I joined one of these classes in Taipei’s Songshan district a few weeks ago. While the predominantly Vietnamese female classmates were great, I found that the subject matter taught in the class wasn’t really what I was looking for. They mainly stressed writing and BPMF, which was pretty much what I didn’t want to focus on. However, it could be good for somebody out there who would like this kind of class. In Songshan, the classes are held at Minquan Elem. School. I dropped out after three dissapointing classes, but it didn’t cost me anything at all to join.
Scomargo, how did you find out about the course location?
My wife rung some government department for me, but they didn’t know, I e-mailed the Taipei City Goverment, but got no reply.
Where the hell can i find out where the course nearest me is?
Brian
I’m pretty sure you should contact the Taipei city gov. Just be persistent. I can’t tell you too much because my wife made all of the phone calls for me. 
The textbook I was issued was printed by the Taipei City gov. publishing company, though.
By the way, I think I heard that Songshan and Zhongshan districts had combined classes. There are probably not separate classes for each district of Taipei.
Thanks. I’m pretty pissed that Taipe City Government doesn’t answer its e-mails.
Brian
Since this morning, I got mixed up of the term “Taiwanese”, scomargo would you please give me more info of the time / days that teaches Chinese/Mandarin at SungShan?
Thank you in advance!
-Bridget S.
Bridget,
Be sure to bring a copy of your ARC and your spouse’s natl. ID card with you (both sides). Also, a picture of each of you.
The classes are Monday - Thursday, 7pm-9pm. Room 106 of Minquan elem. school. The back entrance of the school (which you should go through) is almost directly across Sanmin Rd. from the Tesco.
Ms. Zen is the teacher in room 106. You can try telling her I sent you. My chinese name is 馬思賢 ma3 si1 xian2
Scott
Anything new on this topic? I’m in Muzha and am more interested in a class that takes place in the morning. A number or directory would be so helpful.
I’m afraid that almost all of the classes will be in the evenings. Afterall, these spouses need to work to earn their keep, right?
Sorry, I don’t have any more information about Muzha. Good luck. Try contacting (or get your husband to contact) the Taipei City Gov. Try calling information to get the phone number.
In Tainan they are going to be held in the evening also. Start-up looks like right after Chinese New Year. I plan on attending here.
[quote=“scomargo”]I’m afraid that almost all of the classes will be in the evenings. Afterall, these spouses need to work to earn their keep, right?
Sorry, I don’t have any more information about Muzha. Good luck. Try contacting (or get your husband to contact) the Taipei City Gov. Try calling information to get the phone number.[/quote]
Thanks, I understand. I was just hoping that there were others like me with young children in school in the mornings.
Bump.
There are classes going on in Zhonghe now. Zhonghe Elementary at 100 Zhonghe Road at the corner of Nan Shan Rd and Zhonghe Road from 6:30pm - 8:45pm every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday evenings.
MOE sponsored classes. Nice thing is that even I get to go even though I’m not the sponsored wife 
. The instructors are very happy to have students.
The semester is about half over now. Still good and teachers nice.
Added bonus. It’s FREE[/u]
Hi YC,
As someone who will be moving to Zhonghe (also near Yongan MRT station) in about a month or so, I am interested in hearing more about this.
If it’s not too much trouble, could you summarize what kind of level the classes are at? The class I attended in Songshan only really taught BPMF and dictionary lookup. I’m kind of at an intermediate level of Chinese, if I had to guess, so those classes were way below my level.
Thanks so much for posting this information. I hope to meet you in the future.
Hey scomargo,
Pre-welcome to the hood! I’m sure we’ll bump into each other, Yong An Market MRT isn’t that big
You’re right about the level of the classes. They are doing BPMF with some beginner reading with zhuyin fu hao. There are two instructors, one who’s your typical, by the book, memorize and technical. The other instructor involves games, singing and forces us to speak in Mandarin using the words/lessons learned previously. I like the dual teacher technique. If you’ve mastered zhuyin and BPMF, then this class is definitely too beginner for you. I’ll ask the teacher next week about next semester’s class.
Thanks for the incredibly fast reply, YC. I’ll probably just audit a class so I can ask the teacher more detailed questions myself. Your description sounds a lot like the classes that I took here, so I’m guessing that the classes are all about the same everywhere. The idea seems to be to give you a basic foundation in Chinese. If that’s the case, then the classes may not be for me, but hopefully others will benefit from this information you posted.
I’m really interested in this but the hours are bad for me with a family. I just wanted to say that I met an Indonesian woman who took these classes for several years, and they do go beyond the BPMF. Maybe you could just ask to start closer to your level instead of at the beginning. The woman I talked with has since left Taiwan but her classes were also offered by the government, free of charge. The only thing that sounds different is the hours. She attended four or five nights a week, someting like 3 or 4 hours each night.
I took 4 months of the twice weekly "Chinese for Foreign Spouses.
It was me and 8 -12 Viet wives aged about 14 - 18 yrs. old.
It was very basic Bo Po Mo Fo. It was taught by a very nice Teacher who spoke almost no english. I spoke nor understood Chinese. I was completely at a loss beyond mere mimicry of words I had no idea the meaning of.
It devolved into me just doing english caption translations of pictures for the Teacher. I stopped going.
I think it is a good idea. From what I was able to suss about the program, it is heavily focused on Foreign - Viet/Filipina brides.
If the teacher had a greater english ability I probaly would have stayed longer.
I now realize that what I needed was/is more of a speaking/conversational Chinese ability rather than Bo Po Mo Fo.
Your results may vary.
[quote=“scomargo”]
If it’s not too much trouble, could you summarize what kind of level the classes are at? The class I attended in Songshan only really taught BPMF and dictionary lookup. I’m kind of at an intermediate level of Chinese, if I had to guess, so those classes were way below my level. [/quote]
The teacher from Zhonghe Elementary School also said that for the next term she will continues to teach bpmf. If she sees that the next term students are also from the previous term, she will teach a higher level of Chinese and will continuously teach bpmf who is new to the class. Anyway, she does test according to the students level. If she knows that you already know your bpmf, then she will test you on your Chinese character like how she tested me. 
I do hope that the class is more than 2 months period.
Receiving lots of pressure to sign up for one of these classes. I’m now living in Zhong Shan district. Anyone know if these classes are still being offered at Min Quan Elementary School?
I’m already searching through the archives but thought I’d see if anyone here had numbers handy.
any updates?
I work in songshan district so would be great to enrole on this after work, and loads cheaper than shida!!
Here’s the info on Taipei County at least, courtesy of Mr. & Mrs. Chang.
new-inhabitants-en.tpc.gov.t … 000015_0_1