On September 8, 2022, the Taipei Times ran a story titled “Standardized English proficiency test to be prepared for universities: official.” Why is a new English proficiency test needed for Taiwan? As per the Bilingual 2030 policy, for bilingual benchmark institutions (also referred to as beacon bilingual universities and colleges) “by 2030, at least 50…
What is “Bilingual Teaching” in Taiwan?
In my last post, I discussed the definition of EMI in Taiwan. Now I will look at another term–bilingual teaching. The Bilingual 2030 policy defines different approaches to higher education, which uses EMI, and senior high school and below, which should implement bilingual teaching. But what does bilingual teaching actually mean? At least for senior…
What is “EMI” in Taiwan?
As Ernesto Macaro laid out in his 2018 book titled English Medium Instruction, the acronym EMI has taken on different meanings around the world. EMI has been said to stand for, among other things, English-medium instruction English as the medium of instruction English as a medium of instruction In terms of English language use, the…
A Response to “Bilingual Policy Deserves Support”
On June 2, 2022, the Taipei Times published an article titled “Bilingual Policy Deserves Support” by Peter Whittle. From the onset, I think it is important for me to explicitly state that I support bilingual education. I think that idea may get lost in some of my criticism of policy in this blog and my…