The Global Education Association in Taiwan recently conducted a survey that found that over the past eight years, universities across the nation have closed eight English departments and changed the focus of nine others, showing a declining interest among students in English.
Among the nation’s 161 universities and junior colleges, 126 had English departments, with 50,000 students last year.
The total number of students graduating from English departments nationwide exceeded 10,000 in 2012, the poll said.
The association sent the survey to the 126 schools, for which it received 74 valid responses, and it found that 31.5 percent of respondents said they face problems finding sufficient students.
National Taiwan University (NTU) English department head Tseng Li-ling (曾麗玲) said that the department, which has long been the nation’s leading university English department, has also seen a rapid decrease in students in recent years.
Although the department does not face any problems finding students, it has seen a substantial decrease in applicants — from an average of 200 to less than 100 three years ago — for its graduate institute classes, due to students’ worries about finding a job with their major after graduation, Tseng said.
Tseng also said the institute had been forced to adjust curricula, lessen the amount of time to graduate from three-and-a-half years to two-and-a-half years, and decrease the requirements for graduate papers from 80 pages to 60 pages.
Although the university is establishing an Institute for Translation, competition from other departments has decreased enrollment in departments of foreign languages, Tseng said.
Tseng said that between 60 and 70 percent of foreign-language students minor in sociology or psychology, or pursue double majors in law and foreign languages, adding that many college students from the department of foreign languages went on to study law after graduating.
Many others branch out into baking, art or writing scripts and novels, Tseng said.
Tseng also said that since 2007, universities have closed eight departments of applied English, adding that more than nine other departments in schools, including Nan Jeon University of Science and Technology, have chosen to change the names of the departments and give them different focuses.
According to the association’s poll, 80 percent of all English departments continue to teach in English, but 40 percent of students lack opportunities for internships before graduating.
Many respondents to the poll said that English departments should stop trying to foster future English teachers and secretaries for companies and instead teach students how to apply the skills they learn in their departments in the international environment.
However, Vice Minister of Education Chen Der-hua (陳德華) said that applications to graduate institutes were at an all-time low for all subjects and it was not a problem facing only English departments.
Chen said graduate institutes need to introduce more professional courses with practical applications to give their students a competitive edge in the job market, adding that if departments of foreign languages trained students to become professional translators, it would help retain students.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not