Vietnamese bride Mei-feng married her husband about a year ago, with no knowledge about the culture, history or languages of Taiwan. Thanks to her husband's support, however, she started to learn Chinese two months ago and already she can communicate in simple sentences and write basic Chinese characters.
In an effort to improve the Chinese skills of the 126,361 foreign spouses in Taiwan like Mei-feng, the Ministry of Education (MOE) invited language teachers and linguists to design a Chinese-learning curriculum aimed at foreign spouses.
After publishing the basic-level curriculum last year, the MOE yesterday announced the publication of an advanced-level reading primer for those who have finished the basic course to further increase their vocabulary and communication skills.
Addressing a press conference at the new curriculum's launch, Vice-Minister of Education Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠) said that the ministry hopes to take good care of foreign spouses and their families through the promotion of education and Taiwanese culture.
"New immigrants in Taiwan are reshaping the culture in Taiwan. It is the ministry's responsibility, therefore, to help foreign spouses understand Taiwan better and learn to speak our language through education, so that they can blend in smoothly," Fan said.
Huang Fu-shun (黃富順), curriculum designer and education professor at National Chung Cheng University, said that while the design of Chinese textbooks for Taiwanese students are based on the level of difficulty, Chinese characters chosen in the reading primers for foreign spouses are all of commonly used words and everyday expressions.
"Chinese characters such as `the restroom' (盥洗室), for example, are considered difficult to write and would be put in fifth or six-grade textbooks. However, we chose the term as one of the 400 basic vocabulary items in the textbooks, because it is a common term used everywhere," Huang said.
According to Huang, the advanced-level curriculum consists of three textbooks covering introductions to the society, geography and cultural aspects in Taiwan.
The textbooks provide practical pieces -- including examples of conversations, press releases and a diary -- for students to practice different styles of writing. Huang said that after learning the total vocabulary of 1,011 words in the textbooks, students will be able to read pamphlets and simple articles with no difficulty.
An Keng Elementary School teacher Lin Hsiu-er (林秀娥), who teaches Chinese to Mei-feng and many other foreign spouses in evening classes, shared her teaching experience.
"My students come from various countries, so the most difficult part is for us to understand each other. But I find it rewarding to teach foreign spouses, because in addition to learning the language, we also learn about their different cultures and customs," Lin said.
Thanks to the systematic new curriculum, Lin said, it is easier for students to learn Chinese phonetic symbols. Students' Chinese vocabulary and language skills would be the same as those of third or fourth graders after approximately two years of study, she said.
Mei-feng goes to Chinese classes every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evening from 6pm to 8pm. She said that learning Chinese is hard yet interesting. With the ambition to finish all the classes with teacher Lin, Mei-feng said she sees the class as a good way to get to understand the history, culture and people of Taiwan, and she encourages more foreign spouses to join her to enjoy the language-learning experience.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,