Chinese Language Division, National Taiwan University

[zhe]

There’s not a lot of information about NTU’s Chinese Language Division (CLD) so I decided share some because I’ve received a lot from this forum too. Reading about Shida from here was the main motivation for me to go to Taiwan to study Chinese, so maybe this piece of information will aid someone to make their own decision.

 

First of all I’ve only been here a month so the judgment isn’t final, these are just my initial thoughts. I got scholarship for 12 months, so I’ll stay here for a while, I won’t write about the scholarship much, unless there is more interest towards it, but remember it’s pretty straightforward process and procedures change depending your home country. Contact your own representative office for scholarship and visa regulations/application, they’re very helpful.

 

For the starters I’d recommend reading the Shida thread, there’s lots of information which applies for CLD too. Just change the prices and class sizes, check CLD homepage for lots of information. I guess this could be the end of this thread but I just kind of ended up writing the same things all over again.

 

 

National Taiwan University & Chinese Language Division

 

National Taiwan University, also called Taida (台大), has two language learning programs, namely International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) and Chinese language division (CLD). ICLP is the more expensive flagship program which is arguably considered the best Chinese learning program, but this thread is all about the other one, the lesser CLD program.

 

Applying for CLD isn’t hard, just follow the instructions online and send your application well in advance so that the term isn’t full. I don’t know if it’s possible the fill in the late cancellations. As long as you have enough funds I think your application will be accepted. All the fees are paid upon registration, nothing needs to paid in advance.

 

 

Registration & Orientation

 

Registration takes place on Monday. The process is rather poorly organized, lots of lining up and then some tests. It’s stated that registration will take place from 9 to 12, well, I got off at 16, but I was one of the last students to leave the building so you’re not in hurry. Diligently queuing will get you through the registration faster. I don’t know when people start queuing but by ten the queue was all the way to outside, I’d estimate at least hour and a half of waiting time from there.

 

First you get a registration application, few lines to fill, like your name, email, Chinese level, time preference for the classes, scholarship and such. Then you need to line up for copying documents (free, two copies of your passport and visa, they aren’t really happy if you’re proactive and copy your documents elsewhere). Then queuing for the actual registration, here you submit the documents and pay the fees with cash only. They might murder me for this, but someone managed to delay the payment to the next day, just to bring cash and it’s all good.

 

After actual registration you take assessment exams, first to written exam. The first exam is in pinyin, simplified and traditional and if you score well enough you need to take another one. The second exam is written only in simplified and traditional characters. After that to the spoken test, I guess the content depends according to your level, but the teacher asked me few questions and made me to do few sentences with 把 and 被structures. They will assign you to a class according the test results and you can find your placement after few days from their homepage. I started from lesson 7 of 2nd PAVC book (lesson with 把 construction, I guess didn’t do very well with the making up the sentences).

 

After the tests you’ll receive leaflet about regulations, term schedule, refunds, visa application, NTU & CLD facilities (and in case you’re scholarship student you’ll get another leaflet how to receive the scholarship). You can use facilities provided by NTU, and in the leaflet there are guidelines how to apply for gym/swimming pool/library card etc. But the guidelines are not very precise, it might tell you to bring photographs with you in order to apply but no one asked them, but you can get by following them.

 

There are some requirements to advance next level, I don’t know how it in practice goes, but leaflet claims following: your average score of quizzes (50 %) and midterm exam (50 %) needs to be at least 70 points, otherwise you need to take level assessment test in order to move on to next level. Also there’s chance that student might be held back or his/her level is lowered. But in practice I have no idea what it means.

 

There’s also section about private insurances but nobody really know what they cover. Buying the insurance is compulsory for scholarships students, it costs 150 NTD per term.

 

Orientation was on Friday, they went through the leaflets that you received earlier, and introduced the campus a bit through Google Maps. Information content was rather useless, you can ask questions if in the orientation if anything is unclear, but more importantly you can make some friends and buy the books from the second floor after the orientation. Just make sure that you know yourself what books you need.

 

 

Classes(this if the information you can find online)

 

They only provide 15 hours a week style teaching, so it’s the same as intensive option in Shida. Each class lasts 50 min and then 10 min break. They have classes on mornings (8:20-11:10), afternoons (12:00-14:50) and evenings (15:10-18:00).

Each class has 4 to 6 students (will increase to 5 to 7 students starting from spring 2016), but at least in the fall term every class is pretty much full so expect 6 students per class (maybe 7 in the future?). As in Shida you can also change classes, but because the classes are so full changing class is very hard as there has to be opening in order to change the class. It could be so that the fall term is most popular and in the coming terms there are fewer students and thus it’s easier change the class. I don’t mind this (for now) since my teacher is quite good.

 

As everybody else in Taiwan CLD use the first four PAVC books to cover the basics, after that they move to Mini Radio Plays and Learning Chinese with Newspaper I&II. After that CLD use selected readings, which I have no idea what they are. Because of this I now(!) feel that the advanced studies might be better in Shida where there is lots of classes to choose from but classes for beginner are better in NTU, since there’s less people in class. Just my thoughts…

 

There are also two sorts of elective classes, cultural classes which are, presumably, more laidback and then additional language teaching classes which are more intensive. This term there are two cultural classes, calligraphy and seal carving, I opted out of joining either of them, so I can’t much about them, the price might somewhere around a few hundreds.

There are three language learning classes, one class teaching Taiwanese, one class teaching classical Chinese and one class about newspaper readings. You need to be around 4th PAVC book in order to join classical Chinese or newspaper reading class, for Taiwanese there is no requirement. If I remember correctly each class is organized once a week for two hours for most of the term. The price is around 3000 NTD per class, from 7 to 14 students per class.

 

 

Teaching

 

As I am studying the second book the instructions are all in Chinese, no English at all is spoken during the class. It usually takes four days to finish a lesson. Starting with vocab and grammar, then to dialogues and narration, do all the exercises in the textbook and workbook, and then finally test for the lesson. There’s also tingxie or small test almost everyday, but they are not very hard.

 

For every lesson homework consists of writing characters (needs to be written twice in order to find errors in your writing), making up sentences, writing small story/dialogue, finishing workbook exercises etc. but there’s other homework prepared by the teacher too. Such as small presentation per lesson (e.g. introducing how to make a dish, telling a story, tell what you’ve done over the weekend, introducing a photograph you’ve taken recently), also other prepared homework about new grammar. Overall the homework is not very hard and doesn’t take much time to finish.

 

In the classes not much emphasis is put on writing characters, classes are much more about speaking, reading aloud and listening (I estimate in this order according to their priority). Even though the class size is rather small, but teacher doesn’t correct your pronunciation much. Smaller class size just allows you to speak more. My tip is if your pronunciation is not very good, consider hiring a tutor to help you with it.

 

 

Everyday life

 

There’s some information in Shida thread and a lot can be found online, so nothing much to write here. Just few sentences about house hunting, since Taida doesn’t provide you place in dorm so you need find a place to live outside of campus. Best places to find apartment are 519.com.tw (only Chinese) and Facebook where they have groups both in Chinese and in English. Expect to pay little premium if renting from/with another foreigner, but renting from local is quite hard. They aren’t really willing to make the contract especially if you find a place in 591 and bringing a local friend helps a lot. People in Chinese speaking Facebook group are more welcoming and willing. Don’t worry too much you will find a place at least through the English speaking Facebook group, in August and September new ads are added almost on hourly basis. Just remember the campus is quite huge, so even though the Gongguan station is very close to campus but because of location of CLD building commute from Technology Building station is almost the same.

 

Another tip is that you can get student discounted phone plan, at least Chunghwa offers it. Overall difficulty to subscribing to a plan depends on the shop, some insist to have two different ids (which is the guideline), some are more willing to subscribe you to a plan with passport only.

 

Student clubs are very active and they organize a fair to attract new students to join them. It’s possible to join these clubs as you like for rather nominal fee (usually under 1000 for term). You can find what kinds of clubs are organized here. By walking around in the fair you get the feeling which clubs are more welcoming towards foreign students and which are less. You can ask, some speak good English, not so good, also by giving your contact information clubs will send you more information about their activies. Each club have their own welcoming parties so you can go around and check multiple ones, registration is not forced immediately.

 

 

Final thoughts

 

Overall I’d rate CLD good place to study, class size is reasonable small, teacher keeps you engaged in the class, lots of opportunities to speak Chinese and your Chinese will definitely progress a lot. But in addition to increasing the class size by one student they will also increase the tuition fee by almost 6000 NTD. Now the price is same as Shida’s intensive classes and I find it reasonable even though the scholarship doesn’t cover everything. Even after the price increase I can still recommend CLD, after my brief stay here.

 

I tried to cover a lot, but it wasn't even close to what Shida thread's opening post was, also I definitely missed some, please ask if something is unclear or you want to know more. I try to keep on providing more information as my Chinese learning adventure progresses. Also if there someone knows good and cheap tutors in New Taipei City, Yonghe area or near Taida please drop me message.

 

 

 

[edelweis]

Thanks for the write-up.

I followed the clubs link and was perplexed by this one:
1st Student Activity Center, room 222, box 36: Gay Chat

Oddly enough the Chinese page does not have the corresponding entry, so I couldn't determine whether it is a mistranslation or not.
I don't suppose you're interested in going to room 222 to check it up ?

 

Is Taiwan gay friendly? I assumed not, but perhaps I am wrong.

[zhe]

 

I followed the clubs link and was perplexed by this one:

1st Student Activity Center, room 222, box 36: Gay Chat

Oddly enough the Chinese page does not have the corresponding entry, so I couldn't determine whether it is a mistranslation or not.

I don't suppose you're interested in going to room 222 to check it up   ?

 

Is Taiwan gay friendly? I assumed not, but perhaps I am wrong.

 

I saw their stand in the fair, seemed like nice people. You can find their club information in Chinese if you go to this site and then search for their club name "男同性戀社". This is their Facebook page which seems to very active, please do not hesitate I think they are more than willing to have a chat with you if you want to ask something specific.

 

I don't know how Taiwanese generally treat gays, I have some local friends friends who are open-minded and there are some who are not so open-minded. But I don't know where the majority stands, probably silently in ignorance, disregarding it. I guess the best place for further inquiries is their facebook page, if you do not mind some extra effort.

[edelweis]

oh so it was not a mistranslation. Well, Taiwan seems more open minded than the mainland on this topic if they allow such a club to exist openly.

Thanks for the reply. Have a nice time in Taiwan.

[Talexander000]

Thanks so much for the info! I'll be registering soon for spring quarter at NTU's CLD, and your post is very helpful

 

I noticed you said they make copies of documents at registration, and you mentioned copying your visa. Do you know if a visa is required to study through CLD? I planned on doing a visa run midway through the term, so I never got a visitor visa and now I'm getting nervous. Any info would help, cheers!

[roddy]

Missed this when it was posted, but that's an excellent write-up, many thanks!

[zhe]

I noticed you said they make copies of documents at registration, and you mentioned copying your visa. Do you know if a visa is required to study through CLD? I planned on doing a visa run midway through the term, so I never got a visitor visa and now I'm getting nervous. Any info would help, cheers!

 

 

Visa runs are common way of long-term language study in Taiwan, so do not panic over it. I think they will copy your immigration stamp or so.

 

You do not need to copy anything in advance, they will do it for you, just bring original documents and line up. 

[Talexander000]

Thanks for the quick response! It's good to know the visa can be one less thing I have to worry about

[mengjiepeng]

I completed enrolment procedures for CLD this week and thought I might share my experience.

 

Registration was on Monday, and based on what zhe wrote about long waiting lines I decided to go in a bit earlier. I arrived at CLD at 8:40 and everything was in full swing already, despite the advertised 9:00-12:00 registration hours. Luckily, lines were very very short at this hour and I was whisked through the registration form, document copy, and payment stations on the second floor.

 

About half an hour later I ended up in the placement test room. The first test was primarily related to fairly basic vocabulary and language pattern knowledge, about 24 multiple choice questions, either "which word would fit best in the blank?" or "which of the following sentences is correct?". On the back of the test you have to write an essay in which you introduce yourself. You can use traditional or simplified for the essay, pinyin if you must, and have 6-8 lines on one side of a landscape-oriented page available for it. I was happy I prepared a bit for this at home the day before, as I have been working full time and haven't been handwriting much apart from Skritter reviews. 

 

After finishing the first test, the multiple-choice section is immediately graded, and used to determine if you need to take the second test. I did well and was given a second test with a green cover, although I saw others with a pink cover, not sure what the difference would be. Again all multiple choice, the first part continued the vocabulary/language pattern theme (ca. 20 questions), the second part was language comprehension (ca. 12 questions). Answers are again immediately graded, made a handful of mistakes in the first part but just one on language comprehension.

 

All tests were then stapled together and I was sent to the oral test rooms on the 1st floor, where I could just walk in without waiting. The teacher was very friendly and started off with asking some general questions, e.g. "what aspect of Chinese language learning do you find difficult?" and "how long have you been studying, and where?". This was followed by the more serious "how does the internet affect our life?" question, to which a more structured answer was expected. Finally, she let me read a few texts out loud, first from the Far East Daily Chinese III book, and then the title of a newspaper article on migrant labourers in mainland China who need to leave their kids behind when they go work in other cities. I expected to go on and read the article aloud, but the teacher said she had heard enough and would recommend me for "one of the higher levels".

 

Test results and other documents are then dropped off at the final station, where you receive an invitation to the orientation, a student handbook, and a scholarship information booklet. If you already have all your scholarship documents (copy of Post bank account book, copy of ID nr/ARC, signed scholarship rules document) you can drop them off here too. I was told I would get my first scholarship payment by the end of March.

 

Placement results came in on Thursday, I have been assigned to the 篇章選讀 (Selected Readings) class, for which there is no textbook available as class content is decided by teacher and students. Based on the Spring class schedule, CLD's advanced classes are structured as follows:

1. Basic Selected Readings (Spring 2016: 1 morning class, 1 noon class)
2. Selected Readings (Spring 2016: 1 morning class, 1 noon class)
3. Advanced Selected Readings (Spring 2016: 1 morning class)

There appears to be no "Learning Chinese with Newspapers" class, despited being mentioned on the CLD website. In total CLD has 323 students this term, divided in 54 class groups, which is a lot less than MTC's 1500-200 (as estimated by OneEye elsewhere on this forum). I think zhe is right when saying that MTC is likely a better destination for advanced students, but I'll comment on that later once class has started.

[Talexander000]

Wow, thanks for the details on your experience. Sounds like this program is getting larger and larger - classes are increasing to 5-7 students and more info is finally readily available online. I registered Monday as well, but I'm sure many future students will find your write-up very useful.

I agree about the faster process than the OP experienced. They must have gotten complaints and hired more people to make that process more efficient, because I too was out pretty quickly. I arrived at 10, per my admission letter, and was out within a couple hours. I didn't have to do much testing though, since my Chinese was so awful haha. I took the first written test and only got about half right, then was sent to the oral portion. It's strange, because I could barely get a few words out and I wasn't completely comprehending even her basic questions, but I guess I was still put in a level 2 class. Hopefully I pick things up quickly!

I did have to get textbooks, but that was a super easy process too. Just went back to the office we started registration at, showed them my name and class I had been placed in, and the got me the textbook and workbook, it was a little less than $700NT. There are always multiple people in the office, and it seems most understand English and I'm sure a few are fluent in Japanese too. For the most part, I've found Taipei to be pretty English friendly so far.

I will give some detailed instructions on location though, since finding the building was the hardest part haha. If looking at a map of the campus and surrounding area (north oriented at the top), the building is directly across from the Starbucks on Section 2 Xinhai Rd. You'll most likely be taking the MRT to gongguan station though, meaning you'll have to walk through almost the entire campus to get to the building. At MRT Gongguan, exit 3, walk straight until the main entrance of the school is to your right (corner of Roosevelt and xinsheng, it'll take like 30 seconds). Follow that main entrance road all the way to the library, once at the library (at the actual building, not just in front of the lawn), take a left down that path, and then a right when that path ends. From there, take the next left - it's more of a main road than the previous two paths and after walking about a minute - almost to the exit gates - the language building will be on your left. Hope that helps more than confuses!

[zhe]

Here are some further thoughts on my study so far in NTU, CLD. I have been here now three terms (9 months).

 

Course progress

 

First of all the official study order in CLD is as follows:

PAVC1-4

Far East 3

Three classes in selected readings

 

From what I’ve heard, in the three selected readings classes students can choose articles what they like to study, and teacher prepares them with vocabulary lists and discussion points. Teacher might select some of the readings.Also during the winter term there was class for Mini Radio Plays but it wasn’t organized during fall or spring term, I presume it would be after Far East 3 book.

The speed is one book per one semester, this also includes Far East 3 book which has 16 lessons. According to my current teacher, she said “office” thinks it covers a lot of same material as PAVC4 so one class can be finished in three days. Well, not according to my experiences (see below).

 

CLD also offers additional classes, these normally include newspaper readings, Taiwanese and some classical readings. This term there was also class for financial news. Each course meets once a week, two times a week around ten times, usually during afternoon cost per class is 3000 NTD. I have not attended any, so I really don’t know class structure and some details in this paragraph could be wrong.

 

Concerning skipping levels during study, I have always had to take exam. First talk with the teacher and they will arrange the exam, before the exam office will send you the time and place, exam usually takes place one week before finals. The exam content is the content you want to skip and at least I needed to score above 90 in order to pass. I kept saying for me, since I know some other who has just skipped classes just talking with the teacher, but they were clearly misplaced from the beginning.

 

My progress

 

The first term

 

I had previously passed HSK Level 4, so my I clearly knew Chinese before starting in CLD, but after some years of inactivity my Chinese was extremely rusty. Thus on my first term I was placed on class that started on seventh chapter in PAVC2, where they introduce the 把-structure. During the first term I more or less followed the class, I tried studied some Taiwan Today, but found out quickly that it was too hard with its’ written language.

 

In the first term my teacher was quite strict, tingxies, lots of homework like making sentences on new words and grammar, maybe two essays per week, separate story book to read aloud and the textbook dialogues were required to learn by heart and some more. She often referred to ICLP study methods so I presume she used to be ICLP teacher. She didn’t use much computer, so making notes was everyday task. Overall the strictest teacher so far, but I felt that I was all the time comprehensively immersed in Chinese with all kinds of homework, thus progress was really fast.  

 

The first term was planned to end on PAVC3 Chapter 6 or so, but my teacher recommended I could study on my own rest of the PAVC3 and attend a test in order to skip to PAVC4.  So I studied the rest 8 chapters and attended the exam, which I passed.

 

The second term

 

So in the second term I started to study PAVC 4 from the first lesson. On the side I started again studying Taiwan Today, but gave up rather quickly, I was more interested in New Radio Plays. Also since I read OneEye’s post about skipping the Far East 3 book I started frantically study it too, with the goal of skipping the whole book.

 

Thus during this term I was jamming lots of vocab in my head: every PAVC4 lesson has around 70 items, each New Radio Play script has more than 100 items plus 16 chapters of Far East 3 with every lesson of  around 40 vocabulary items. I feel like going through so much at once really affected my spoken ability, it just couldn’t catch up with all the vocab I was going through. Also this was during winter term that is 10 weeks long compared to normal 12-week term.

 

This term teacher was more laidback, schoolwork consisted of everyday tingxie, each chapter had grammar handout and making sentences, also some presentations. She used computer to teach, but didn’t share the slides, so I still made quite a lot of notes. Overall I liked the teacher, nice personality and the class got a long nicely. Towards the end of the term I asked the teacher to allow me to take the exam to skip the Far East book 3, but she only recommended me to skip half of the book or at most to 10^th chapter, and so it was.

 

The third term

 

I passed the exam but when the class schedule for my third term was released I found out there was no class on the latter half of the Far East 3, so I was placed in the class that started on 7^th chapter. I was kind of disappointed, since I had studied more or less the whole book but still had to study more than half of it again. Well, whining never helps, so picked up Taiwan Today again, on the side also I studied Mini Radio Plays and Learn Chinese with Newspaper (I).

 

The teacher was even more laidback than before, only two tingxies per chapter, presentations changed into sharing sessions, however grammar handouts and making sentences of new words was normal as ever. She used mainly used computer and gave slides to students so the amount made notes dramatically decreased. She also introduced lots of words outside of textbook, compared their usage and such. This way the class didn’t feel so boring for me even if I had already studied the book. Also I got back track on improving my spoken ability, our class only had four students (the minimum), so plenty of talking time for each.

 

I really liked this term’s teacher but speed was very slow (around one chapter a week), some of the time class was some friendly banter instead of study, as a result now that the term is about to end we only finished Far East 3. Originally we should’ve had time to cover 4 weeks’ worth of articles. I don’t mind so much since we had lots of opportunities to talk thus improving my spoken ability, and also I studied quite a lot on the side.

 

Conclusion

 

All of my classmates have been extremely hardworking but still relaxed atmosphere in the class. Teachers have been fine, I have had some (amateur) tutors as well but you can really tell the difference. Still, the price is about to rise to 40,000NTD in the next fall term and I don’t have any experience from other language school so hard to say is it worth it. So far I’ve liked a lot, but maybe cheaper language center and more 1-on-1 studies with tutor could be better. For example soon Chinese Culture University’s language classes are almost half the price, really makes you think what close to 20,000NTD worth of tutoring could achieve.

[Angelina]

separate story book to read aloud and the textbook dialogues were required to learn by heart and some more

does not sound much better than Beijing Language and Culture University

[Joe San Soon]

Hello All,

 

I have been studying in NTU CLD for 3 semesters now.

I just would like to say that without all your flawless advice,

I maybe in a different school right now.

For more advice from your fellow NTU CLD students,

or if you want to check out what is going on on the in’s and out’s in Taiwan for

foreigners, we do have a Facebook group that could help make your decision or

stay in Taiwan awesome! Please join us if you ever decide to choose NTU CLD.

Thank you!

 

Facebook Groups:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/944411942306060/