Legislators and educators called on the government to make English the nation’s second language, with recommendations to allocate money from the Cabinet’s Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Plan to achieve the objective.
Taiwan has to improve its English-language proficiency because it is the common language of international trade and commerce, and on a regional level it could facilitate the nation’s drive to forge partnerships with Southeast Asian countries under the government’s “new southbound policy,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳) said at public hearing on Friday, promoting the use of English throughout the nation’s private and public sectors.
The proposal for English to be included in the Ministry of Culture’s “national language development bill,” is to be taken into consideration along with a focus on promoting Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Hakka and Aboriginal languages, the ministry said.
Participants at the hearing also made suggestions for implementing bilingual education programs for children to require civil servants to pass spoken English proficiency tests and to change the way English is taught, by emphasizing listening and speaking rather than the pedagogical fixation on grammar and sentence construction.
“We have more people speaking and writing messages in Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka and English [via Line and other social messaging apps] with all the different languages all mixed together,” Liu said.
“As long as people can understand each other, there is no need to get worked up about grammar and correct sentence structure,” he added.
DPP Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) said he would request for the Ministry of Education and the National Development Council to implement programs under the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Plan to teach foreign languages in the public education system and create friendly environments to promote the use of English at city and county levels.
Liu and Chiu suggested a 20-year national plan for Taiwanese to speak English as a second language, using the examples set by Singapore and Malaysia.
POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT: Japan and the US are expected to hold in-depth discussions on Taiwan-related issues during the meeting next month, Japanese sources said The holding of a Japan-US leaders’ meeting ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to China is positive news for Taiwan, former Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association representative Hiroyasu Izumi said yesterday. After the Liberal Democratic Party’s landslide victory in Japan’s House of Representatives election, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is scheduled to visit the US next month, where she is to meet with Trump ahead of the US president’s planned visit to China from March 31 to April 2 for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Japan and the US are expected to hold in-depth discussions on Taiwan-related issues during the
‘LIKE-MINDED PARTNER’: Tako van Popta said it would be inappropriate to delay signing the deal with Taiwan because of China, adding he would promote the issue Canadian senators have stressed Taiwan’s importance for international trade and expressed enthusiasm for ensuring the Taiwan-Canada trade cooperation framework agreement is implemented this year. Representative to Canada Harry Tseng (曾厚仁) in an interview with the Central News Agency (CNA) said he was increasingly uneasy about Ottawa’s delays in signing the agreement, especially as Ottawa has warmed toward Beijing. There are “no negotiations left. Not only [is it] initialed, we have three versions of the text ready: English, French and Mandarin,” Tseng said. “That tells you how close we are to the final signature.” Tseng said that he hoped Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday bestowed one of Taiwan’s highest honors on Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) Ambassador Andrea Clare Bowman in recognition of her contributions to bilateral ties. “By conferring the Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon on Ambassador Bowman today, I want to sincerely thank her, on behalf of the Taiwanese people, for her outstanding contribution to deepening diplomatic ties between Taiwan and SVG,” Lai said at a ceremony held at the Presidential Office in Taipei. He noted that Bowman became SVG’s first ambassador to Taiwan in 2019 and
A man walks past elementary school artworks at the Taipei Lantern Festival in Ximen District yesterday, the first day of the event. The festival is to run from 5pm to 10pm through March 15.
RSS