My kids are in Mandarin Immersion in the USA. All of their classes since kindergarten have been taught in Mandarin. The teacher does not use English.
We want to live in Taiwan for a year or so - so that my kids can improve their Mandarin with the goal of being fluent.
We are not concerned with academics. My kids do very well in school.
Prefer local schools. We are not tied to any particular area.
I have lived 20+ years in Asia and am very adaptable. Unfortunately, I do not speak Mandarin - but will learn upon arrival (I learned Korean to near fluency as an adult). Wife similar. Daughter can read and write well and speak well in a classroom setting.
You will need to be careful about timing of enrollment since it’s different than in the US. You probably want to start your kids at the beginning of the school year. But maybe this isn’t so important to you.
My recommendation would be to go somewhere in New Taipei City or at least don’t live in an area where the top schools are located. The homework load is excessive starting at around third grade and it’s my understanding it’s worse at these top-rated schools.
Other than that, I think it’s great what you’re doing. My daughter went through 5th grade at a local school, and she’s at an American school now. It’s possible we will consider a year again at a local school sometime during high school. There are others that have done this at her American school and it seems like a good approach to make sure the fluency maintains at a certain level, even though things might be tough for them that year back in a local school.
OP brings up a couple of questions I’d be interested to see answered. Specifically, and first, based on my perusal of the forums, it sounds like getting foreign kids into public schools is already a major pain in the ass? I could be wrong about this, but I clearly remember hearing that locals get preference in admission. Please do correct me if I’m wrong.
[In addition to OP’s situation, I have a kid I’m thinking about dipping into the educational swamp over here. I can only name two schools my kid would be able to attend.]
Next, how difficult would it be to get the kids into a public school if OP comes over here freeballing - i.e., not in the ARC system? It sounds that he has the means and the experience to stay off the NIA and MOFA radar screens. To the point: Can foreign kids NOT on an ARC even attend public schools?
We continue. Let’s say OP does come here as described above. Can anybody name some schools that might fit his criteria? He wants all Mandarin, no English. If he can’t get into the public system - and I’ve inferred that buxibans are out of the equation for him - what are some decent private schools? Are there private schools? What exactly are the options for a foreigner coming over, freeballing, and getting his kids in school?
Hopefully some regulars can donate a few keystrokes of their knowledge. Thanks in advance.
Well, as is known, the first level basic requirement for a kid to enroll is that they got a Hoojee in the school’s district. If they got that, then there’s no other requirement.
Obviously, there are other possible ways to do it, but I’m just not sure what they are.
When my one kid was in (straight up local) elementary school, there were a couple of little 100% Auzzo sisters in like Grade 3 and 5 or something.
Their Ma worked at the Auz Office and Pop taught at TES.
I don’t know how they swung it.
I know this one school that might work for you, I’m trying to dig up its particulars, stay tuned.
ETA:
Yeah, the place I was thinking about is Xinsheng Elementary School
There’s no substantive info in English here, though
Kang Chiao is private and has two streams: local and international. In the secondary local is all in mandarin except for English class. International is all in English except for Chinese class. I presume their primary stream is similar.
Definetly not easy for kindergarten as there is a large shortage of spaces and not having a household registration puts you out of the lottery for places. For primary I don’t have any personal experience but I understand that there is not a shortage of spaces.
If your goal is for your kids to improve their Mandarin then you would be better off sending them to school. They learn faster from the interaction with their class mates,
I don’t have any kids, and I’m not adequately familiar with the educational system here, or with the laws, regulations, or customs pertaining to education here, to be able to say anything pertinent about them with any kind of confidence. I’m just posting links.
The thread immediately below is somewhat old. It starts in September 2010 and ends in February 2014. I’m hoping, though, that it might contain something useful to you. It’s rather long; on the old board that we moved from, it’s fifteen pages. Please be aware that things may have changed since the thread was written:
The thread above is also located on the old board, here:
I reached the above thread (which I’d seen before but had forgotten about) by clicking a link on the page linked below:
The article above is dated August 25, 2013, so it’s somewhat old, too, but again, I’m hoping that it might help at least a little bit. And again, please be aware that things may have changed since the article was written.
I hope this helps, or at least that it does no harm.
We took a year off and travelled around. The kids were homeschooled (in Chinese by parents who don’t speak Chinese. Don’t ask) part of the year and they attended a Chinese school for the rest of the year.
We moved to Taiwan recently. We visited 10 public Taiwan elementary schools (with a local helper) and picked the one we liked. My kids were enrolled the same day (three days from arrival).
The law states that foreigners can find a school first and then move to the neighborhood and then register under the Hojee system. Of course, most schools haven’t a clue about this.
But we found that as long as the school has space they will take a student without fuss. All of the schools we visited wanted our kids except one that was full and had a waiting list. It was a new school with a bunch of new high rise apartments around it.
The school required limited documentation. We just filled out some forms and gave copies of our passports.
So far school seems good. The kids like it better than the previous Chinese school in Malaysia.
One big observation: The academic level in the Taiwan school is about two grades lower than what my kids are at in the US Chinese school.
The particular school we chose required an admissions test. I was shocked at the how easy it was for my kids (sans the Traditional Chinese characters and Bopomofo). My son laughed at the math. My kids had a similar experience in Malaysia (which we wrote off as it being Malaysia). My son was able to do his sister’s math - who is three grades ahead. The teacher saw my daughter’s math worksheets we brought with and said they were two grades ahead.
Anyway, my kids are enrolled in a Taiwanese school. It is pretty easy actually. But for someone from the outside there is little factual information.
Yes, the schools here push the kids a lot harder - even young kids. That is mainly to learn Chinese, though.
Well, one thing I realized about Chinese schools is that the overhead of learning to read and write Chinese hinders academics.
In the early years, so much time is spent learning Characters there is less time for other subjects. Further, other subjects just don’t have the depth they do in other countries as the Chinese kids ability to read is still quite low at young ages.
I assume this changes when they get a bit older as the ability to read Chinese matches the academic level they are studying at.
My kids are still in Elementary school. I am sure things will change in middle school and they will be crammed with homework.
My kids have attended their Taiwan school for less than two weeks so my observations are preliminary. But when I ask my son what he did in school he keeps saying they didn’t have math today as the teacher changed it to Chinese.
For math in the second grade they are doing simple addition and subtraction. My son is doing complex multiplication, simple long division with remainders, adding and subtracting fractions (same denominator) and now adding and subtracting fractions (different denominator), etc. The USA Chinese school used the Singapore math model where they introduce math concepts earlier and they streamlined classes into three groups for some subjects.
To expand on this school…my wife and I just visited here with an administrator in July to ask about their foreigner program. Your kid can first register with whatever school is their “local” school, then there is a form to request transfer to Xinsheng. They accept all foreign kids into their “CSL” program for max of 2 years. After that, you would have to live in the Xinsheng district to continue there (which requires you to OWN a home there not just rent). If not, you must return to their “local” assigned school. Their program is not all English, in fact it is Mandarin intensive for new Mandarin learners. They pull the kids for an extra hour+ a day from other subjects to focus on basic Mandarin. I imagine tha English is a subject there for all kids.
The other thing we liked about Xinsheng is they seemed to focus more on art/music/etc compared to typical Taiwan/Chinese schools. More American style classrooms and focus. She said their are normally always spots available for foreign kids in the early grades (1-3), but the later grades fill up faster.
We also visited Xinsheng earlier this year. They seem to know what they are doing in accommodating foreign students. If we had moved to Taipei our kids might have attended Xinsheng for a while.
But now that our kids are attending a Taiwan school we have learned that they didn’t need such a program as they have been attending Chinese schools in other countries. Their only struggle is learning Bopomofo and some traditional characters.