The last week was incredibly busy with not just our 期末口試 and 考試, but also our exit ACTFL OPIC standardized test (a test many governments, graduate schools, and organizations use around the world to accurately assess proficiency in several languages), packing up our belongings, and last of all — cleaning our rooms!
Picking up from the last blog post, my group’s oral presentation/performance was a big hit, and I scored the highest of any 口試 from this summer — at one point, I was reciting those lines in bed because I was so nervous about forgetting them! Running on a grand total of 2 hours of sleep (because I wanted to get a head start on cleaning my room and packing), I headed to the 期末筆試 (final written exam). For being barely awake, and for not understanding pretty much of all of the multiple-choice and blindly guessing, I was really pleasantly surprised by my grade at the end: 89. However, the true moment of truth came after both of our final exams for the program: We headed to the Foreign Language Testing Center on the NTU campus to take the ACTFL OPIC once again and see how our Chinese had progressed since the first week of HTA!
For students who just completed 4th-year Chinese, the program recommended we attempt either the highest or 2nd-highest level of the OPIC (Superior to Distinguished proficiency; basically native-level). I knew my level was nowhere near Superior, let alone Distinguished, but given that I was also unconfident in my skills at the start of the term and ended up testing among the highest in the entire program, I figured I would listen to my teachers. I actually felt pretty good about the test this time around and thought I was comprehending the questions pretty well — which made me extremely nervous upon completion of the exam, because whenever I think I understand things, I have failed miserably, and whenever I doubt myself, I have succeeded beyond my wildest expectations! Since myself and a few other classmates were still waiting on our OPIC exam results after a few days, we reached out to our teacher, and he informed me (drumroll please …) that I actually scored LOWER than when I entered HTA. Yes, you read that right. I actually somehow managed to get worse at Chinese by attending HTA. When I first saw that I had scored Intermediate High after 8 weeks when starting at Advanced Low, I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, but honestly, I’m not at all surprised. I could tell very early on that HTA was neutering my ability to speak fluently, and this was just proof of that. Ultimately, I felt pretty vindicated that the program was not the right fit for me, given that I had guessed early on that the teaching methods (lecturing, rote memorization, skipping students when they don’t know the answer, not correcting them) were hindering rather than helping my progress, and objectively, my oral fluency indeed regressed.
I feel very grateful that I had the opportunity to come back to Taiwan because my local friends taught me a LOT — they were (and are) very generous with their time and correct me every single time I make a mistake, which has already improved my Chinese immensely since the end of HTA. However, I really did think it was a shame that I attended HTA instead of ICLP this summer. I wish I had known more about the exact instructional methods (i.e. how memorization-based it is, how 4th-year students barely have time to get a word in, and how there is little emphasis on accuracy in speech when we’re outside the classroom despite the teachers constantly being around us), because I absolutely would have selected ICLP again had I known. Something else that is impossible to know unless you do HTA is that the vast majority of the teachers are actually NOT Harvard staff, but local graduate students who are doing the program simply to get their required teaching hours for their degrees in (I know this because I directly asked several teachers why they decided to teach at HTA, and 99% of them gave this reason).
In contrast, the teachers at ICLP are by and large masters of their craft who have excelled at teaching foreigners for years, not burgeoning educators using the program for training. I imagine this is one of the reasons why my teachers sometimes made certain pedagogical decisions that ended up harming student learning (e.g. skipping students if they ask for the question to be repeated); the teachers at HTA are, by and large, much greener than the ones at ICLP. Of course, this is not inherently a problem and certainly not their fault — every teacher needs experience, and the teachers at HTA are no less hardworking than the teachers at ICLP. However, for $4,000 more, I’m truthfully unable to recommend HTA over ICLP when I had a better learning experience at the latter by almost every metric. Lastly, this is not something other students have touched upon yet, but the environment at HTA could get extremely elitist at times—students assuming you were either from Yale or Harvard because that constituted the majority of students, and it was very obvious some students from these schools were staying clear of making friends with students from non-Ivies. I think being an exclusively undergraduate program might have contributed to the more insular environment. At ICLP, everyone was extremely friendly because it’s a hugely diverse program; I’m still good friends with a diplomat in the New Zealand government, a 45-year old British Meta worker (in fact, I attended his birthday party this summer despite not being in ICLP!), graduate students studying everything from art history to Asian studies, and students from all sorts of colleges—big, small, rural, urban, public, and private.
Lastly, as a student with several learning challenges (specifically ADHD, a debilitatingly poor memory, and an inability to read and write Chinese characters without extreme difficulty), I would be remiss to not mention how this program was from an accessibility standpoint. Looking back on the summer, I probably should have known I would have a bad time back in March. In trying to be responsible and proactive, I set up a meeting with Harvard’s accessibility office to make sure my required accommodations (using a script for any presentations that were normally memorized, and a 24-hour extension on assignments as needed) would be all ready to go before the summer. Not only was my script accommodation denied, but Harvard determined that I could only use called “flex time” up to 3 times (and if I used this “flex time” on an assignment more than thrice, the language of my original accommodations implied I could be kicked out of Harvard Taipei Academy). I had to go back and forth with Harvard’s accessibility services for about a month, and even appeal their determination, on top of having submitted the required medical documentation and having an incredibly kind Williams Chinese professor email their office, so I could get these extremely basic accommodations in place. I was honestly flabbergasted that Harvard’s accessibility office was this hard to work with. In hindsight, I once again feel so incredibly lucky I was able to attend ICLP last year, where they had no issue at all with me submitting assignments late if necessary and even granting me a reduced course load by letting me audit a class despite their official policy saying students can’t. In summary, in basically every measure, but ESPECIALLY for students with dis/abilities, ICLP is objectively far better than HTA. While I’ve written a pretty scathing testimonial of HTA, I believe it’s my duty to be honest to the Williams Chinese Department about my experience so that future Williams students can avoid suffering like I did through an expensive summer where frankly, their Chinese might worsen as a consequence of attending. (While I know a lot of Yale students hated their experience this summer, I am also not the only Williams student who disliked HTA. A second-year learner from Williams also told me she was “traumatized” by attending HTA and that she noticed her writing ability worsened after it, so do with that what you will.)
However, this was still a valuable experience because it reaffirmed to me that I understand my own learning style, needs, and habits, and that I don’t need a $10,000 program — just someone who’s willing to talk with and to me — to get better at Chinese. My fluency already improved greatly in the few weeks I spent after the program with local friends Overall, I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity to have gained more knowledge about myself as a learner, learned alongside so many fantastic peers and friends, and deepened my bonds with the local community — both by strengthening my existing relationships and forging new ones. My biggest regret is that, much like last summer, I mainly stayed in Taipei due to academic constraints (i.e. not having time to leave due to studying), so I truly hope I have the chance to put my oral fluency into action with people outside of Taipei. While I’m now able to get by on my own and can chat with locals in Taipei (who are very used to speaking with foreigners), I would like to practice speaking with locals outside of Taipei. During my SST trip in Tainan, and during my brief weekend in 高雄，I had a very hard time comprehending what the locals were saying. To that end, I plan to apply for the travel Winter Study Taiwan course this year so I can continue strengthening my oral proficiency outside of Taipei and get to know more about Taiwan outside of the classroom (you’d be surprised by how little I’ve done outside of what ICLP and HTA explicitly organized for us!); as I learned to say this summer, 我被我的功課和教室綁架了！I deeply care about forging local connections, and am keen to go on job interviews, given that I hope to move to Taiwan after graduation. Since I had absolutely no time to participate in teaching demonstrations this summer, fingers crossed I can do both this January.
I would like to sincerely thank the Linen Committee, the Williams College Chinese Department, and the Williams College Department of Asian Languages, Literatures, and Cultures for consistently supporting me in my dream to study Chinese in Taiwan. I still find it unbelievable that I read about Taiwan as a 9 year-old, never knowing if I would ever make it here, to now having burgeoning roots in the country and making concrete plans to move there permanently. I would like to also thank every Chinese professor I have had, regardless of my performance in your class or if the learning style suited me, because I learned so much not just about Chinese language, literature, and culture, but also about how to become a wiser, kinder, and more thoughtful person through taking your classes. Thank you for everything, and I truly hope to stay in touch. And for anyone Williams students reading this, no matter when: I would always be happy to talk through your choices and plans with you regarding studying abroad in Taiwan, particularly for other poor, neurodivergent or dis/abled, and underrepresented students studying Chinese (or going abroad). You are a rockstar; hang in there! If I can make it this far, so can you! 繼續加油！