Seventy-five Americans are to serve as assistants in junior-high and elementary schools for the new semester in August, under the English Teaching Flagship (ETF) Scholarship Program, the Ministry of Education said yesterday.
The ETF scholarship program was jointly launched by the ministry and the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (Fulbright Taiwan), with the aim of acquainting students with using English in daily conversations by creating immersive English learning environments at school via after-class clubs, sports events, accompanied reading and learning camps.
Ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) yesterday cited the English service learning camp at Tainan’s Jiaba Elementary School as an example, where ETF assistants facilitated a discussion of Taiwan’s endangered animals, such as Formosan black bears and green sea turtles, to raise students’ awareness of eco-conservation and respect for life.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Education
Another example is from the English learning spring camp at Hsinchu County’s Beipu Elementary School, where the assistants supported students in speaking English while making clay flowers, designing colorful outfits and tasting seasonal fruits in line with the topic of spring, she said.
The program also focuses on rural education and invited students of Nantou County to organize an English learning camp, which revolved around topics about the sun, moon and lake — a reference to Nantou’s famous tourist site Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) — and incorporated the three elements into games played in English, Tsai said.
Assistants also guided students in speaking English while making traditional US camping desserts such as s’mores.
The ETF scholarship program has yielded fruitful outcomes overall, with highly positive feedback from the schools, students and parents, Tsai said.
Through these learning processes at school, students are expected to naturally communicate in English more frequently and extend their use of English to everyday life off-campus, she said.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
Prosecutors today declined to say who was questioned regarding alleged forgery on petitions to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, after Chinese-language media earlier reported that members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Youth League were brought in for questioning. The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau confirmed that two people had been questioned, but did not disclose any further information about the ongoing investigation. KMT Youth League members Lee Hsiao-liang (李孝亮) and Liu Szu-yin (劉思吟) — who are leading the effort to recall DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) — both posted on Facebook saying: “I
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 today amid outcry over his decision to wear a Nazi armband to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case last night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and covering the book with his coat. Lee said today that this is a serious
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has fined Taobao NT$1.2 million (US$36,912) for advertisements that exceed its approved business scope, requiring the Chinese e-commerce platform to make corrections in the first half of this year or its license may be revoked. Lawmakers have called for stricter enforcement of Chinese e-commerce platforms and measures to prevent China from laundering its goods through Taiwan in response to US President Donald Trump’s heavy tariffs on China. The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee met today to discuss policies to prevent China from dumping goods in Taiwan, inviting government agencies to report. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuo Kuo-wen (郭國文) said
RSS