Out of nowhere, an opportunity came up where I may be moving to Taipei for four months beginning April 2019. I will bring my 2.5 year-old-twins with me and would like to enroll them in preschools. My parents currently live in HsinDian. However, I will not be living with them. I would like to find a place in Taipei where it’s close to everything and a preschool that is bilingual. They need to learn to speak Chinese! Any recommendations on areas to live and preschools to send the kiddos? Thanks!
Your parents are already here? Are you Taiwanese-American? Anyway, I have no answers for your questions, but welcome and enjoy your stay.
Four months is a very short time to expect 2.5 yr old to learn Chinese. They definetly will pick up a few words if they stay full day in a preschool but they will forget when go get back home if there is no one to practice with around.
Most private preschools in Daan and Songshan districts are considered ‘bilingual’ but when communicating with such small children I see they only have a few activities in English, even the public ones are very similar. Everything else is handled in Chinese.
Daan is safe, good schools, and also just a 15-20 minute drive/ride to Xindian .
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There are bilingual preschools in Xindian. It may be a good idea to have your parents help find a suitable preschool now and register, places in a good one can be difficult to get, especially at such short notice. Depending on the school they may also be reluctant to take a student for only 4 months when the place could be taken by longer term students.
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I’ve known Taiwanese-American et al. parents who put their kids in a buxiban for a short term, and you can find those everywhere. They usually have a few hours of English “lessons”, but a lot of Chinese-language activities (depending on how many hours the kids are there) and the kids usually speak Chinese when the teacher isn’t looking anyway, and the staff mostly speak English. The Chinese lessons are often basic bopomofo as far as I’ve seen and if they have any. I’m not sure if they get into actual words. Most buxibans are also flexible about placement periods.
Edit:
By buxiban, I mean here the kindergartens (really preschools) that have English lessons. I don’t think they advertise are buxiban’s anymore, but they basically are.
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