Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) criticized Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) yesterday over his remark that children should learn mother tongues other than Mandarin at home “instead of taking up too many hours at school.”
The remark showed that the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) “does not understand that the nation’s underprivileged families are in crisis when it comes to passing on their mother tongues to their children,” Kuan said when asked for comment.
Many parents with mother tongues other than Mandarin want to speak their language with their children, but refrain from doing so for fear that their children may have difficulties with Mandarin, she said.
“Mandarin is, after all, the dominant language” in Taiwan, Kuan said.
Schools should promote bilingualism to help preserve Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), Hakka and Aboriginal languages, she said.
“Promoting the teaching of mother tongues at home does not contradict teaching local languages at school,” she said.
Kuan made the comment in response to Liu’s remark during a question-and-answer session with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) in the legislature on Friday.
Hung criticized Hoklo education in schools, saying students were overburdened and confused by the Romanization system used in Hoklo textbooks.
Hung questioned the value of the lessons. The premier agreed, saying that students should learn non-Mandarin languages in a more natural way.
“The Ministry of Education should review our approach to language teaching and rid it of ideology so that language education will be effective,” he said.
“Our current approach is very inappropriate and problematic. True mother tongue learning should take place at home — with the government providing [parents] with all kinds of excellent teaching materials — instead of taking up too many hours at school,” he said.
Elementary and junior high school curriculum guidelines require that students in the first to sixth grades take classes in Hoklo, Hakka or an Aboriginal language, while junior high students choose whether to study one of the languages.
Cabinet Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) defended the premier’s comments, saying Liu was emphasizing the need to improve the nation’s approach to preserving non-Mandarin languages.
Liu said “mother tongues should be taught naturally at home instead of using Romanization because [learning the Romanization] can be another burden on children. He did not mean that mother tongue education at school should be scrapped,” Su told the Taipei Times.
“Hoklo education is an important issue in Taiwan. It is impossible that the premier would suggest [scrapping it],” Su said.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS