The Ministry of Education will “encourage” primary school English teachers to participate in the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) instead of requiring them to obtain high-intermediate GEPT credentials, a ministry official said yesterday.
The ministry would grant subsidies to teachers who would like to take the proficiency test so English teachers at primary schools could meet a certain proficiency level, the ministry’s Department of Elementary Education Director-General Yang Chang-yu (楊昌裕) told reporters.
Yang said applicants who gain a high-intermediate score would have an advantage when applying for teaching positions at elementary schools.
Primary school pupils in Taiwan generally begin English classes in third grade, but some schools start teaching English to students in first grade.
Ministry statistics show that there are 5,678 English teachers at the nation’s primary schools and half have no high-intermediate level GEPT credentials.
The ministry has been drafting new curriculum guidelines for elementary English classes. The guideline is scheduled to take effect in August 2011.
The ministry plans to improve the quality of English teaching in elementary schools by offering the examination subsidy as an incentive to improve the proficiency of English teachers.
In addition to the stipend to encourage teachers to take the test, the ministry may provide subsidies for teachers to join short-term study programs in the US, Yang said.
The ministry had planned to ask teachers to gain advanced level GEPT credentials, but decided it would not be practical.
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
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