Education Division of TECO-Boston Presents Outstanding Advocacy of Chinese Education Award at Massachusetts Foreign Language Association Annual Conference
The Massachusetts Foreign Language Association was founded in 1967 by foreign language educators in Massachusetts and the New England Regional Association of Teachers of Foreign Languages to promote foreign language learning. Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, the Association once again held its annual conference live, for the first time in nearly three years, from October 26 to 28, 2023 in Springfield, Massachusetts.
The Education Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Boston (TECO-Boston), a long-term conference participant, once again organized a booth at the conference showcasing Taiwan’s Chinese language education resources. In addition, the Education Division presented a new Chinese Education award at the conference, during the Annual Business and Awards Luncheon.
The Education Division has created a new award to recognize outstanding advocacy for Chinese language education, in conjunction with the U.S.–Taiwan Education Initiative, launched in December 2020. It has a strong focus on language education, and since its launch the U.S. and Taiwan have both been accelerating encouragement of partnerships between elementary and secondary schools in the U.S. and counterpart schools in Taiwan to enhance the effectiveness of foreign language learning for their students. This is in addition to Taiwan’s selecting and sending Chinese teachers to teach in U.S. schools and recruiting English teachers from the U.S. to teach in schools in Taiwan.
The Cambridge School of Weston was the inaugural recipient of this new award in recognition of its excellent advocacy of education exchanges. Wellington Shih, Deputy Director General of TECO-Boston, attended the Annual Business and Awards Luncheon and presented a trophy to Diana Baruni, Dean of Academic Affairs at the Cambridge School of Weston, who received the award on behalf of the school.
Cynthia Huang, Director of the Education Division of TECO-Boston, explained that the Cambridge School of Weston has been organizing educational exchanges with the Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University prior to the pandemic, and during the pandemic, the school became sister schools with Taoyuan Municipal Wu-Ling Senior High School, and with National Magong High School and conducted online educational exchanges with these schools. Moreover, the award-winning school organized a trip to Taiwan in the spring of 2023, for a group of its students and teachers for a 5-week educational exchange with the three Taiwan high schools mentioned above. The Cambridge School of Weston also hosted a group of students and teachers from its sister school Wu-Ling Senior High School for 2 weeks during the summer, and it truly deserves this award and public recognition of its outstanding performance engaging in and promoting educational exchanges with Taiwan.
