A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said.
At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange, and several colleges and industrial institutions.
The National Palace Museum and the National Center for Traditional Arts participated in the event for the first time, aiming to combine cultural legacies with language education to showcase the cultural depth and richness of Taiwan, creating more engaging learning experiences for Mandarin students.
Photo courtesy of the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan
FICHET executive director Lin Tzu-pin (林子斌) said that with support from the Taiwan-US Education Initiative and the Executive Yuan’s Mandarin education scheme, the Ministry of Education’s Taiwan HUAYU Best program has helped establish ties between 23 local universities and 79 US universities,
Seven Mandarin learning centers were set up in the US to provide systemic teaching support and Mandarin teacher training, he said.
Under the initiative, the ministry promotes bilateral education exchanges between Taiwan and the US jointly with the American Institute in Taiwan, with an exhibition held during the convention to unveil the outcomes of bilateral cooperation in Mandarin education.
A “Taiwan Night” with performances by Taiwan’s folk-dance troupes at dinner was held, and there was a symposium during the convention for representatives from the government and academia to discuss how to build a more comprehensive global Mandarin-learning ecosystem based on the initiative.
In a related development, the National Central Library (NCL) last week donated Taiwan-published books to start a “Taiwan Corner” at the Hawaii State Library (HSL).
The books range across various fields, including literature, history, arts, nature and social sciences, while the HSL gave 22 books related to Hawaii’s cultures and conventions to the NCL in return.
NCL Director-General Wang Han-ching (王涵青) said the HSL has long been devoted to knowledge popularization in Hawaii and the Taiwan Corner is expected to be a starting point for locals to learn more about Taiwanese cultures.
Hawaii State Public Library System State Librarian Stacey Aldrich said Hawaii and Taiwan are similar in terms of indigenous cultures, and a geography of high mountains and the ocean.
The Taiwan Corner would boost locals’ understanding of Taiwan and enrich the HSL’s Asian book collections, she said.
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