are schools in Taiwan that are suitable for this type of learner. They take a year, or even longer, to go through each PAVC book, as opposed to 3 months (more or less) in the intensive program at MTC. If that sounds more your speed, apply at one of those schools. You'll almost certainly save money, and be much happier.

Social Life

No matter what, try to make friends with your classmates. This sounds obvious, but apparently it's not the norm. My teacher last term was really excited that we all became such good friends. This gave us the opportunity to do more exploring and see things we might not have heard of otherwise. I got to do some really cool, fun stuff last term because my classmates suggested it. It gave me a chance to get outside Taipei a few times and practice my Chinese on people who aren't used to dealing with foreigners, which was really good. Not only that, but you'll also likely be forced to speak Chinese while with friends, because it will likely be the only common language among you. This has been the case with my friends last term and this term, and it makes for good practice time. You (or at least I) feel comfortable making mistakes around them, and they have no qualms about correcting you because you're all learning, so it's really great for gaining comfort with speaking, and for practice with explaining your way around a word you don't know. I had to explain what crack cocaine was (don't ask), in Chinese, to a girl who didn't speak any English, and neither of us knew any drug-related vocabulary in Chinese. That was great practice.

There are tons of places around NTNU to eat, drink, meet people, etc. Really great restaurants in the area, with food from all over the world. There are lots of nightclubs all around Taipei, but that isn't really my scene so I can't comment much on that. If you're a fan of beer, you can find a really great selection of Belgian beer at various places all aroud town, and it's cheaper than in the US (Chimay at a restaurant for NT$150? Yes please!). Not much of a pub scene it doesn't seem, but there are a few good places to sit and chat over a few beers, play pool, whatever. The Scotch selection is also pretty good, and generally a good bit cheaper than in the US. You can drink in public here, so a great (and very Taiwanese) way to hang out is to load up on booze at 7Eleven or wherever and then sit out in a park with some friends and have a few drinks.

Living in Taipei

Life in Taipei is great. There's tons of great food any pretty much any price level, public transportation is convenient, efficient, clean, and affordable (and expanding), there are great musuems around town, etc. The National Palace Museum is really amazing, with nearly 700,000 artefacts and works of art. There are tons of places nearby to go for day trips on the weekends, or for longer when you have a few days off. The Taipei area has really great hot springs, hiking, biking, etc. Night markets are fun for trying all sorts of snacks, buying cheap clothes, people watching, whatever.

As far as food, Taiwanese cuisine is really tasty, convenient (there are stands and small restaurants every alley), and cheap. There's nothing particularly outstanding about the everyday food here, but it's good. What makes food here great is the street food. Snacks (baozi, jiaozi, shaobing, youtiao, Taiwanese "hamburgers", sausages, sushi, roasted chestnuts, sweet potatoes to go, eggs cooked any number of ways, ice cream, "crepes" stuffed with fresh fruit, tons of fruit stands, etc.) are serious business here. As are sweet drinks. Bubble tea is a Taiwanese invention, and you can not go more than a block without seeing a bubble tea place. If you can make juice out of something, you can probably get it to go here. If it can be mixed with milk, tea, or fruit juice, someone has probably done it. And it will usually run you about US$1 for a big cup to go, with as much or as little sugar and ice as you want.

There is a huge selection of international food, too. There are French and German bakeries (if you like French pastries, there's a place run by an MOF recipient). Restaurants include Italian, Korean, Japanese (really good Japanese), Russian, American, Mexican, Vietnamese, Indian, Greek, Levantine, etc. That's just walking distance from my apartment. I've had burgers here that I'd put up against some of the best burgers I've had in the US. Brunch is a popular thing here now, and there are places all over town where you can get American or European style breakfast food at any time of the day (or even night). There are even a few places that serve a full English breakfast.

In Taipei, you will hear Taiwanese and Hakka on occasion, but pretty much everyone speaks Mandarin (the MRT has announcements in all three languages plus English). Further south you will hear less Mandarin and more Taiwanese. Many people here speak passable English, particularly younger people, but I've not yet found myself in a situation where someone wouldn't speak Chinese with me. I hear people complain all the time about how the locals will just jump at every opportunity to practice their English on a foreign face, but this is not the case. Most people here don't want to have to speak English because they're embarrassed (usually without cause) about their English ability. However, every time I've heard someone complain about this and had the opportunity to hear that person's Chinese, the reason for their frustration has been made blindingly obvious.

If your pronunciation sucks, people here would rather speak English with you than have to hear your toneless, foreign-accented Chinese. That's hard to take for some people, but I've found it to be the truth. So if you often find yourself frustrated that people here won't speak Chinese to you, take that as a sign that you need to work on your pronunciation. My pronunciation is not native-like by any means, but it's pretty good, and I find that people really prefer to speak Chinese with me no matter where I go or how good the person's English is. Even my landlady, a native Taiwanese who could be mistaken for a Taiwanese-American, now communicates with me in Chinese, though we originally communicated in English.

Conclusion

That about wraps it up. If there's anything you want to know, please post here and I'll answer if I can. Hopefully this will be helpful if you're thinking about coming to MTC or Taiwan!

Edit: I posted about this at my blog to point people here, and got a comment from someone called ichigo with some additional information. He says:

#1) Let’s say you start the term w/lesson 1 in PAVC 4 and you’re taking the intensive course. You’ll finish 14 lessons (entire book) vs 10 lessons (regular) in a term.

#2) Both intensive and regular take a ‘final’. The regular one will include writing, speaking, and is based on textbook material which you have been studying during the term. The intensive ‘final’ is a timed 100 question final. It’s 50 questions listening comprehension and 50 questions reading comprehension. For the listening, you have 5s to pick and answer before it moves on to the next question. No you can’t go backwards. For the reading, you can manage your own time and skip forward and/or go backwards. Assuming #1, you’ll need 75 to pass. If you get 85+, you can skip to lesson 5 of FarEast 3. If you get 90+, you can choose FarEast 3 Lesson 5 or PAVC 5. Those are your choices…

3) PAVC 5 is an excellent book. However, it’s definitely different than the first 4 books in the series. Just like there is a difficulty gap between PAVC 2 and 3, there is an even larger gap from PAVC 4 to 5. If you haven’t already, find one and take a look. It’s loaded w/成語 and 俗語 and much more complicated grammar patterns. These reasons combined result in many students choosing to avoid it because they don’t think it’s going to help w/their spoken Chinese and/or they are just lazy.

4) By the time you get to the level of PAVC 5, the number of students drops dramatically. Take a look at how many FarEast 3 classes there are and then at the number of PAVC 5 or higher classes. BIG drop off.

5) Japanese students are the most numerous. If I had to guess, I’d say Koreans were second.

Sounds about right to me, except that the difference in the number of classes at each level will differ with each term, with a general trend of decreasing the higher you go (of course). This term, for instance, the drop off is much more drastic between PAVC 4 and Far East 3 than there is between the latter and PAVC 5.

The last part of his/her point 3 is important. Many people are here mainly to develop spoken Chinese skills, and so they feel a false sense of having "mastered" Chinese once they're able to make conversation comfortably about a range of topics, or once they can take care of day-to-day necessities without the frustration that can sometimes accompany these efforts at lower levels. Most people don't care about being able to read Classical Chinese or scholarly articles, or even newspapers, and so they quit taking classes once they reach a comfortable level. This seems to be right around Level 5 and 6 at MTC. Above that are the more professional, academic, literary, formal, etc. courses.

Level 7's Thought and Society is the course after which I've heard many people at both MTC and ICLP say they felt able to pick up a newspaper and make sense of it, or be able to read most non-specialist things and understand most of it. I don't know if that's the case or not, but I'd be willing to bet that simply making it through that course without going out of your way to study other material along the way (including plenty of native material) will not do the trick. Most of the aforementioned people were ICLP students, so you know that before Thought and Society they studied three textbooks per term at least. In other words, they worked extremely hard to get to that point by the end of that course.

[roddy]

Roddy asked me to do a write-up

Wasn't expecting a novel-length effort! Excellent stuff, thanks.

[OneEye]

Eh, I take any chance I can get to practice my English these days.

[Daan]

Great stuff, thank you! I'll be sending a few people who may be going to Taiwan next year a link to this thread. I studied at the MTC for a year in 2009/2010 (good times), and it seems not much has changed. Although I'm surprised that they offer the orientation in Spanish too, these days. Has there been a sudden increase in the number of Spanish-speaking students at the MTC?

[OneEye]

There are a lot of Spanish speakers here. It seems that several Latin American countries have a lot of students here on scholarship, and I believe many of them are here for their BAs (on scholarship), not just the language training. I assumed that was a normal thing here, but I guess not.

[Daan]

Hmm. When I was there in 2009/2010, there were some students from small Latin American allies of Taiwan at the MTC, mostly on Taiwanese government scholarships. But certainly nowhere near enough to warrant offering the orientation programme in Spanish, too. You'd think they'd offer it in Japanese, Vietnamese and Indonesian first. On the other hand, there were lots of students from Latin American countries in the language centre at NCCU (國立政治大學, in 貓空) even back then, so it's not all that surprising I guess.

[OneEye]

I think they do offer the orientation in Japanese, since there were no Japanese students at my orientation. Probably Korean too I guess, since there is a fairly large number of Koreans here, but I don't know about Vietnamese or Indonesian. I haven't met any students from either country.

[OneEye]

Added some more useful info to the end of the first post, thanks to a commenter on my blog. How the final exams are, how you can test out of parts of books, etc.

[okdemosthenes]

Thank you so much for such a thorough write-up.

After reading your post I'd like to sign up for the intensive program at MTC. I'm wondering, however, whether anyone in the forum might know whether a bachelor's degree is necessary for a Taiwanese government scholarship. I'm a 30-year-old Columbia drop-out from the States who grew up speaking English and Spanish and gained fluency in French as an adult. My spoken Chinese remains minimal, having only studied on my own using audio methods, largely due to a lack of commitment to traditional and simplified characters. I'm happy to say, though, that I've decided to do both, the need for structure leading me to seek out a classroom environment.

Any thoughts?

[OneEye]

The information for the MOE scholarship is here. No BA necessary. Good luck with it!

[OneEye]

To expand on this above:

#2) Both intensive and regular take a ‘final’. The regular one will include writing, speaking, and is based on textbook material which you have been studying during the term. The intensive ‘final’ is a timed 100 question final. It’s 50 questions listening comprehension and 50 questions reading comprehension. For the listening, you have 5s to pick and answer before it moves on to the next question. No you can’t go backwards. For the reading, you can manage your own time and skip forward and/or go backwards. Assuming #1, you’ll need 75 to pass. If you get 85+, you can skip to lesson 5 of FarEast 3. If you get 90+, you can choose FarEast 3 Lesson 5 or PAVC 5. Those are your choices…

This term my class finishes in PAVC 4 Chapter 4 (out of 14). For my final, I needed a 65 to pass, an 85 if I wanted to skip to Chapter 10, and a 90 if I wanted to skip straight to Far East Book 3. I got an 87. I talked to my teacher after class the other day about what happens after I finish PAVC 4, and she said usually the teacher lets the students vote on whether they want to take Far East 3 or Mini Radio Plays. The number of students taking Far East 3 outnumbers those taking Radio Plays 3:1, so statistically, I'd probably be taking Far East III.

I want to take Radio Plays though, and my teacher said she thinks there's no need for me to take Far East 3 since I already know most of the material in it anyway, and that I should be fine if I skip straight to Radio Plays instead of finishing PAVC 4. She actually thinks I'd be OK to skip both of those books and go straight to PAVC 5. I would be, but I want to work on my speaking and listening some more before I move onto the more 書面 stuff (which starts with PAVC 5). I've heard really great things about Radio Plays, and I've taken a look at it and it seems like a fun textbook (overly melodrammatic dramas complete with dead moms on Mothers' Day, husbands in car wrecks, "bad-boy" boyfriends getting arrested, etc.). A friend say he is now, at the end of the book, able to turn on the radio and understand pretty much everything because the book also teaches a lot of slang, and another person I know said he is able to follow university lectures really easily now from the listening skills he developed in that class (obviously this will also require a knowledge of the vocab in whichever field the lecture is in).

Anyway, my teacher said I should go to the office and plead my case, asking them to let me skip to Radio Plays. I did, and they asked about my score on the test, whether I had looked at the book and if it seemed like I'd be OK. They're going to get in touch with my teacher to get her opinion, and then let me know if I can on Monday or Tuesday. I expect the answer will be yes from the way they talked about it.

So I guess the moral is, work hard, get a good grade on your final, and you can skip. Show off occasionally in class so your teacher has a high opinion of your ability, and you can skip further. But I'd only recommend it if you know your language ability really is up to the task. I've been studying extra textbooks on the side, both Modern and Classical Chinese, so I'm at that level now. Another girl in my class got about the same score I did but she's choosing not to skip at all because she's afraid she'll miss out on important stuff. So think about it before you charge ahead. 三思而行, right?

[Meng Lelan]

The more I read this thread the more I envy the fun OneEye the Former Texan is having in Taiwan, while I continue to suffer through Idiotic Life in Texas.

Textbook for Radio Plays sounds like fun, I wonder how I can get a copy. Forget the audio for me though, since I'm not going to hear much.

[OneEye]

Here ya go. If I remember correctly, shipping from them is reasonable. If not, it is also available from Amazon.

Edit: And yes, I'm having a great time!

[Meng Lelan]

OneEye, you're awesome. I'm gonna order that book right now.

[etm001]

OneEye,

Thanks for this great post. I'm considering a one year Mandrain study, and your post about MTC caught my eye. I'd love your perspective on a few things. A little about me:

• Mid 30s business professional making a mid-career change.
  
• Goal is to obtain proficiency in Mandarin in the most efficient, time effective manner possible, mostly for personal use, although business use (in the US) is a possibility.
  
• Currently I study Mandarin in a small class (just two of us) in my local Chinatown, one lesson per week for 1.5 hours with native speaker. We use the Hanyu Jiaocheng textbook, which I don't care for, so my teacher is willing to switch to Integrated Chinese. I don't have an opportunity to speak Mandarin as much as I'd like; my reading comprehension is better than my listening comprehension (typical for a new language learner, I think).
  
• I expect I would place into the first or second level at MTC.
  

I'd love your perspective and/or validation on the following as related to MTC:

• What is the age range of students at MTC? I expect most people to be younger than me; not really an issue for me, but it would be nice to know if there are others in my age bracket.
  
• What is the average dedication level of students in the intensive program? I want to be in classes where everyone is taking the learning experience seriously (but also having some fun too).
  
• How interactive is the learning experience? A different way of putting this: I absolutely, positively want to avoid a "lecture" style classroom setting, where students simply listen and take notes, with little interaction with the teacher or their classmates. I don't think this is the case at MTC, especially at the lower levels, but I want to be sure.
  
• From what I gather, students at MTC are on their own for housing. Given my low proficiency in Mandarin, this is the only aspect of the process that stresses me out. Did you arrange your accomodations before arriving? Any other tips on finding housing?
  
• I thought I saw a one year program at MTC, but I might be mis-remembering. Do you simply re-register for each quarter?
  

Thanks!

[Meng Lelan]

Level 8 - Contemporary Short Stories from Taiwan

Anyone know what textbook if any for this one at MTC? Or what stories/authors exactly are read in that course?

You said graduate students come in the summer for refresher courses? Are they graduate students from outside Taiwan taking summer courses at MTC?

[OneEye]

Sorry, I just now saw this.

What is the age range of students at MTC? I expect most people to be younger than me; not really an issue for me, but it would be nice to know if there are others in my age bracket.

Most are younger (college-age), but certainly not all. I'm 27 and I thought I'd generally be the oldest in my class, but I haven't been so far. There was a 28-year old Japanese girl in my class my first term, and a 28-year old Canadian guy and a 36-year old Korean guy in my class this past term. There are a fair few men in their 60's, actually, so there really is a full range here. I can think of one Japanese, a French guy, a Brit, and two Americans (sounds like the opening of a bad joke) that are mid-50s or older.

What is the average dedication level of students in the intensive program? I want to be in classes where everyone is taking the learning experience seriously (but also having some fun too).

Generally, I've found that people are committed to doing what is assigned and learning it well, but they don't tend to go beyond that. I study from 3-4 textbooks at a time in an effort to learn as much as possible in as little time as possible, so I'm probably not a reasonable yardstick for this, but I would say that most people in the intensive program are there to learn. The students in the regular program are a whole different thing altogether, from what I've heard. Some of my friends have gotten sick of the other students in their regular classes and so are switching to intensive this term.

How interactive is the learning experience? A different way of putting this: I absolutely, positively want to avoid a "lecture" style classroom setting, where students simply listen and take notes, with little interaction with the teacher or their classmates. I don't think this is the case at MTC, especially at the lower levels, but I want to be sure.

There may be some teachers that teach this way, but I'd imagine they are pretty few. My first teacher was outstanding, and my second teacher was very good, about getting us to interact and use the language in class. You can sniff out how a teacher will be after the first class or two (at the most), and you have the whole first week to switch. And actually, I think the interaction will be even higher in the higher levels, because you're already able to use the language fairly well by that point.

From what I gather, students at MTC are on their own for housing. Given my low proficiency in Mandarin, this is the only aspect of the process that stresses me out. Did you arrange your accomodations before arriving? Any other tips on finding housing?

You can relax on this one! I actually found my apartment through Craigslist, but most of the ones listed there are very expensive. It's still worth a look though. You should also check tealit.com and forumosa.com for apartment listings. Also, the 7th floor at MTC has a bulletin board that usually has anywhere from a few to a few dozen listings for apartments. All of these are pretty likely to have English-speaking landlords. You can also hang around MTC and try to find a native speaker who is willing to help you out. You'll find people here are really friendly and very willing to help out. You could even turn that into a language exchange (or something more ) if you want.

I thought I saw a one year program at MTC, but I might be mis-remembering. Do you simply re-register for each quarter?

Yes, you just go to the office toward the end of the term and pay your money for next term. They'll make announcements and it's on the calendar on their website. Your teacher will also give you the registration form for the following term in class, so it's hard to miss the registration period.

Another thing I want to point out is the ICLP program. If your goal really is "to obtain proficiency in Mandarin in the most efficient, time effective manner possible", ICLP is what you need to look at, if you can spare the money (it's more than 3x the price). That said, you won't have a lot of time for enjoying life in Taiwan, because you'll be too bogged down with studying. But maybe the summer session at the end of your year here. I've heard really outstanding things about the results of even one summer term at ICLP, and it's a little less intensive than their academic year program, both in terms of workload and financial burden.

A year here will do really great things for your Chinese, no matter which program you choose. If you come in at Book 2 level, you'd probably finish the first part of level 5 (either Far East 3 or Mini Radio Plays), assuming you stay in the intensive course, and neither fail (which is rare) nor skip (which is very possible if you're working hard). However, I can tell you as someone about to start Mini Radio Plays that I would not be confident enough to use Chinese in a business setting right now. I'm perfectly fine with making conversation, getting around in daily life (including taking care of important things like immigration forms and applying for a resident card), talking about my background, even some light political or academic discussion and such, but it really doesn't go much beyond casual discussion at this point. My business terminology is nil right now. That's partly because that isn't what I'm learning Chinese for, but it's also because we haven't covered any of that type of stuff in class.

That said, there is a business conversation class offered in Level 5, but since it isn't one of the "usual" classes, you'll have to either find enough other people who also want to take it with you, study it on the side by yourself, or hire a tutor to work on it with you. You can hire an MTC teacher as a tutor, which works out to about 700NT per hour I believe, or you can seek out your own and probably save some money. Or hire an MTC teacher as a tutor, which means you're more likely to get good instruction and the teacher won't have to split the money with the school.

Hopefully this helped! Feel free to ask more questions, and I'll try to get to them sooner next time!

[OneEye]

Anyone know what textbook if any for this one at MTC? Or what stories/authors exactly are read in that course?

No clue. Generally, the courses that don't have a textbook are marked such on the course listing posted on each floor at MTC. This one isn't marked, but I've never seen a book with that title at the bookstore. It may be one of those classes that is on their list of "offered" courses but doesn't actually ever get offered because there aren't enough people to take them. If I can find anything else out about it I'll let you know.

You said graduate students come in the summer for refresher courses? Are they graduate students from outside Taiwan taking summer courses at MTC?

That was partially speculation and partially just me being hopeful that some more courses will be offered in the summer. I would imagine that some grad students do come here in the summer. But really, given the choice, if I were moving to the other side of the world for a few months to boost my Chinese for my research, I think I'd be willing to tack on an extra US$2000 to go to ICLP instead of MTC if at all possible. I like MTC, don't get me wrong, but I think I'd find any way I could think of to afford ICLP if I were on a time crunch and my thesis or dissertation depended on it. I also tend to think MTC isn't going to help you all that much at that level anyway.

But maybe I'm just trying to convince myself that it's worth the money because that's where I'm hoping to study for a year starting this Fall.

[Meng Lelan]

That was partially speculation and partially just me being hopeful that some more courses will be offered in the summer. I would imagine that some grad students do come here in the summer.

Oh, you're staying there through the summer while I'm at Middlebury. Well if you see anything graduate level in the summer time there let us know. If I ever take any graduate courses in Chinese in the summer then I would want to do so at Middlebury or at ICLP.

[Daan]

The book used for that short stories course was edited by the impressive Vivian Ling, IIRC. Maybe SMC Publishing in Taipei would be able to help you get a copy.