The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of people all over the world, bringing great changes in many sectors.
The government’s effective pandemic response has allowed people in Taiwan to carry on with their lives more or less as normal.
However, great changes pose great challenges. Taiwan must also seize the opportunity to improve across the board. While the high-tech industry has profited and enhanced its links to other advanced countries, traditional industries are also thinking hard about how to upgrade.
Their efforts underscore the nation’s pioneering spirit and willingness to face challenges without fear. The willingness to innovate culturally and economically was reflected by plans and proposals put forward by representatives of industry, government and the academic sector on Feb. 24 at a forum on Taiwan’s development into a bilingual nation organized by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).
Taiwan is a maritime nation, and openness and innovation are important for it to flourish and prosper. Making Taiwan bilingual Chinese and English is essential to build and maintain an open economy and society.
For more than a century, English has been the lingua franca of international business and commerce, as well as migration and cultural exchange.
In the Internet age, English is more important than ever. Speaking English is an indispensable asset, enabling people to broaden their horizons, find a job, get promoted, absorb new knowledge and communicate internationally.
A Harvard University study showed that English proficiency is closely correlated to income and quality of life.
On the national level, in small and medium-sized economies such as the Netherlands, Singapore, Ireland, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, where English is widely spoken, it has been a major attractor for overseas investors. These countries have thrived in international business and their economies have performed well.
A little more than two years ago, then-Financial Supervisory Commission chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said that there were five major factors that would make it difficult for Taiwan to replace Hong Kong as a regional financial hub, including language.
Taiwan does not offer an all-English environment, which makes it hard to attract international banks to move their regional headquarters here.
Financial hubs must provide a full range of services entirely in English. Therefore, the capital that left Hong Kong in the wake of China’s repression in the territory has moved to Singapore, Tokyo or London — not to Taipei.
The push for Taiwan to become a bilingual nation is driven by forward-looking economic and social actors. It is reflected in suggestions by the Chinese National Federation of Industries, and has been put into practice by the Tainan City Government and some universities offering bilingual classes.
A little more than two years ago, the Executive Yuan, headed by then-premier William Lai (賴清德), proposed the Blueprint for Developing Taiwan into a Bilingual Nation by 2030.
The plan set two main policy objectives: elevating national competitiveness and cultivating English proficiency.
Stipulating 2019 as “year zero for bilingualism,” the blueprint aimed to ensure that all students in the first grade of elementary school would achieve internationally competitive ability in English after 12 years of education.
Taiwanese schools have been providing English-language education for many years. Despite not being ineffective, Taiwan’s “exams-first” English-teaching environment — in which the content of lessons is determined by exams and students are motivated to learn to achieve high exam scores — has its obvious shortcomings.
Those exams consist mainly of writing tasks, and memorizing vocabulary and grammar is the only way to get good grades. Scant attention is paid to listening comprehension, speaking and creative writing.
As a result, while Taiwanese university students are generally not bad at reading, their listening ability is uneven, and speaking and writing skills are in need of improvement.
In other words, in an environment where written exams are paramount, students learn the skills needed to succeed in exams, but are rather weak at applying English in real-life situations.
Improving English teaching in schools is the starting point for creating a bilingual nation, but it also involves many other social sectors.
To reach that aim, it is also necessary to create an environment in which English is used in daily life. Taiwanese who want to improve their practical English should seek, and be enabled to find, the chance to communicate with foreigners, at work and in other contexts.
Enacting the policy is the task of multiple government departments, and it will only bear fruit if they do not just mouth slogans and draft bureaucratic essays, but approach the task practically.
In this respect, the blueprint marks a breakthrough. It brings together all ministries and departments to tackle the task, starting with the bilingualization of official Web sites, documents, laws, regulations and public services, among others.
This is especially important for departments engaging with foreign agencies and people.
It also entails creating a friendly, bilingual tourism environment, setting up additional radio and television channels with English programs or subtitles, as well as cultivating public servants’ English ability.
In education from kindergarten to university, it aims to strengthen young people’s listening skills and give them plenty of opportunities to practice speaking, focused on real-life needs and individual interest.
However, creating a bilingual nation is a contentious issue. Accusations that the policy leads to Taiwanese worshiping “Anglo-American hegemony,” “desinicization,” and “soft” Taiwanese independence, among others, can be safely ignored.
Those who promote such arguments are the same people who unreasonably blame the government when Chinese warships sail through the Taiwan Strait or warplanes fly over it, or when China bans the importation of Taiwanese pineapples.
However, others have said that an increased number of lessons taught in English might confuse especially young children, who might even mix up their native language and English. Still others are concerned that producing bilingual versions of official documents is a waste of resources.
Such doubts can be mitigated by better, more persuasive communication of the policy, as well as by the quality of the services provided, including more and better English-language teachers at schools.
To achieve the aim, the government will have to further detail its plan, implement its elements effectively and take the lead putting English into practice.
The corporate sector should also help promote the policy and lead by example. Companies should help their employees improve their English, and take their skills into account when deciding promotions and salary increases.
Likewise, Taiwan must stop giving importance to Mandarin as its single, “national language.”
Schools, companies and families can help broaden people’s horizons and help them develop their abilities. This, in turn, would help Taiwan’s integration in the international community, based on its strength as a maritime nation.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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