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Second foreign language classes booming
BEYOND ENGLISH: The classes that are being offered by universities to high
school students are meant to help students ˇĄconnect with non-English speaking
countriesˇ¦
By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Sep 02, 2010, Page 2
The number of preparatory second foreign language classes
offered by universities to high school students this year rose 83 percent
compared with last year, statistics from the Ministry of Education showed
yesterday.
Students are required to take English as a first second language. Data from the
Department of Secondary Education showed that 14 universities, including
National Taiwan University, National Chengchi University, National Taitung
University and I-Shou University, had applied to provide 33 classes ˇX the
majority of them, 20, in Japanese ˇX this year. Also included were three German,
five Spanish and five French classes.
The ministry launched the preparatory classes in the 2008 academic year to
offer distinguished high school students a taste of college foreign-language
classes and to help them ˇ§connect with non-English-speaking countries.ˇ¨
Students who pass the courses may use the credits after they enter university,
or have bonus points when they apply for university.
The number of universities offering the classes rose 55 percent, from the
previous year, the department said. Ministry data also showed that 248 of the
students taking the classes in the last academic year had passed language
proficiency tests as of last month. That was about 3.8 times the number of
students who passed language proficiency tests in 2008.
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