The Ministry of Education has for years been promoting a project to turn Taiwan into an international center for the study and research of Chinese language and literature. At an education symposium last week, participants said that the COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity in this regard, as students are unable to travel to China for classes.
However, the pandemic has also made it impossible for language-only (non-university-track) international students to come to Taiwan.
Participants suggested online courses as an alternative to in-person study, but as one Indonesian student wrote in an op-ed published yesterday, most international students prefer to immerse themselves in the environment of their target language.
The reality of the pandemic means that online study is currently the only option, but for it to be a successful model, the government must present distance learning as a transitional approach, and should assure students that they can still come to Taiwan when the pandemic is over.
It should also redevelop online programs into a standardized, nationwide model that gives students more opportunities to use the language they are learning and to have their mistakes corrected.
Online English-language courses already exist in Taiwan and are fairly popular among people who have inflexible schedules or who do not live near language centers. A similar platform that uses videoconferencing software in conjunction with interactive slides and screen sharing could be adapted for Chinese-language learning, but it must be paired with other things to create a more comprehensive environment.
One of these could be software developed to simulate conversations with native Chinese speakers. The software could be made into a mobile or PC app, and could include both speech and text input methods. Unlike most online courses where students mostly consume language content rather than producing it, the software would analyze students’ responses and offer suggestions to improve tone, inflection, grammar and so on. As it would be software doing the corrections, it would remove the awkwardness of a teacher constantly stopping the student to correct them — something pedagogical experts say should be avoided anyway. Students would also be free to choose their own schedule and time spent studying.
Such software would give students plenty of practice typing out conversations in Chinese so that they could feel more confident when they finally arrive in Taiwan and need to write in Chinese to friends, teachers and others. It would also familiarize students with Taiwan-specific terms — such as “jieyun” (捷運) for the MRT system as opposed to “ditie” (地鐵) in China, or how the character “he” (和, “with”) is usually pronounced as “han” in Taiwan — as well as introduce students to simple Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) terms and expressions.
Another thing the ministry could do to make its distance-learning program more comprehensive would be to pair international students with Taiwanese students who want to do language exchange. This would be optional, but it could be a way for participants to make friends, ask questions about Taiwan or the Chinese language, or become more familiar with the culture before arriving in the country.
Finally, as an added touch, the ministry may send periodic “care packages” to students, which could include things like Taiwanese snacks, Taiwanese-brand stationery items that students in Taiwan often use, or books or magazines that are popular among young people in the country. This would make Taiwan more “tangible” for the student during the pandemic period when they are unable to travel here.
The pandemic might provide an opportunity to promote Taiwan for language learning, but the government must go above and beyond to truly engage international students.
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