Please give me your advice on my kids' education in Taiwan

Taiwan Parenting
81

[quote=“Petrichor”]

Hi larryher and sorry for the late reply.

It wasn’t so much that we didn’t choose the mountain school as they didn’t choose us! When my husband went back to talk to them further they were full for next year and didn’t have a place for our son. The mountain schools do have roughly a normal school curriculum anyway, though.[/quote]

Thanks so much Petrichor!

I’ve read your post: “Enrolling Older Foreign Children in Local Schools”. Your story made a deep impression on me because I have similar worries than you had and also because once you were living there you and your son did a great effort. I hope everything was finally solved and that you and your son are feeling great right now :bravo:

I am visiting Taipei this week (2nd August till 19th August) and I want to visit some schools, like you did… We will go to live there in February 2013 and if things go well we will be living there for at least 4 years but depends on things we could be living there much more. So I have to think like if we are going to live there for a long time. At the moment I am not thinking about where to live because we will go to live near the school.

As I said in my previos post my daughter Eva is 4 years-old and she will be 5 in february 2013. Of course I know that we don’t have the same problem as Petrichor, Laguy and many others of you had with older kids but because English is not our language we have other problems…

Eva has already been attending school for 2 years in a trilingual school, Spanish-English-Basque (local language in the Basque Country in the north of Spain). I can imagine it sounds crazy but where we live the other alternative we had was studying only in Basque and I think we did well because at least Eva can understand some English right now and of course she speaks Spanish fluently.

The fact is that I am confused and I don’t know what to do and I would appreciate very much your advices.

On one hand I would love Eva to learn Chinese but on the other hand I want her to improve her English and of course the most important thing is that I don’t want Eva to live a bad experience but the opposite.

I was thinking to go to a bilingual school but when I read about the “mountain” schools I loved it, kaipakati’s story is such a nice story that I just wanted to have the same experience. I loved the idea of few kids in the same classroom, loads of attention for every child, the environment, nature, learning Chinese. So I thought that It could be a great idea for Eva to attend that kind of school for 2-3 years (attending English lesson at home with a native English teacher) till her Chinese is good enough to go to a bilingual/international school with English too.

My questions are:

1.- Petrichor would you advice me to go to a “mountain” school for 2-3 years and later go to a bilingual school? (of course if the have place for Eva). Do you know if there are many problems to get in? Do you have any other suggestion for me?

2.- Does anyone have more information of “mountain” school? Names, directions, webs… I only have the website for Datun Guoxiao:
dtps.tp.edu.tw/ Are there other “mountain” shcools even if they are private schools?

3.- I have also hear about “alternative” private schools. Does anyone have any information about this kind of schools?

4.- I have also been checking aleegulotty’s bilingual/international schools list but most of the websites English versions are really bad and I cannot get any information and also most of the schools are religious schools and I would prefer a non-religious school. Can anyone give me advice about bilingual / international schools?

I am sorry for the long post… I haven’t been able to make it shorter :blush:

Thanks so much for reading me and for your advice!!!

82

[quote=“larryher”][quote=“Petrichor”]

Hi larryher and sorry for the late reply.

It wasn’t so much that we didn’t choose the mountain school as they didn’t choose us! When my husband went back to talk to them further they were full for next year and didn’t have a place for our son. The mountain schools do have roughly a normal school curriculum anyway, though.[/quote]

Thanks so much Petrichor!

I’ve read your post: “Enrolling Older Foreign Children in Local Schools”. Your story made a deep impression on me because I have similar worries than you had and also because once you were living there you and your son did a great effort. I hope everything was finally solved and that you and your son are feeling great right now :bravo:

I am visiting Taipei this week (2nd August till 19th August) and I want to visit some schools, like you did… We will go to live there in February 2013 and if things go well we will be living there for at least 4 years but depends on things we could be living there much more. So I have to think like if we are going to live there for a long time. At the moment I am not thinking about where to live because we will go to live near the school.

As I said in my previos post my daughter Eva is 4 years-old and she will be 5 in february 2013. Of course I know that we don’t have the same problem as Petrichor, Laguy and many others of you had with older kids but because English is not our language we have other problems…

Eva has already been attending school for 2 years in a trilingual school, Spanish-English-Basque (local language in the Basque Country in the north of Spain). I can imagine it sounds crazy but where we live the other alternative we had was studying only in Basque and I think we did well because at least Eva can understand some English right now and of course she speaks Spanish fluently.

The fact is that I am confused and I don’t know what to do and I would appreciate very much your advices.

On one hand I would love Eva to learn Chinese but on the other hand I want her to improve her English and of course the most important thing is that I don’t want Eva to live a bad experience but the opposite.

I was thinking to go to a bilingual school but when I read about the “mountain” schools I loved it, kaipakati’s story is such a nice story that I just wanted to have the same experience. I loved the idea of few kids in the same classroom, loads of attention for every child, the environment, nature, learning Chinese. So I thought that It could be a great idea for Eva to attend that kind of school for 2-3 years (attending English lesson at home with a native English teacher) till her Chinese is good enough to go to a bilingual/international school with English too.

My questions are:

1.- Petrichor would you advice me to go to a “mountain” school for 2-3 years and later go to a bilingual school? (of course if the have place for Eva). Do you know if there are many problems to get in? Do you have any other suggestion for me?

2.- Does anyone have more information of “mountain” school? Names, directions, webs… I only have the website for Datun Guoxiao:
dtps.tp.edu.tw/ Are there other “mountain” shcools even if they are private schools?

3.- I have also hear about “alternative” private schools. Does anyone have any information about this kind of schools?

4.- I have also been checking aleegulotty’s bilingual/international schools list but most of the websites English versions are really bad and I cannot get any information and also most of the schools are religious schools and I would prefer a non-religious school. Can anyone give me advice about bilingual / international schools?

I am sorry for the long post… I haven’t been able to make it shorter :blush:

Thanks so much for reading me and for your advice!!![/quote]

Hi larryher

Yes, we did end up resolving most of the problems we had last year and my son is now pretty happy and comfortable in his school. We’re currently in the UK and he’s very proud of his Chinese ability. He still hasn’t reached the same level as his peers but he has made up a lot of ground and will hopefully continue to do so next year.

I’ll try to answer some of your questions as best I can. I can’t answer all of them but hopefully others will or will pm you.

  1. It’s difficult to advise another parent on their child’s language education, and especially so for me as I don’t have the long term experience that many other posters on this board have. Your idea of a Chinese followed by a bilingual environment could well work. With the mountain schools I think if you live close enough they have to take your child. They do seem to be becoming more and more popular. I don’t think there’s any particular problem with getting into a private bilingual school as long as you’re prepared to pay the fees. The English-only international schools do have English language tests, though.

  2. I will look to see if I have the contact details of another school that was recommended to me but again I think this was oversubscribed.

  3. For international schools in Taipei there are only three I know of. That’s TAS, TES and Dominican Academy. As you know, the last is a Christian school and you’ve said you’d prefer a non-religious school. The other two seem very good but are very expensive for parents on local wages.

Generally speaking, I would caution against sending Eva to an international school if you want her to maintain her Chinese. Chinese instruction at these schools is minimal. Also, whereas in other countries you might expect children to play out together and for that to be a way for them to learn/maintain a language, this is less the case in Taipei (assuming this is where you plan to live). You don’t tend to see children playing outside so much because of the traffic situation and also because they’re either in care or classes. And of course Eva wouldn’t learn literacy in Chinese. To become functionally literate in Chinese I’d say she’d have to attend a bilingual school at least. It takes a long time and much more work to learn to read and write Chinese than a more phonetically-based language. There are opportunities for additional English language exposure and classes in Taipei, if you decide to go the route of a bilingual or local school.

I can see the difficulty of your situation and sympathise. There’s very little English-language information available on this subject, which is one reason that I started the thread you mentioned. Please feel free to ask more questions as they arise.

83

I know one poster who sent his kid there and one poster who went to school there. Their experiences don’t match yours.[/quote]

I helped out a person who used to work there. Apparently the curriculum’s quite behind what it should be for grade levels and whatnot. [/quote]
Again, their experiences don’t match yours. True, only one parent and one alumni. One’s kid is on the fast track at a good US university now, the other has her degree from a good Canadian uni. The kid got into uni a year early, too. So that doesn’t seem to jibe with your experience, either.[/quote]

Are you two talking about the same place? I think tsukinodeynatsu might be talking about the one in Kaohsiung and Sandman about the one in Taipei.[/quote]

I’m talking about KH, definitely. No idea about the Taipei one, but I’d be surprised if they share any more than a common name.

84

I believe that Xinsheng Elementary School has been designated as a bilingual school. It’s also one of Taipei’s best elementary schools in a very wealthy area.

snes.tp.edu.tw/

Nangang Elementary School has a special bilingual section for the children of people working in the Neihu Software park or Academia Sinica. I’ve heard very good things about this from parents with kids there. Lots of Indian and Russian expats send their kids here.

nkpsen.tw.class.uschoolnet.com/

Gongguan Elementary school also has an alternative curriculum. Again, I know parents who are very happy with the education there.

wweb.gges.tp.edu.tw/index.php

Wanfang Elementary School is in a nice leafy part of Taipei. It’s just an ordinary Taipei elementary school. A friend’s daughter goes there. They are relatively happy with the school but less so about the forced napping, too much rote learning, and too much homework and tests even for first graders.

wfes.tp.edu.tw/

Here’s the Humanities Elementary and Jr. High School out in Yilan. I visited this once. It seemed like a happy place with dedicated teachers and parents interested in an alternative to the mainstream Taiwanese educational system. Well worth considering but in an inconvenient location.

jwps.ilc.edu.tw/

Good luck!!

85

I think we can lessen confusion when talking about smaller or rural schools by referring to them by their correct labels. There are “mountain area” schools, like the one my kids go to; public schools that follow the public school curriculum and may or may not have something special about them apart from being rural or in the mountains. (Actually their location usually makes them naturally different from city schools, but they follow the same system for academics.) Then, there are “forest schools”, that are officially registered as such and have their own curriculum and goals, which can be quite different from the general public school curriculum.

86

A little more information on Xinsheng as I visited that school twice.

The school is required by the Government to take children from the Taipei City area who have poor skills in Chinese. Such children can’t enrol directly at the school. They have to enrol at the school closest to their home then ask to be transferred to Xinsheng, where they will stay for one or two years while their Chinese skills improve, then they’re transferred back to the original school.

The children have to sit a test before they are accepted (to demonstrate their poor Chinese presumably).

The school follows the standard public school curriculum and the non-Chinese-speaking children attend a basic Chinese class in place of another class for - from memory - just one class a day. The rest of the day they attend the normal classes with their classmates.

87

[quote=“nohobobo”]Based on my own experience, a kid coming in to grade 1 here with zero Chinese could probably pull it off. A kid coming into grade 2 who could speak Chinese already but couldn’t read or write would have a very, very difficult year but could probably get caught up if they worked very hard. It might even be possible (but extremely difficult) for a very bright kid to come into grade 3 here from the U.S. if (1) they already spoke Chinese when they arrived, and (2) had also been cramming Chinese reading & writing for at least a year in anticipation. After that I just can’t imagine how it would be possible. The education system moves too fast here. Even normal kids struggle at times.

I know the American Schools here are expensive, but I think there are other international schools that are a bit more reasonably-priced and still offer a good quality of education. I don’t really know that much about them (especially the schools in Kaohsiung) but maybe some other Forumosans have a better idea…[/quote]

Just wanted to add, this was my personal experience exactly. My parents were both Chinese professors in Taiwan, but I grew up in the US. When I was 7, they brought me back here for school, and it was hell. Even though my parents are obviously super fluent and could help me with my homework, it was really tough for me. The school work was relentless, my classmates mocked me for having an accent. The strictness was tough to take. I was regularly hit by the teacher for getting sub-par grades. I was a well behaved child and a good student, but it was beyond tough to deal with school here. I was pretty outgoing and friendly, but I lost a lot of my joy during the next two years.

Please, please, don’t do this to your kids!

88

[quote=“SandpaperTongue”][quote=“nohobobo”]Based on my own experience, a kid coming in to grade 1 here with zero Chinese could probably pull it off. A kid coming into grade 2 who could speak Chinese already but couldn’t read or write would have a very, very difficult year but could probably get caught up if they worked very hard. It might even be possible (but extremely difficult) for a very bright kid to come into grade 3 here from the U.S. if (1) they already spoke Chinese when they arrived, and (2) had also been cramming Chinese reading & writing for at least a year in anticipation. After that I just can’t imagine how it would be possible. The education system moves too fast here. Even normal kids struggle at times.

I know the American Schools here are expensive, but I think there are other international schools that are a bit more reasonably-priced and still offer a good quality of education. I don’t really know that much about them (especially the schools in Kaohsiung) but maybe some other Forumosans have a better idea…[/quote]

Just wanted to add, this was my personal experience exactly. My parents were both Chinese professors in Taiwan, but I grew up in the US. When I was 7, they brought me back here for school, and it was hell. Even though my parents are obviously super fluent and could help me with my homework, it was really tough for me. The school work was relentless, my classmates mocked me for having an accent. The strictness was tough to take. I was regularly hit by the teacher for getting sub-par grades. I was a well behaved child and a good student, but it was beyond tough to deal with school here. I was pretty outgoing and friendly, but I lost a lot of my joy during the next two years.

Please, please, don’t do this to your kids![/quote]

I’m sorry for your experience. Taiwanese education has moved on somewhat since your time, I think. The teachers are no longer allowed to hit the children and many teachers are good, kind and compassionate. Speaking as the parent of a child who came here with zero Chinese just over a year ago, I’d like to say that our experience has been very different from yours and my son is happy and thriving at a Taiwanese public school.

89

I see Petrichor they you put a lot of effort into helping your child in this situation. Glad to hear its working out for you. I fear that in many schools, and without parental help; it will not be an easy task in Taiwan. It also depends on if the child wants to become part of the local education system long term.

90

I’m not sure that I put any more than a reasonable and necessary effort into helping my son. I think if you move your school age children to another country you’d be naive to think you could just put them into any school and expect the school to completely deal with the child’s adjustment. I know from speaking to Taiwanese friends who had a similar experience in reverse that their parents arranged private tuition to help them catch up. Isn’t it normal to monitor and help your child in these circumstances?

It’s a complex subject. I think many foreigners here have an extremely jaundiced view of Taiwanese education, and think it compares unfavourably with any Western education. The two systems I know most about (and I can safely say I have a close experience of both now) are those in UK and Taiwan. Of the two, at the moment my son is having a much better experience in the latter. The school he attended in the UK was mediocre and typical. The kids were fairly badly-behaved, many of their parents had low expectations of them (several letters came home asking parents to please do the tiny amount of reading homework that was set), some children still could not read aged 8, and so on.

Here, my son has learned a lot more about self-discipline, respect for others (and himself), loyalty and comradeship, hard work, responsibility and attention to detail than he ever learned in a British classroom. Of course, there are other differences in educational theory that I would say need addressing but education in the Taiwanese system does have a lot to offer in many, important, ways.

The assumption seems to be that in Taiwan they will be thrown in the deep end and ignored, whereas in the West schools would do all that was necessary to help them. That simply isn’t the case. In the UK there’s a little ESL provision in a few areas with extremely high immigrant populations, but that’s it. Schools are not required to provide ESL support for children. At my son’s UK school a little boy came there at aged 5 with no English and was completely left to it. And he did struggle to adjust for a few terms, despite the fact that he’d actually grown up in England. The idea that Taiwanese schooling is so much inferior to the West in this way is just wrong.

My experience has been that my son received far more support here than an equivalent child in the UK. When he first started school, the school and parents bent over backwards to support us. Unfortunately the first teacher he had wasn’t so helpful, but his two subsequent teachers have been extremely kind. understanding and proactive. I will admit we have been lucky, but you make your own luck. I sought and received excellent advice on this forum from some very kind contributors, and when he moved schools I went to speak to his new teacher to find the lay of the land. Is that really anything other than common sense? Wouldn’t/shouldn’t parents moving from Taiwan to the West do the same? If they don’t, they may be in for a rude awakening.

This is a general ramble, HH, and not particularly directed at you, but to address another part of your post about long term plans, well, you’re right, we don’t intend to keep our son in the Taiwanese system throughout his schooling. Our intention in coming here is that he learns about living in another culture and picks up another language, and those ambitions should be fulfilled by the end of Elementary school. If he were to stay in Taiwanese education it’s possible that his late start might mean his Chinese literacy would still be weaker than his classmates when it comes to entrance exam time. That should be a consideration for parents intending to make the move.

Another consideration should be the personality of the child. In some ways my son is probably overly-sensitive, but in other ways he’s extremely tough. As his mother I know him very well. I guessed he would rise to the challenge, and he has. Other parents know their children equally well and may well decide, quite rightly, that their child might not thrive in the same circumstances. That isn’t saying anything about the Taiwanese versus the Western education system, though.

91

That actually shouldn’t be a problem for him, at least in the transitions from elementary school to junior high school (no entrance exam) and junior high school to senior high school. This year they have done away with the entrance exams to senior high school, or so one of my colleagues has told me. You might want to double check that though.

92

I believe they combine interviews and exams along with your residence as to which hit school you can attend, again not 100% sure.

Petrichor made some great points there, hats off for giving it a go and making it work. And like Petrichor said, we should give credit to the local teachers and education system for this too.

I think the elementary system cannot be compared to the middle school and high school system here which are not healthy and productive for the kids. In fact they can suck the creative spirit out of children. I know, I have worked in a middle school for a short time here and also in buxibans. This is of course is as much the parents fault as the educational system, the parents will shrug their shoulders, complain, and then send their kids to buxibans and summer classes and make them do homework day and night all the same. The parents work late and use the anqinbans and buxibans to outsource childraising.They kids barely get any holidays here either. It’s all rather depressing. In the end the educational result is not even as valued, nor often as good, as a Western one (not that I could say my personal experience of a Western school was superior , only that I had more free time to enjoy myself…which meant a better childhood). Are there options to step outside of this system, probably. However then you will be thinking about college fees and good colleges, and residence in your home country/third country starts to take more importance aswell as an ability to pass the given international tests and English ability. Of course those with money here can and do send their kids to the international schools here.

Parents getting involved is definitely very important, whatever the system. As I mentioned above, there is far too much outsourced parenting in Taiwan (and in the West there is NO parenting in many cases).

Another thing that impresses me in Taiwan is the investment in modern school facilities. Some of them are ugly, some are beautiful, but they are not run down, shabby, vandalized and there is no teaching in temporary buildings.

93

I am a canadian with a taiwanese wife. We both kive and work in Vancouver bc (richmond) and are planning on have 2 kids that we wouldlike to move back to taiwan for grade school to raise our children and kids of the world and give them the oppertunity to have both worlds, cultures and families as part of thier lives.

What happens when moving into taiwan school system at a you age? What entrance requirements, or if mom is a taiwnese…can they just shownup for public school?

Thanks for all the advice and life exp of all the people above.

94

I thought half of Vancouver was Asians , sure you need to move to Kaoshiung? :slight_smile:

95

[quote=“annually in KHH”]I am a Canadian with a taiwanese wife. We both kive and work in Vancouver bc (richmond) and are planning on have 2 kids that we wouldlike to move back to Taiwan for grade school to raise our children and kids of the world and give them the oppertunity to have both worlds, cultures and families as part of their lives.

What happens when moving into taiwan school system at a you age? What entrance requirements, or if mom is a taiwnese…can they just shownup for public school?

Thanks for all the advice and life exp of all the people above.[/quote]

If your wife has a Taiwanese passport I’m pretty sure you can just show up at a public school. If not, the process of getting ID numbers for your children should be straightforward and probably the school will accept them anyway while you get their numbers sorted out. You need to be living in the same area for most schools.

96

Hi,

First of all, I would like to say that there have been so many helpful posts here and thank you to all those who took the time to respond, both to the OP and to everyone else.

I am essentially in the same position: two kids, aged barely seven and soon to be nine, neither of whom speak Chinese. We really want to enroll them in a public school so that they will learn Chinese. The mountain schools that have been mentioned here sound fantastic, but we will be looking for schools in Taichung. Does anyone here have any suggestions or experience there?

any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.

97

Hello everyone! And Hello Petrichor, I’ve read most of your comments in the past FOUR YEARS.
I must confess that I was scared by most of recommendation not to move to Taiwan as my kids would not fit in the education system in 2010.
So I made a temporary decision to move to Vietnam as my wife does speak Vietnamese. Life here is pretty good for all of us and it has been 4 years. But my Vietnam chapter is about to be over. Taiwan will be 90% the next destination.

My situation got worse. My kids will be 13 and 11 by next fall semester. I’ve returned to the Forum and read the related posts during past 3 months and felt helpless again.

Petrichor, would you be so kind enough to elaborate more on your kids’ school life since 2012 when you went to Taiwan. How fast did they pick up the language? How well did they react to possible discrimination in school? How did the school and teachers help? You know, these kinds of questions. You are the only one that had positive thought on the issue. I hope I can learn from your real life experience during your past 2 years in Taiwan. To refresh you a bit, if I moved to Taiwan next year, I would be in Kaohsiung area which means lower cost of living but less choice of schools. I’d also like to enroll my children in public schools so they can learn Chinese and learn the good deeds for their future as you pointed out in this and other posts. My kids went to a bilingual school in Vietnam and were quite comfortable picking up Vietnamese and they did not find serious problem as my wife does speak the language and she also provides home schooling in some certain subjects. But they are now much older than 3 years ago to start new school in a new country (sadly again).

For international and bilingual schools, I have done a search and come up with the following schools. Does anyone know information as to their current creditability and ranking? Any information will be very helpful.

  1. Chung-Hwa Bilingual Elementary School of Arts
  2. Cambridge international Bilingual Elementary School
  3. Kaohsiung St.Paul’s high school
  4. KIVAM Junior High School
  5. I-shou International School (E-DA)
  6. Kaohsiung American school
  7. Morrison Academy Kaohsiung
  8. Dominican International School Kaohsiung

I welcome all other posters to help me with your new inputs, information. I hope situation has changed much, as Petrichor had said, and thank you very much.

98

Petrichor will, no doubt, give you better advice than I can.

My kids are the same age as yours and I see what they study every day in a public school (in New Taipei).

I think I posted near the start of this thread on the difficulty of an 8 and 10-year-old trying to catch up here. The difficulty has doubled in the last three years. Think of reading and writing 8th-grade Chinese as equal in difficulty to someone who had never seen a word of English being thrown into 12th grade in an LA public school. And you and your wife can’t help them.

Reading and writing in Chinese is harrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd! . . . harder than Tainan Cowboy when he listens to Rush Limbaugh.

Other than PE and math, your kids would be more lost than you would have been had you been transported to deepest darkest Congo when you were 11 to 13.

I say forget about Taiwan public schools. My kids have done well in them, and they’ve never been bullied, but they are native Chinese speakers. I know how much work they’ve put in to get to their levels.

99

Absolutely. Their oldest child will be 13 and enter junior high, right? With zero Chinese? Not a chance in hell. It sounds negative, but… :noway: I’d almost call it child abuse. :2cents:

100

How did you find that particular school? Thanks

[quote=“kaipakati”]I’ve had a different experience of the Taiwanese elementary education system than most - extremely positive.

My daughter had always had problems fitting into school, starting as a five year old back in her home country. I’d heard all the stories of the perils of the Taiwan education system and was very very worried about what I was bringing her to. She was nine years old at the time, and spoke no Mandarin. After some hunting around, I decided on a small “mountain” school. These schools are still part of the govt system. Because of difficulty getting a sufficient roll of children from their local area, they often expand in creative ways to fill a niche, and like to take students with “special needs”, who are eligible to be counted as one and half, or two students, for funding purposes. Hence, schools can continue to operate with very small class sizes. Cool!

My daughter was a special needs kid, on account of her lack of Mandarin… which meant that she got lots of free one on one hours with a lovely patient teacher who took her walking in the mountains when study all got too much for her. There were only 13 children in her grade! So she got to be on the swimming, baseball, dodgeball, athletics, football teams for three years in a row. At school shows or sports event, every child in the school had a turn and received support and applause. The kids LOVED their school. They were proud of it, happy to clean it and take care of it - (the notion of deliberately harming it in some way would be unthinkable) and they treated their teachers with respect and affection. We LOVED the concept of half days, and she thrived with the very sensible regime of ten minute breaks to run around madly between every fifty minute class. There were student centred creative and positive solutions put in place to help her when her behaviour was unacceptable. This environment completely turned around my daughters bad attitude towards school, and she learned so many positive things from it that will stay with her for life.
I will remain forever grateful to the Taiwanese Education system for this!

When we arrived, I couldn’t speak any Mandarin either, and the school was incredibly considerate - always provided their English teacher as a translator for me in meetings.

This particular school had about 30% “mountain” kids, and the rest bused in from all parts of the city. Many of them were foreign born Taiwanese, who needed time and extra help to pick up their Mandarin language, or reading and writing skills. Many had parents who just didn’t want their kids to have to start coping at such a young age with the pressures of homework and exams that the city school present. The school responded accordingly, and was in many ways fairly “alternative”.

My daughter arrived there speaking no Mandarin. She was conversing freely in basic Mandarin within six months, and was fluent in a year. It took her longer with reading and writing of course - and this would have compounded into more of a problem for her if we’d continued in the local system.

I would highly recommend it as an option for kids up to the age of 12, especially if they’re only going to be here a year or two. My feeling is (and I’m also a teacher) that what they learn about learning itself, and the cultural and language benefits, far outweigh the risks of “missing out” on something in their English language schooling, when they return to it. Particularly if they’re already reading and writing in English, and that can be supported at home. If you can read and write, you can always catch up with the facts you need for exams.

If you’re staying longer, it’s more of a dilemma, because you have to think about what your children are going to do AFTER elementary school. Middle high is a whole other world… of weekly tests, huge class sizes and only ONE way to succeed. If your kids aren’t cut out for this, (mine definitely wasn’t!), or if their Mandarin reading and writing skills aren’t sufficient, as is almost guaranteed unless they start here at five or six, then you’ve got a problem. Get up to speed, Go home, or Hope for windfall to pay their International school fees.

Those interested, the school my daughter went to is Datun Guoxiao, ten minutes up the mountain from Beitou. There’s a free school bus that picks up from the Beitou MRT. There are a couple of other similar schools that I know of, that also have foreign students, in the YMS area.

Cheers![/quote]