Taiwan’s
Ministry of Education Launches Huayu 101,
for Learning Mandarin Online
Taipei, Taiwan --
The Ministry of Education (MOE) announced the launch of Huayu 101, a new online Mandarin learning initiative, at the end of
May. This is one of several to attract and motivate more young people to learn
Mandarin in Taiwan.
Huayu 101 taps into learners’ interest
in Taiwan and its culture. The designer of Huayu
101, Professor Chang Yuhsin from the University of Taipei, has been teaching
Mandarin for more than 20 years. He and his team collected key basic survival phrases
that people can immediately use, covering topics such as accommodation,
shopping, ordering food, transport, and getting emergency help. Foreign
students and travelers will find the material really useful in Taiwan and other
Mandarin-speaking regions.
The MOE worked
with Logan D. Beck, a YouTube enthusiast,
to produce two videos about Taiwan’s culture and learning Mandarin: Dajia Mazu Pilgrimage, and Taiwan Night Market Street Food. The first video drew 50,000 views the
night it was launched and it’s been watched more than 150,000 times since. Beck
and a popular rice cake seller, Mr. Liu, attended the launch and showed some Huayu 101 video footage featuring them
in a scene set in a night market.
The global demand
for Chinese language education led to the planning and implementation of the
Eight-year Chinese Language Education Promotion Plan (2013–2020). Taiwan’s
Chinese language education sector has been vigorously marketing itself internationally,
and the Office of Global Mandarin Education (OGME) was set up to integrate the
Chinese language education resources in Taiwan.
Another exciting
initiative that similarly integrates Taiwan’s tourism resources and language learning
resources is Mandarin On-the-Go. The MOE
worked with the Ministry of Transportation and Communication Tourism Bureau,
and the Small and Medium Enterprise Administration of the Ministry of Economic
Affairs to create this new study-tour model.
You can find lots
of information about both of these initiatives on the OGME website: https://ogme.edu.tw/Home/tw
Contact details:
Office of Global Mandarin Education OGME (OGME)
Chi Kuo-Ning
Tel No: +886-2-2391-1368 ext.1360 Email: c1360@csd.org.tw
