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I have not long come back from an absolutely fantastic three week trip to Taiwan, whereby the first two weeks was spent on a training course in the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language (TCFL) at the National Taipei University of Education (國立臺北教育大學) very generously arranged by the Taiwan Ministry of Education (it is free to attend if you have a British or American pas*port!). After being used to attending training seminars domestically and in Mainland China, on a professional level, it was so refreshing to experience and observe TCFL in a culture that has been teaching it longer than in Mainland China, whereby the quality of such was What struck me most is that almost the same methods employed for TEFL (or ESL) are employed in TCFL but with a Chinese flavour that appeals to the idiosyncrasies of Chinese as a foreign language and how to ensure that the language is taught effectively. If you want to know what this involves, simply look up any topic based activities on Google followed by “esl” e.g. “greetings esl”, “family members esl” – there you will find a whole range of excellent activities and resources used to teach English as a second language, much of which has already been translated into TCFL in Taiwan. An ongoing headache for many teachers I hear across the UK circuit, is the effective teaching of writing Chinese characters. Given the time constraints imposed on us, my original beliefs have always been to drip-feed the basics of writing from the beginning while simultaneously focusing on a much wider level of vocabulary and grammar across the skills of reading, listening and speaking. Let us also not forget that the teaching of culture is absolutely essential if our students are going to become “culturally competent” in the language, or shall we say “Socioculturally Competent” – that is to be able to converse in the appropriate register and frame of reference with a native Chinese speaker, particularly if that person has little knowledge or experience of western culture. This, from my