Certifying Chinese teachers
The Taipei Times reports today that the Ministry of Education is planning to introduce a certification system for teachers of Chinese as a foreign language.
After hammering out a set of standards, the education ministry hopes to provide a government-issued certificate for teaching Chinese as a foreign language, said an official surnamed Tang from the Bureau of Cultural and Educational Relations, which oversees the whole project.
Requirements for a government-approved teaching certificate may include taking certain training courses, undergoing exams in certain subjects and pronunciation tests, he said.
It would be interesting to know whether knowledge of Hanyu Pinyin and simplified characters is necessary to obtain certification. It does seem like a good idea, but unless the standards for certification are set at a high level then it won’t achieve much. Demand for Chinese language education will soar over the next few years. Taiwan has a good chance to capture some of that market if it plays its cards right. The recent problems with visa regulations don’t inspire much confidence in the MoE or the government to actually achieve this though.
Certification for Mandarin teachers in Taiwan
Taiwan gets a Chinese test
English teaching in the news
About teaching in Taiwan
No justice
Posted: February 11th, 2006 under Languages in Taiwan.
Tags: Mandarin Chinese, pinyin and romanisation
Comments
Comment from David
Time 13 February 2006 at 9:50 am
Mark, I agree that teachers in Taiwan need to only teach traditional characters. However, it is important that they have knowledge of simplified characters. For example, if they have a student who has come from China and only knows simplified they need to be able to show the student the main differences between the two systems. Knowing simplified characters also would help the teachers access a wider range of resources and research material on learning Chinese as a foreign language.
Comment from Mark
Time 13 February 2006 at 2:12 am
Oops! I posted my comment on Micheal’s blog, thinking that the comments on the article were his. I’ll guess my comment should go here.
I’m not sure if Taiwanese teachers really need to learn that many simplified characters. I’ve met several Chinese teachers at US universities who were from Taiwan and only had limited ability to write simplified characters. Since there is still quite a bit of interest in traditional characters, and quite a few students want to learn classics, many universities still teach traditional characters first.
I completely agree about the pinyin, though. If a teacher can’t even use standard pinyin, it would be a big, big handicap. Pinyin is already the standard used not only in China, but all over the globe. Besides that, it’s extremely easy for Taiwanese people to learn, and it’s what’s used in ALL of the Chinese learning materials I’ve seen in western colleges, including those that use traditional characters.