A Bilingual Teacher?

We have entered the first year and a half of our 10-year bilingual nation policy (2030) but what does "bilingual" mean and how can we achieve such a massive goal?

As previously mentioned, our beloved Taiwan is promoting a bilingual policy by 2030. Time flies and so comes the comments, critics, and confusions. People don't like change unless it fast-forwards to a favorable result. News flash, it doesn't work that way!

As more and more people are aware of this issue, compared with that last year, journalists and anyone who cares is writing accordingly. The same questions keep circling around:

1. Where are bilingual teachers?

2. What can they teach?

3. What are their qualifications?

4. When can we apply the policy?

We are no experts on policies but there seems to be a structural problem in the articles. First things first, we need to understand what we want bilingual teachers to do. According to an educational journal, the main objective of a bilingual teacher is to help make English become part of everyday learning and less of an individual subject. So far, students learn English in English books; soon enough, students will learn English in different aspects.

So where are they? To be honest, it is reasonable why people complain that the policy is a rush or a mess. For teachers, it's a threat to their career unless they make a breakthrough and update their teaching greatly; for students, they lose their way and even more so when teachers are worried; for parents, they will spend more money doing mostly the same things as before and they don't get what they expected. Now we see the problem but we don't solve it by satisfying all three parties. We just need to solve one, teachers.

This is what the policy could have been. Present-day teachers can cooperate with English teachers and make new curriculums instead of training to be 2-in-1 teachers. Meanwhile, NTNU and other teacher training facilities could prepare more younger teachers before they enter the realm of education. Simple, isn't it?

Now that we're done with the current fix. What traits and skills must bilingual teachers possess? For starters, skills are relatively easy to acquire. This teacher must be able to use more than one language fluently and easily. We don't need a linguist but this teacher should have the power to use languages at will. As for internal factors, it isn't too different from being a normal teacher. It has to be someone who is passionate about life, learning, and the education of society and the world.

When is the right time to execute any reform? Um... anytime?

To be fair, yes, there needs to be a well-considered policy before its execution and people need time to be mentally prepared. Sorry, that's a joke. If people would prepare for a policy, we wouldn't end up this way. Our late president Lee had already talked about this very educational reform, one that doesn't cram students, that isn't about competitiveness, that focuses on harmony and individuality. That interview was held when he was in power and he was our first democratic president. Three more came after him and each had two terms. Yet here we are, still, there are people complaining about the pacing. Thus, there is no better time than now. To be fair, Lee did not mention anything about a bilingual policy but simply education at large. We don't think there is much difference in either.

#education

Related articles:

1. A Bilingual Taiwan by 2030 Part I

2. A Bilingual Taiwan By 2030 Part II

3. English at School, Native at Home?