More than 300 kindergarten classrooms nationwide have been teaching Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) through immersion under a plan launched by the Ministry of Education, it said yesterday.
Since the beginning of the 2016-2017 academic year, the K-12 Education Administration has asked a team from National Taichung University of Education’s Department of Early Childhood Education to encourage preschools to teach Hoklo in an immersive setting, the agency said in a statement.
Under the initiative, the team arranges for teachers at participating preschools to receive training, and attend workshops and other professional events, it said.
The schools publish their results, share their experiences and provide other information to help organizers evaluate the program’s effectiveness, it added.
Each school year, preschools can apply to join the program and receive funding from the agency based on the number of classes that would be participating, it said.
While 37 classrooms across 10 kindergartens took part in the program in the 2016-2017 academic year, that number has since risen, the agency said.
In the 2020-2021 school year, 313 classrooms across 91 kindergartens are involved in the initiative, it said.
At Tainan Municipal Madou Preschool, which has participated in the program since 2017, one method used by teachers is to have students sing nursery rhymes in Hoklo, the agency said.
Incorporating Hoklo into routine, schoolwide or classroom activities, and adopting an interactive and participatory teaching method enables children to demonstrate their Hoklo listening and speaking skills in a natural environment, the agency said, citing the results of the program.
Hopefully, by increasing kindergarten personnel’s knowledge of immersive Hoklo education, students would develop an interest in and a habit of using the language, it said.
The goal of the initiative is to raise children who are willing to use Hoklo in their daily lives, it said.
The Hakka Affairs Council and the Council of Indigenous Peoples promote similar programs at preschools to teach Hakka and Aboriginal languages through immersion, it said.
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