NSLI-Y 2025 Taiwan – Week 6
大家好! Students were busy this week with final exams, culminating projects, OPIs and flying back to the U.S.! So this final Week 6 blog was written by the Resident Directors.
After our long weekend trip to Yilan, the Gold Museum and Shifen Old Street in New Taipei City, everyone returned to Chinese class on Monday morning to prepare for a week of final exams and culminating project speeches. On Monday afternoon students had some time for studying and preparing their culminating project presentation slides. On Tuesday students practiced the Chinese song “Ye Shi Oh Yes!” for the closing ceremony on Friday afternoon.
On Wednesday afternoon students participated in their final RD Meeting of the program. First they were given letters they had written to themselves back in Chicago during Pre-Departure Orientation. After reading the letters, a few students shared what goals they had written about that they had now accomplished six weeks later. Many of these accomplishments had to do with Chinese language skills like having short conversations in Chinese, understanding host families or ordering Bubble Tea! Then students discussed how their experiences in Taiwan have differed from their expectations back in PDO.
After students read their letters they were then split into groups and asked to write four things on the whiteboard: 1. Chinese they had learned; 2. Professional skills they had developed; 3. How they have grown; and 4. What memories of Taiwan they will choose to bring back with them to the US. Many students wrote about how much Chinese they had learned, their new-found confidence navigating Taipei public transportation, and memories of all of the people they have met (teachers, host families, and Shih Chien staff).
Student reflections on their language development over 6 weeks.
On Thursday morning students all took their final written Chinese exam and spent their last morning with their Chinese teachers. In the afternoon students had their final language partner day. This language partner day was a group activity that included all students and took all afternoon as students competed for points to earn a top prize. First, students competed in a Kahoot competition that included some silly questions where students had to identify baby pictures of their teachers, as well as some questions about things they had learned during this program. After the Kahoot, students and language partner groups were then given the choice to earn points in a few different ways. One was by looking for signs and places around campus and the local Dazhi community in a scavenger hunt, another was by making a music video where students talked about their daily experience at Shih Chien University in Chinese, and finally by reciting Classical Chinese poetry or a tongue twister! While these were all difficult tasks, every student group accomplished all three and the competition came down to a nail-biting finish!
Zara, a Peer Language Partner, Valor and Chinmay in front of scavenger hunt location.
Nishta, Stella, and a Peer Language Partner in front of scavenger hunt location.
Maya, Camila, David and a Peer Language Partner in front of scavenger hunt location.
On Friday morning each student took an extended one-on-one mock Oral Proficiency Interview. The purpose of this OPI was to prepare students for their real OPI that is required when they return to the U.S.. When the OPI was finished, students went to lunch and then we all assembled for our closing ceremony Friday afternoon.
The first part of the closing ceremony was student Culminating Projects. All 25 students stood on stage and shared their culminating project with a large audience that included students, teachers, host families, and Shih Chien University staff. Student topics included: Chinese medicine, popular music, Taiwanese theater, exercise habits, school life in Taiwan, AI, and many more. All of these culminating speeches were between three and five minutes long and were entirely in Chinese!
After the culminating project speeches, students gathered on stage together to perform their final rendition of “Ye Shi Oh Yes!” one of the Chinese songs they had been practicing since week one. The performance went really well and students sang to an excited audience of host families.
Students singing Ye Shi Oh Yes!
After the singing performance each student was given a certificate of completion by their Chinese teacher and photos were taken of each class.
The last part of the closing ceremony was a short video edited by Shih Chien staff that showed photos and videos of student classes and activities in each week since students arrived in Taiwan. The videos also included goodbye messages from all three Chinese teachers and all of the student’s host families. The video helped to summarize the entire program and also brought tears to the eyes of some students (and a few RDs). When the video was over the ceremony too was brought to an end but students and host families mingled for nearly an hour to take photos together and share gifts.
David, Rocio, Nat, Camila, Nishta, and Stella at the closing ceremony.
On Sunday morning we all assembled at Shih Chien for the final time to make our way to the Taoyuan airport and back home to the US. Students were all dropped off by their host families very early in the morning at 6:00am. At the airport students all said a final goodbye to Shirley, Mick, Murphy, Paul and other staff and went through security. The flight from Taipei to San Francisco was over 12 hours long but thankfully there were no significant delays. Upon arrival in San Francisco students shared appreciation notes they had written earlier that week and then everyone said goodbye and dispersed to check in at their various gates and fly back to different cities across the United States.
And that was that for our final week of this intensive language program in Taiwan! We want to congratulate all of the students for their hard work and dedication to learning Chinese and integrating into a new culture and environment. We were so impressed with every student this year and we are certain you will all go on to do great things! We hope they will have a chance to return to Taiwan in the future and we hope that they are able to keep studying Chinese!
下次見！
Sincerely,
南老師 、李老師、潘老師
(RDs Nan Laoshi, Pan Laoshi, Li Laoshi)