CLD Program Impressions

I attended the CLD Program at NTU (台大) over summer 2010 and I thought it would be useful for people considering the program if I wrote my impressions about it. I'll just write about my experiences and you can make of it what you will.

First, my background. I'm currently 27 and am studying Mandarin for purely personal reasons. I basically want basic conversational skills and good listening comprehension. Although I've previously studied French and Japanese, I'm only fluent in English. Before going to Taiwan, I self-studied Mandarin college textbooks, listened to audio tapes, and practiced conversational skills with my wife. I decided to go to Taiwan in order to strengthen my foundational skills so I could study more effectively with my wife at home. After reading about several programs from forums and other people's reviews, I decided to attend NTU (台大) over NTNU (師大), and then the CLD Program over the ICLP Program. I'm very happy with my choices.

The application process was simple. My application probably didn't get to them until the day before their "deadline", but I got in anyway. It only left me with a month to prepare for the trip, the main hassle being getting my visa. CLD doesn't offer any housing, but that wasn't a problem for me because I already had a place to stay. I had classmates that didn't take care of housing until after they arrived with very little hassle, although their rent tended to be more expensive than those that planned earlier.

The CLD is located on the NTU campus on the second floor of the language center (語言中心.) It was very easy to find, even though I'd never been to the campus before, as there are plenty of campus maps. NTU itself is very nice. The campus is beautiful and has a large library that's great for studying in. The cafeteria near the language center (in the 學生活動中心) is pretty good. There's a lot of stores, housing, and restaurants within five minute walking distance of the campus... finding things in Taipei in general is really easy. On the bottom floor of the language center is a bulletin board that makes it very easy to find language exchange partners. Finding an native speakers to practice with is very, very important if you want to really learn Chinese.

New students are required to show up at NTU a week before classes start in order to register and take a placement test. Registration went very smoothly and the staff was very nice. The optional placement test had no time limit. The first part was a written test broken into three sections. The first section was correcting grammar, the second was answering reading comprehension questions, and the third was writing an essay. The first two sections were graded immediately, after which I was sent to a different room for an oral test. A teacher looked over my results, read my essay, and then talked with me a bit in Mandarin. Afterwards, the teacher placed me. My Mandarin was very limited and although I could read many characters, I could barely write any, so I was just happy to not be placed in the lowest class. Although I didn't realize it at the time, you can buy your books from the CLD office at this point since you know your class level.

On the Friday before classes started, we had an orientation. The orientation was pretty useless, but only took an hour or two.

I bet the program quality really varies based on your teacher and classmates. I feel my teacher, 蔡美雲, was excellent. My classmates were also very good and hard working. We all refused to speak English to each other, even though we often spent time together outside of class. Their ages varied between 22 and 37, they came from all over the world. I had 5 classmates total. By looking at the class list, it seemed almost all classes had the full 6 students.

The program itself was basically working through the Practical Audio and Visual Chinese textbooks. (Although the most advanced classes moved on to different texts.) My class started at Book One Chapter 6 and ended at Book Two Chapter 8. We covered a chapter every three or four days. It seems all the classes working on the Practical Audio and Visual Chinese textbooks covered about one book in the three months.

Each day we had class for three hours. Only Mandarin was spoken. Homework takes at least half an hour if you rush through it, but it's much better if you spend more time on it. My teacher would correct whatever I wrote, no matter if it was assigned or not. After getting the introductions and review done, classes basically followed a four day loop.

- First Day -
Give an oral presentation. Usually this was reciting a memorized essay from the textbook.
Take a test over the previous material. This usually took one and a half hours.
Begin learning the vocabulary for the next chapter. The teacher would add many comments and the students were required to form sentences using the vocabulary.
Homework: Practice writing the new vocabulary words.

- Second Day -
Listening and Writing test. The teacher would say a sentence twice and the students must write the pinyin and Chinese characters for that sentence.
Finish the vocabulary and begin going over the grammar.
Homework: Write sentences using the vocabulary

- Third Day -
Listening and Writing test.
Finish going over the grammar.
Homework: Do the Workbook chapter, which is grammar and writing drills.

- Fourth Day -
Listening and Writing test.
Role Play situations, practice listening to dialogs, and work through more examples.
Homework: Write an essay.

The main benefit in all this is the teacher's guidance. In addition to the teacher pointing out gotchas, she also constantly corrected errors, whether in speaking or writing. I felt she did very well in pointing out problems I hadn't noticed by myself and explaining problems to me my wife was unable to explain clearly. I felt I learned a lot in the three months I was there. The program is what you make of it.

As a side note, to help make the most of my short time in Taiwan, I also had one on one Mandarin lessons on the side. My teacher was Peter Su and he was really excellent. His times and lessons were very flexible. These additional lessons allowed me to learn the subjects I wouldn't be able to cover during my short stay in the CLD program. I'd definitely suggest looking him up for some one on one lessons, here's his web site: http://petersonsu.blogspot.com/.