Members of the Taiwan delegation to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Annual Convention and World Languages Expo, and teachers teaching Mandarin in the United States (photo provided by the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan - FICHET)
The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) held its annual convention and world languages expo in Boston from November 18 to 20, 2016. The Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET), sponsored by the Ministry of Education (MOE), Republic of China (Taiwan), organized for a delegation of professional Mandarin teachers from Taiwan to participate in this major event. FICHET also invited the New England Chinese Cultural Studio to perform a traditional Lion Dance at the Taiwan booth there that attracted an appreciative audience of teachers of many foreign languages.
The delegation was led by Dr. Hsu Chang-Mo, a professor in the Department of Applied Chinese at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, director of the university’s Graduate Institute of Creative Arts Industries, and chairman of Taiwan’s Association of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. Dr. Hsu said that support provided by the MOE under a number of programs plays an important role in facilitating the operations of the Mandarin language centers in institutions of higher education in Taiwan, and in providing resources and funding to create new programs for students and provide training for teachers.
The Education Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Boston hosted a seminar for the Taiwan delegation and for Mandarin teachers from all over the United States on November 18, to exchange ideas about Mandarin learning and share strategies for promoting Mandarin language teaching. Cynthia Huang, Director of the Education Division, thanked all the teachers present for devoting themselves to Mandarin education and she thanked the teachers from Taiwan for promoting Taiwan culture and encouraging students to study Mandarin there.
The number of American students who are interested in studying Mandarin in Taiwan and the numbers applying for a Huayu Enrichment Scholarship to do that are both on the rise. Four schools and colleges in the New England area worked with the Education Division to hold the Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL) and the Children’s Chinese Competency Certification (CCCC) in 2016, and two colleges, one in Massachusetts and one in Maine, will be holding a short-term Chinese language program in Taiwan in January, 2017.