Although the Mandarin ability of Taipei elementary school students proved better than expected on a recent test, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
"The policy to add more Mandarin classes to the curriculum in elementary schools has to be implemented, and we won't exclude cutting back on English courses if necessary," Ma said yesterday when attending a briefing on an evaluation of the results of a Mandarin Proficiency Test last year.
About 80 percent of the city's students received scores of between 75 and 90 on the 2005 Taipei Elementary School Mandarin Proficiency Test, which was taken by 31,000 six graders. Only 4.5 percent of students received failing grades of below 60.
Taipei Tatung Elementary School Principal Cheng Chin-yi (陳清義), who was in charge of the test, said the result showed no correlation between students' parents' birthplace and Mandarin ability.
Children of foreign spouses did not underperform on the test, although students who lived with their parents received better grades on average.
Although most students received good grades, the essay test revealed weaknesses in writing ability, including a limited use of adjectives, Chen said.
The evaluation of the proficiency test also indicated that the more students watched TV or stayed in front of the computer, the worse they performed on the test.
Ma encouraged parents to be more attentive to their children's Mandarin learning, saying that "Mandarin education should be given a higher priority than English education."
"Teaching English in elementary schools is not to equip students with a great English ability, but to help them become familiar with the language ? Learning Mandarin is helpful to other language learning in the future," he said.
In response to Ma's request to add more Mandarin classes, Taipei City Department of Education Commissioner Wu Ching-ji (
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
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