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"Sorry, I just now saw this. \n\nMost are younger (college-age), but certainly not all. I'm 27 and I thought I'd generally be the oldest in my class, but I haven't been so far. There was a 28-year old Japanese girl in my class my first term, and a 28-year old Canadian guy and a 36-year old Korean guy in my class this past term. There are a fair few men in their 60's, actually, so there really is a full range here. I can think of one Japanese, a French guy, a Brit, and two Americans (sounds like the opening of a bad joke) that are mid-50s or older. \n\nGenerally, I've found that people are committed to doing what is assigned and learning it well, but they don't tend to go beyond that. I study from 3-4 textbooks at a time in an effort to learn as much as possible in as little time as possible, so I'm probably not a reasonable yardstick for this, but I would say that most people in the intensive program are there to learn. The students in the regular program are a whole different thing altogether, from what I've heard. Some of my friends have gotten sick of the other students in their regular classes and so are switching to intensive this term. \n\nThere may be some teachers that teach this way, but I'd imagine they are pretty few. My first teacher was outstanding, and my second teacher was very good, about getting us to interact and use the language in class. You can sniff out how a teacher will be after the first class or two (at the most), and you have the whole first week to switch. And actually, I think the interaction will be even higher in the higher levels, because you're already able to use the language fairly well by that point. \n\nYou can relax on this one! I actually found my apartment through Craigslist, but most of the ones listed there are very expensive. It's still worth a look though. You should also check tealit.com and forumosa.com for apartment listings. Also, the 7th floor at MTC has a bulletin board that usually has anywhere from a few to a few dozen listings for apartments. All of these are pretty likely to have English-speaking landlords. You can also hang around MTC and try to find a native speaker who is willing to help you out. You'll find people here are really friendly and very willing to help out. You could even turn that into a language exchange (or something more  ) if you want. \n\nYes, you just go to the office toward the end of the term and pay your money for next term. They'll make announcements and it's on the calendar on their website. Your teacher will also give you the registration form for the following term in class, so it's hard to miss the registration period. \nAnother thing I want to point out is the ICLP program. If your goal really is \"to obtain proficiency in Mandarin in the most efficient, time effective manner possible\", ICLP is what you need to look at, if you can spare the money (it's more than 3x the price). That said, you won't have a lot of time for enjoying life in Taiwan, because you'll be too bogged down with studying. But maybe the summer session at the end of your year here. I've heard really outstanding things about the results of even one summer term at ICLP, and it's a little less intensive than their academic year program, both in terms of workload and financial burden. \nA year here will do really great things for your Chinese, no matter which program you choose. If you come in at Book 2 level, you'd probably finish the first part of level 5 (either Far East 3 or Mini Radio Plays), assuming you stay in the intensive course, and neither fail (which is rare) nor skip (which is very possible if you're working hard). However, I can tell you as someone about to start Mini Radio Plays that I would not be confident enough to use Chinese in a business setting right now. I'm perfectly fine with making conversation, getting around in daily life (including taking care of important things like immigration forms and applying for a resident card), talking about my background, even some light political or academic discussion and such, but it really doesn't go much beyond casual discussion at this point. My business terminology is nil right now. That's partly because that isn't what I'm learning Chinese for, but it's also because we haven't covered any of that type of stuff in class. \nThat said, there is a business conversation class offered in Level 5, but since it isn't one of the \"usual\" classes, you'll have to either find enough other people who also want to take it with you, study it on the side by yourself, or hire a tutor to work on it with you. You can hire an MTC teacher as a tutor, which works out to about 700NT per hour I believe, or you can seek out your own and probably save some money. Or hire an MTC teacher as a tutor, which means you're more likely to get good instruction and the teacher won't have to split the money with the school.  \nHopefully this helped! Feel free to ask more questions, and I'll try to get to them sooner next time! \n\n"
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