LanguageNews
Taiwan and France Exchanged Interns for 12 Years Resulting in an Increased of Mandarin and French Learners
The Ministry of Education (MOE) has been promoting the “France-Taiwan Foreign Language Internship Exchange Program” for 12 years, which as a result, the population of Mandarin learners in France increased from a rate of 20% to 30% each year. More and more high school students in Taiwan have taken French as the second foreign language, the number of classes offered is next to Japanese.
The MOE, the French Office in Taipei, and the French Teachers Association have jointly held a Welcome and Farewell Party at the Tamkang University to welcome French language interns to Taiwan and to give a good send-off to Taiwanese interns going to France. The young attendees from both sides got to know each other through mutual communications and have left behind great memories.
The MOE highlighted today in the news that the “France-Taiwan Foreign Language Internship Exchange Program” has been launched for 12 years. The two countries each offer round trip tickets for students of their own country and provide a living allowance for interns from each other's country, which has so far benefited 365 young students, including 187 Mandarin interns and 178 French interns.
In the 2019 academic year, Taiwan and France each have sent 19 students to each other's country for interning as a language teaching assistant. The French interns have come to Taiwan one after another in September; they were assigned to 11 colleges including the National Chengchi University, Tamkang University, and so on. Some students were assigned to assist in the French language and culture programs in high schools. Interns sent from Taiwan were students from six different schools, including the Fu Jen Catholic University and National Central University.
The MOE stated that French is now a popular “second foreign language” among high school students in Taiwan, the number of classes offered is next to Japanese and is more than German and Spanish. More than 200 high schools all over Taiwan have offered a total of 466 French classes, with 12,644 people taking them in the 2018 academic year. In France, where Mandarin learners have increased with a rate of 20% to 30% yearly over the past 10 years, which ranked the 5th among foreign languages (the top 4 are English, Spanish, German, and Italian).
(origin from:CNA)