More than 200 kindergartens nationwide have joined a program that promotes the use of Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), the Ministry of Education said on Tuesday.
The “immersive Hoklo learning for kindergartens” program has been adopted by 227 facilities, the K-12 Education Administration said in a statement, adding that the program seeks to ensure that the language is widely used.
The agency has collaborated with National Taichung University of Education to push a government initiative to promote national languages, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Education via CNA
The program, launched in 2016, initially started with 37 classes at 10 kindergartens, it said.
The agency said it hopes that interactive teaching methods would help children foster the habit of using Hoklo in everyday life to express themselves naturally.
Wanlai Kindergarten, a nonprofit institution in Changhua County, said its teachers are continuously creating new teaching materials in Hoklo to create an immersive Hoklo-language environment in its classes.
These include teaching children the names of food items, how to describe their taste and color, and other phrases often used in everyday conversation, it said.
The kindergarten also organizes field trips to Hoklo-speaking communities and cultural events, for example, to temples where the sea goddess Matsu is enshrined, it said.
Those activities seek to enable children to use Hoklo to speak about everyday experiences, it added.
The kindergarten affiliated with Simen Elementary School in Hsinchu City said it has tasked students with recording stories in Hoklo.
The kindergarten, which joined the program this year, said it makes all announcements and conducts events in Hoklo to foster an immersive environment for its students.
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