Exchanges between Taiwan and the US on bilingual education support Washington’s policy of limiting Chinese influence in the US, as well as Taiwan’s goal of becoming a bilingual nation by 2030, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Brent Christensen said at a Bilingual Education Symposium at Kaohsiung’s National Sun Yat-sen University yesterday.
A US-Taiwan Education Initiative would increase the number of Americans visiting Taiwan to study Mandarin, as well as the number of Taiwanese Mandarin teachers in the US, Christensen said.
The initiative was conceived in a memorandum of understanding signed on Dec. 3 last year between the AIT and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US.
Photo: Fang Chih-hsien, Taipei Times
Nearly 300 educators from across Taiwan attended the symposium, which was also attended by Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) and Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠).
Speaking at the symposium, Pan announced that a bilingual training center would be established at the university as part of the initiative.
The initiative is an important milestone formally marking the beginning of cooperation between the two nations on education issues, he said.
Over the past few months, Taiwanese and US representatives have held several meetings and workshops to discuss educational topics, with bilingual education a major focus, he added.
“English-language skills are an important foundation in efforts to be internationally competitive,” Pan said.
Aside from equipping educators with English-language skills, the bilingual training center would also provide digital resources, including a platform that teachers could access for teaching material, he said.
Christensen touted the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange’s Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program as an important resource to help achieve the initiative’s goals.
The program, which was implemented in Taiwan by the foundation in 2003, brings teaching assistants from the US to Taiwan to help teach English at the nation’s elementary and junior high schools, he said.
The program is run in 160 nations, but Taiwan has the second-largest implementation worldwide, Pan said, adding that Taiwan is one of the few places in the world where the program is continuing with in-person exchanges amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The moment is ripe for deepening cooperation, especially in teaching and studying Chinese and English. What an excellent example of ‘real friends, real progress,’” Pan said.
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