The Education Division of TECO in LA has administered TOCFL tests for 11 years now, and CCCC tests since the CCCC pilot testing was held in Los Angeles in 2008. Almost 5,000 students in Southern California and Arizona have taken at least one of these tests. Liang Li-Ling, the Director of the Education Division told the reporters “The Education Division is planning to cooperate with 12 mainstream schools and Chinese schools to conduct a total of 17 official tests in 2017.”

“The benefits of taking the TOCFL and CCCC tests include getting first priority if you’re applying for a Taiwan scholarship or for a Huayu Enrichment Scholarship to study Mandarin. The certificates show that people’s Chinese ability is MOE national standard which is useful for job seeking, Overseas Taiwanese students applying to Study in Taiwan can have free Chinese testing. A most important detail is that TOCFL and CCCC are accepted and recognized by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL)”. All American schools, universities and teachers know about the ACTFL and this recognition by ACTFL is very helpful for promoting TOCFL and CCCC.

In addition to promoting these Chinese proficiency tests, the Education Division also held a press conference chaired by Steve Hsia, Director-General of TECO-LA to express its gratitude to the Yin Chin Foundation of U.S.A. for providing scholarships amounting to a total of 60,000 USD to encourage and help more Taiwanese students to study for a master’s degree or undertake a doctoral program in Southern California. The Education Division of TECO-LA assisted the Yin Chin foundation to set up this scholarship program last year and it has received a lot of positive feedback from overseas Taiwanese students who are scholarships recipients for helping them to reduce a lot of their financial burden. Mr. Yin Ching-Long and Mrs. Yin Min-Kuan, the founder and president the Yin Chin Foundation of U.S.A., decided to offer these scholarships as a long-term contribution toward cultivating Taiwan’s young generation.

The Education Division used the opportunity of this press conference to promote the Ministry of Education funding program for the Overseas Mandarin Teachers Summer Workshops in Taiwan. In the past three years the Education Division of TECO-LA has organized for five groups to attend such enrichment workshops in different universities in Taiwan. This type of workshop is greatly welcomed by the local Mandarin teachers and professors. The workshop application deadline is February 24, 2017 and the training will start June 12 and go until June 24 this coming summer.
It will provide a great training program and includes a cultural tour to give the participating teachers more understanding about Taiwan’s traditional and contemporary cultural and social developments, and perhaps inspire them to integrate what they’ve learned and discovered into their teaching programs when they come back to Los Angeles. It’s a great way to promote Taiwan and Mandarin learning and teaching, and to build more educational partnerships.