To serve missionaries with a vision from God to serve and reach out to the larger Chinese community worldwide by providing conditions (place, environment, materials and teachers) so that they can learn the Chinese language to the point of being able to communicate the Gospel and have social skills.
The CLLT exists to help you in your language studies. You will be part of a team in which everybody studies the Chinese language. Each one of them has a goal to learn the language in order to use it in their ministry. Being part of this larger team will benefit you as you study. You will receive encouragement, prayer etc... from others who experience or have experienced the same struggles, difficulties, frustrations, etc...that you may experience. Besides that you will be part of the larger YWAM family in Taipei, still involved in ministry with great opportunities to mix with the locals, helping you to further improve your language skills.
Study at our language school:
We currently have three teachers that teach Chinese classes here in Dan Shui. The cost is 330 NT per hour (50 minutes) for one student with one teacher, or _480NT_ per hour for more than one student with one teacher. We have a complete Chinese curriculum and textbooks that teach Christian vocabulary as well.
Book costs are not included in the tuition fee. Students can enroll at anytime. Typically students study 10 hours a week one on one with one of our teachers.
The first thing you will need to consider is the status of your visa. You hopefully will be coming into Taiwan on an extendable tourist visa. This will allow you to stay in Taiwan up to six months before you need to leave the country and reapply for another visa. YWAM Taiwan cannot apply for resident visas for workers planning on staying two years or less.
If you feel led to make a commitment of over two years, the head of the personnel department will talk with you about the possibility of getting a YWAM resident visa.
People committing to two years or less with YWAM Taiwan will have to go a different route. Our language school *CANNOT* grant you a resident visa.
Our language school pro's:
The school is located in Dan Shui so it is conveniently close. There is also obviously much less red tape to deal with. Individual classes allow for more personal attention.
You can begin and end any time you'd like. As well, our school mainly focuses on spoken Chinese, which is what most of our staff are interested in mastering.
We have a house with three classrooms. Most of our material is for conversation and reading. We do have some of these materials in a Christian language.
It means that at the end of the 2 year program you will be able to preach the Gospel in Chinese.
The con's:
Individual classes are more expensive (aboutUS$10/hour) although it is much less than a regular school. Most full-time students take 8-10 hours/week of class which means you will be spending close to US$100/week per adult. As mentioned, our school cannot give resident visas.
There are different options for leaving the country to reapply for a visa - some of which are fairly inexpensive.
