Teachers and materials in seven Southeast Asian languages are to be provided for students nationwide, demonstrating that Taiwan is a multicultural and multiethnic nation, the Ministry of Education said yesterday.
It is an “important day in history” that sets a new milestone for the nation’s education policy, Deputy Minister of Education Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠) told a news conference.
There are to be a total of 126 books in Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, Malay and Filipino, with 2,328 people certified to teach the courses, Fan said.
Photo: Rachel Lin, Taipei Times
Giving students an opportunity to learn Southeast Asian languages will familiarize them with the concept of a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural society, she added.
Starting in August, when the next semester begins, there is to be one period of a mandatory Southeast Asian language course in elementary schools each week, an optional course based on whether there are enough interested students for a “flexible education” period in junior-high schools and an optional course in senior-high schools, K-12 Education Administration Director-General Peng Fu-yuan (彭富源) said.
Taiwan is the first nation to incorporate multiple Southeast Asian languages into official curricula and develop official textbooks for them, he said.
The textbooks would be the same nationwide and also include cultural knowledge, such as why some people wear hijabs and the significance of the adab gesture when greeting others, said Ting An-ni (丁安妮), an Indonesian-language teacher at Beixin Elementary School in New Taipei City.
Huang Pao-yun (黃寶雲), Beixin Elementary School’s Malaysian-language teacher, said she was proud that the languages of foreign spouses are now included as official courses, adding that she felt truly accepted by the Taiwanese government and people.
New Taipei City Department of Education Director Chang Ming-wen (張明文) said that the city participated in the drafting of Southeast Asian language textbooks in 2016 and has held trial courses since 2017.
The New Taipei City Government has prepared several ancillary measures to support the policy, Chang said, adding that it has endeavored to make the wording of the materials as genuine as possible.
The K-12 Education Administration, National Central University and the Institute for Information Industry have also collaborated on creating digital content for Southeast Asian language education, Peng said.
The project aims to overcome the constraints of distance and lack of educational resources in rural areas to allow schoolchildren to learn the languages in real time, he said.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
The Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office today requested that a court detain three individuals, including Keelung Department of Civil Affairs Director Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔), in connection with an investigation into forged signatures used in recall campaigns. Chang is suspected of accessing a household registration system to assist with recall campaigns targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors Cheng Wen-ting (鄭文婷) and Jiho Chang (張之豪), prosecutors said. Prosecutors yesterday directed investigators to search six locations, including the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Keelung office and the residences of several recall campaign leaders. The recall campaign leaders, including Chi Wen-chuan (紀文荃), Yu Cheng-i (游正義) and Hsu Shao-yeh
RSS