No progress in native-language education has been made in schools despite the central government promising to encourage local culture and language education three years ago, native-language teachers said yesterday.
Liu Feng-chi (劉豐極), director of the Taiwan Association of Mother Language Teachers and a teacher of Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), said he felt cheated that the government had "not taken in any of our suggestions to improve native-language education in school" over the past three years.
Liu said the Ministry of Education had not put much effort into reform nor native-language education. Classes in schools were not being planned carefully and lack continuity, he said.
"Classes [for native languages] should continue after elementary school so that students can keep learning the languages in junior high," Liu said.
Association executive director Huang Hsiu-jen (黃修仁) said teachers of Hoklo are being "reselected" every year and must undergo a "disrespectful" selection process.
Huang said the selection committee was sometimes composed of teachers who did not speak Hoklo themselves.
"The selection team tends to choose young Hoklo teachers who can sing and dance in class, while older teachers like us end up with no job," Huang said.
Liu also said that the salary for teachers was based on the number of hours worked in a week and that the hourly wage was a mere NT$320.
Furthermore, native language teachers are called "assistant teachers," and schools do not provide them with health insurance, Liu added.
The association also expressed concern that many schools were using the time reserved for language classes to teach other subjects, and that many language teachers were required to teach mathematics or science as well.
Meanwhile, Perng Fuh-yuan (
Perng said the selection process applied not only to language teachers but to teachers in general, and that former language teachers were added to the selection committee to provide specialist advice.
"It is hard for students to continue native-language classes in junior high school under all of the exam pressure," he said. "However, schools have tried to incorporate these languages into extracurricular activities connected to the school, such as Hoklo language clubs."
The ministry spends NT$400 million (US$11.9 million) annually on native-language courses, while English classes have NT$200 million per year in funding. Elementary school students are required to take at least one period of native-tongue classes per week.
Taiwan's native tongues include Hoklo, Hakka and a variety of Aboriginal languages.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS