Northumbria University makes links with Taiwan in exciting visit from Ming Chuan University

Students from Taiwan have visited Northumbria University recently to take part in an exciting cultural programme.

The five week programme, which places particular focus on language, culture, and communication, was hosted by Rachel Edwards, Director of Programmes in English Language and Linguistics.

Links between Northumbria and Ming Chuan University were initially established in 2006, when Rachel visited Taiwan for a week during which she hosted a number of lectures and seminars with students.

After being impressed with the University, Northumbria was contacted by Dr Tsay, Chair of Applied English at Ming Chuan University, expressing his interest in the Humanities course and teaching styles of the university’s lecturers.

Rachel said: “With Dr Tsay contacting us, we thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to collaborate and create a bespoke long cultural programme for students at Ming Chuan University.

Being a part of this this course has been a thoroughly enjoyable experience, teaching culturally aware students from whom we were also able to learn from.”

Although Ming Chuan has links with a similar programme hosted in the US, this is the first course of its kind in the UK.

Dr Tsay said: “I would strongly recommend it to the students in our department at Ming Chuan University in the future. It’s a fantastic opportunity for them to come and study in the UK and experience a completely new culture. Northumbria have exceeded all expectations and we will definitely want to maintain links with the University.”

Students from Ming Chuan University have also felt that participating on the course has had huge benefits for them academically too. Taiwanese student, Lui-Fu Hou said: “The programme is so good for many reasons. You can get so much out of it in such a short space of time – a lot of my peers wanted to stay longer because they were enjoying it so much.”

Rob Carthy, Director of International Development said: ‘Building links between universities around the world is vital in developing our global academic network. This fantastic programme has strengthened Northumbria’s link with our partner institution Ming Chuan University, and I hope to see it continue in the future.

Students from over 100 countries choose Northumbria University because of academic excellence, a career edge and a fantastic student experience. To find out more, visit https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/international/