12/29/2020 Spice English up! College of English & International Studies of Wenzao Works with Lunghua Junior High School on English Teaching Program

The College of English & International Studies of Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages has worked with Kaohsiung Municipal Lunghua Junior High School to launch the Bilingual Education Internship Program. Subsidized by the Taiwan Experience Education Program (TEEP@AsiaPlus), Wenzao has recruited a number of international students on campus to participate in the short-term English teaching internship program in neighboring Lunghua Junior High School.

Among the interns is Xiao-Yun Lin, a Malaysian student in the fourth year of her studies in the Department of Translation and Interpreting. Since October 2020, she has been helping with the bilingual education in health and physical education in Lunghua by integrating English into the teaching of related subjects. The collaboration between Wenzao and Lunghua has set a milestone for the promotion of bilingual education in high schools in Taiwan, facilitating the progress toward the vision of making Taiwan a bilingual country by 2030. International students from Wenzao assist local teachers in teaching specialized subjects in English through a scenario-based interactive method and guide high school students to interact and reply in English, thereby creating a favorable bilingual learning environment that encourages students’ willingness to speak in English.

During the Christmas holidays, to make the program both educational and entertaining, Wenzao and Lunghua launched an activity in which students were required to answer questions in English to pass each of the many checkpoints. Five Malaysian, Portuguese, and Russian students from the Departments of Foreign Language Instruction, Translation and Interpreting, English, and International Affairs of Wenzao designed the fun and amusing activity for students in Lunghua, who participated with great enthusiasm.

Principal Shu-Yuan Lu of Lunghua believes that creating an immersive environment to arouse students’ interest in learning is a critical part in promoting English education in high schools. In comparison with last year’s English program designed by parent volunteers, English teaching provided by faculty and students of Wenzao emphasizes interactive learning among students, thereby increasing their motivation to learn English.

Dean Vivian Chiu-Hui Wu of the College of English and International Studies of Wenzao holds that this program is meaningful in several aspects. In addition to facilitating the integration and interactions between local and international undergraduate students, the program is also a way for the university to fulfill its social responsibility by introducing foreign language resources to neighboring high schools and providing high school students with a unique learning experience. Moreover, the program not only helps international students to better understand Taiwanese culture, but also enables those aspiring to a career in English education to interact with high school students and learn about the learning environment in Taiwan, so that they may one day contribute to English education in Taiwan.