[lg policy] Taiwan: On native-language rights and rewards

[Harold Schiffman]

 Forwarded From:  edling at lists.sis.utsa.edu


Taipei Times



On native-language rights and rewards



An Academia Sinica report entitled Social Ambitions of the Taiwanese Public,
2004 found that 65 percent of Taiwanese support mother-tongue education in
schools. The ethnic group most in favor were the Hakka, whose support
reached 74 percent.



Despite this strong support for native language training, the issue is
frequently distorted by ideological concerns, the most common claim being
that the call for native language training itself is ideologically
motivated.

Even Chen Po-chang, director of the Preparatory Office of the National
Academy for Educational Research, has expressed criticism, saying that a
recent decision to make native languages an elective subject in a compulsory
language course that also offers English was a political decision and not
based on expertise.

There is concern in education circles that this set-up will encourage
students to choose English and that native language training will disappear
from the elementary school curriculum.



Full story:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/06/13/2003446020






-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its
members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or
sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree
with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20090614/8c2f7520/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list