The representative offices of Germany and France in Taiwan joined efforts to promote the teaching and learning of a second foreign language in the country by planning various events to highlight the importance of being multilingual.
In an open declaration to strengthen second foreign language acquisition in Taiwan, they called on “everybody engaged in the education system of Taiwan to start the teaching of second foreign languages in schools as early as possible, in order to strengthen Taiwan’s relations and cooperation with the world.”
They also called on “the relevant authorities to make a second foreign language a mandatory part of the university entrance examinations and to further strengthen the quality of language teaching for all foreign languages.”
The command of foreign languages has become increasingly important in an era of globalization, while English has become an international language, they said.
“However, an even more significant trend is the rapid rise in the importance of regional languages, as they better reflect regional ways of thinking,” the declaration said.
For an export-oriented country like Taiwan, determined to make full use of connecting its democratic and diverse society with the world, the knowledge of foreign languages is therefore of tremendous importance, the declaration said.
The declaration enumerated the advantages of foreign-language study, saying that “languages are a key to fully understand other countries’ structures” and they underlined that “for promoting brands, creative ideas and innovative cooperation, foreign languages are a key component to success.”
It stressed that “young students at an early stage can significantly broaden their horizons through the learning of languages.”
“The choice of different languages will increase diversity and flexible thinking among students,” it said, adding that the representatives have also “witnessed that the learning of languages enables young students to strengthen their personal development in connecting to the world.”
In conjunction with the Ministry of Education, the representative offices are planning to host a forum on multilingualism targeting principals, foreign-language teachers and school faculties at all levels next week.
A project underway to conduct interviews with celebrities in various fields on why they were motivated to learn a second foreign language, as well as their learning experiences, is to be uploaded onto a Facebook page to increase students’ awareness of the usefulness of foreign languages, the representatives said.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
ALLEGED SABOTAGE: The damage inflicted by the vessel did not affect connection, as data were immediately rerouted to other cables, Chunghwa Telecom said Taiwan suspects that a Chinese-owned cargo vessel damaged an undersea cable near its northeastern coast on Friday, in an alleged act of sabotage that highlights the vulnerabilities of Taipei’s offshore communications infrastructure. The ship is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company whose director is Chinese, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. An unidentified Taiwanese official cited in the report described the case as sabotage. The incident followed another Chinese vessel’s suspected involvement in the breakages of data cables in the Baltic Sea in November last year. While fishing trawlers are known to sometimes damage such equipment, nation states have also
RSS