Vietnamese language study demand increasing dramatically in China’s Taiwan

Under the 12-year compulsory education program in Taiwan, which is expected to be approved by 2019, primary students must choose a local language or a language of immigrants to study once a week.

The Taiwanese administration hoped that Southeast Asian languages may gradually become the second languages chosen by young people, especially the second generation of immigrants. Taiwan intends to use these people to work for businessmen of the island to do business in the homelands of immigrants.

Tai Zhi Ming, an official of MOE, said that the demand for Vietnamese and Indonesian teachers based on the number of second-generation immigrants in the island. 15% of the demand for teachers is for those teaching the languages of Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand.

He said that Vietnamese and Indonesian language teaching materials have been prepared for many years, so that the teaching of these two languages is more ready than other languages. He also added that the Southeast Asian economy is developing strongly, so learning the languages of this area needs to be implemented soon.

At present, teachers teaching Southeast Asian languages are mainly "teaching assistants". They include migrant mothers in Taiwan or teachers who have learned one of the Southeast Asian languages and have a certificate.

However, Taiwan’s Language Training and Testing Centre (LTTC) said that Japanese and Korean languages are the second languages most chosen by Taiwanese people. Following are European languages such as French, German and Spanish. LTTC said the Southeast Asian language market should be further explored./.