I was planning to do a big post, or series, on studying in Taiwan here on ChineseQuest. I may yet do one later. But Roddy, the administrator at Chinese-forums, recently got in touch and asked if I’d do a writeup there. I figured it would be more useful there (much more traffic), so I posted it there on Friday.
Roddy tells me it’s already one of the most highly-voted posts ever on Chinese-forums, and it is listed on the first page of Google search results when you search for Mandarin Training Center. ChinesePod listed it on the ChinesePod Daily today (that link will only contain my post today, 12 December 2011).
I’m pretty proud of all that, so please take a look if you’re thinking about studying at the Mandarin Training Center at National Taiwan Normal University, or if you’re interested at all in coming to Taiwan to study Chinese.
ChineseQuest 
#1) Let’s say you start the term w/lesson 1 in PAVC 4 and you’re taking the intensive course. You’ll finish 14 lessons (entire book) vs 10 lessons (regular) in a term.
#2) Both intensive and regular take a ‘final’. The regular one will include writing, speaking, and is based on textbook material which you have been studying during the term. The intensive ‘final’ is a timed 100 question final. It’s 50 questions listening comprehension and 50 questions reading comprehension. For the listening, you have 5s to pick and answer before it moves on to the next question. No you can’t go backwards. For the reading, you can manage your own time and skip forward and/or go backwards. Assuming #1, you’ll need 75 to pass. If you get 85+, you can skip to lesson 5 of FarEast 3. If you get 90+, you can choose FarEast 3 Lesson 5 or PAVC 5. Those are your choices…
3) PAVC 5 is an excellent book. However, it’s definitely different than the first 4 books in the series. Just like there is a difficulty gap between PAVC 2 and 3, there is an even larger gap from PAVC 4 to 5. If you haven’t already, find one and take a look. It’s loaded w/成語 and 俗語 and much more complicated grammar patterns. These reasons combined result in many students choosing to avoid it because they don’t think it’s going to help w/their spoken Chinese and/or they are just lazy.
4) By the time you get to the level of PAVC 5, the number of students drops dramatically. Take a look at how many FarEast 3 classes there are and then at the number of PAVC 5 or higher classes. BIG drop off.
5) Japanese students are the most numerous. If I had to guess, I’d say Koreans were second.
Thanks for the info, really helpful stuff.
I’ll take a look at PAVC 5, it sounds promising. I was hoping to not have to take it and move on to the more 書面 stuff at Level 6 and higher (my reading ability is already pretty much there), but if that’s not an option then at least it sounds like it will be a useful course.
This term there’s actually a bigger drop between the number of PAVC 4 classes (23) and Far East 3 classes (11) than there is between the latter and PAVC 5 (7). The drop between PAVC 5 and Newspaper I (3) is also significant, percentage-wise. I find that a lot of people here (generally those with less of a well-formed plan) think that PAVC is all there is. When I tell them I plan to be here for 2 years they say stuff like “You’ll be in like Book 9 by then”. No, not how it works. I think I’d kill myself if I kept having to study these textbooky dialogues. Fortunately they get less cheesy as they go along.
I hope you don’t mind if I add some of this info to my post at Chinese-forums. Thanks again!
If you look at FarEast 3 or PAVC 5, they are both more 書面。 The grammar structures combined w/the 成語 and 俗語, you’re definitely looking at laying the groundwork for the transition to more formal stuff.
If you take a look at FarEast 3, probably the first 6-9 lessons are going to be a lot of review if you did PAVC 1-4, mostly PAVC 4. There will some new vocabulary and some new grammar, but there will be a lot of repeat from PAVC. Also, each lesson is actually like 2 lessons. The first part is a dialogue w/associated vocab and grammar. The second part is an essay w/vocab and grammar.
PAVC 5 no longer has your favorite characters in your favorite dialogs. You get a short essay instead. The book is thinner than say PAVC 3 or 4 and there are 20 lessons.
Anyway, take a look at both books. Keep studying. Don’t worry about your ‘level’. If you have a teacher you really like and trust. Periodically go talk to her like a mentor. Ask her or your current teacher what they think is the next appropriate step for you and/or what you need to work on.
Good luck..
Thanks again for the info!
My daughter is thinking of taking Mandarin this coming summer (Jun 2017). Would you be able to help and let us know where we can find an institution that teaches Mandarin? She has taken courses but would like to be fully immersed in Mandarin speaking country. (Beijing is out.) Thank you!
I don’t have any personal experience or firsthand knowledge of programs other than the Mandarin Training Center at National Taiwan Normal University, which this post was about. That being said, I’d still recommend it, without hesitation.