Taiwan: policy to prioritize Mandarin education reiterated

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Published on TaipeiTimes

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2006/04/21/2003303783

Ma reiterates policy to prioritize Mandarin education

By Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Apr 21, 2006,Page 2

Although the Mandarin ability of Taipei elementary school students proved
better than expected on a recent test, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (^E)
repeated that the city would prioritize Mandarin education, with the
possibility of cutting back on English courses. "The policy to add more
Mandarin classes to the curriculum in elementary schools has to be
implemented, and we won't exclude cutting back on English courses if
necessary," Ma said yesterday when attending a briefing on an evaluation
of the results of a Mandarin Proficiency Test last year. About 80 percent
of the city's students received scores of between 75 and 90 on the 2005
Taipei Elementary School Mandarin Proficiency Test, which was taken by
31,000 six graders. Only 4.5 percent of students received failing grades
of below 60.

Taipei Tatung Elementary School Principal Cheng Chin-yi (Mq), who was in
charge of the test, said the result showed no correlation between
students' parents' birthplace and Mandarin ability. Children of foreign
spouses did not underperform on the test, although students who lived with
their parents received better grades on average. Although most students
received good grades, the essay test revealed weaknesses in writing
ability, including a limited use of adjectives, Chen said. The evaluation
of the proficiency test also indicated that the more students watched TV
or stayed in front of the computer, the worse they performed on the test.

Ma encouraged parents to be more attentive to their children's Mandarin
learning, saying that "Mandarin education should be given a higher
priority than English education." "Teaching English in elementary schools
is not to equip students with a great English ability, but to help them
become familiar with the language ? Learning Mandarin is helpful to other
language learning in the future,"  he said. In response to Ma's request to
add more Mandarin classes, Taipei City Department of Education
Commissioner Wu Ching-ji (dM) said the department would boost the number
of weekly hours of elementary school Mandarin to seven from six starting
next semester, without scrapping English classes.

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