New Immigrant Languages Added to List of Required Languages in Primary Schools – Why are Some Parents Up In Arms?

“There goes the kids’ time for studying English!” “Never has there been a country that catered to the languages of immigrants.” “Why can’t they just learn their mother language at home?” The bulletin posted in the Ministry of Education auditorium on June 25, entitled “Incorporating New Immigrant Languages Under the New Curriculum Guidelines,” caused another uproar among numerous parent groups on Facebook.

A press conference hosted by vice minister of education Fan Sun-lu, and attended by staff from the representative offices of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, showed that Taiwan has become the first country in the world to include the official languages of seven Southeast Asian neighboring countries – namely Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Malaysia, and the Philippines – on the list of “required” courses from which students will choose in the national primary school curriculum.

Protesting Parents: ‘There’s Already Not Enough English!’

However, this novel undertaking did not sit well with some parents.

One Mrs. Tsai, a pharmaceutical professional, immediately posted her complaints on the Facebook group K-12 Education Parents’ Alliance, saying: “Weren’t you supposed to be fully committed to bilingual (Mandarin Chinese and English) instruction? Weren’t you promoting programming languages? Where is there enough time?” Her concerns about English-language acquisition were soon echoed by over 300 comments by parents within 24 hours.

We spoke with Mrs. Tsai on the phone. Concern in her voice, she said that, although her child is already in college, learning English was never easy. “Right now there’s one class in first grade. Why should this be used for superficial study of immigrant languages, and not for studying English properly?”

Her claims won praise from many other parents, who commented saying that Taiwan’s English level is not at the top of the class internationally. And if this situation persists, they said, it will impact the children’s competitiveness.

Their concerns center on their children not having enough time to study. To be fair, although the new curriculum guidelines have listed seven Southeast Asian languages on the list of “required” languages from which to choose, they are just additional options on top of the existing Minnan, Hakka, and indigenous languages, so it does not actually affect study time in other subjects.

“Don’t get upset! It’s just another option,” says Kimyung Keng, assistant professor at Feng Chia University, via an Internet phone call. “These concerns are unfounded. There’s a system, unless parents believe that (instruction in) the existing local languages are unnecessary.”

Mandarin’s Status Challenged? Spanish and Chinese ‘Mandatory in US’

The outcry was not directed just at English learning; some people took the position that learning mother tongues from mothers should be enough.

One member of the group, an unidentified person who claimed to be a children’s literature author, wrote the following: “Never has there been a country whose language (policy) caters to immigrants. When you go to university in Germany, you get two years to study German, after which time if you fail the exam you can go home!” The person continued, saying, “Having to accommodate immigrant languages? What are they thinking?” Going a step further, other parents came right out and said, “Just study your mother tongue at home, with your mother.”

These opinions point to the Taiwanese public’s anxiety at having their “ethnic consciousness” challenged. Other than parents, discussion on the National Taiwan University PTT bulletin board displayed an unfailingly ethnocentric perspective, as exemplified by the use of such terms as “savage languages” to refer to Southeast Asian languages.

Liu Chien-ping, a recent graduate in political science from Soochow University and whose mother is Vietnamese, is the only member of the new curriculum guidelines editorial committee to have been the product of a mixed marriage. She commented, “Over the last few days, I’ve seen many people say that teaching mother tongues is the mother’s responsibility.

But the families of immigrants have been subject to tremendous discrimination over the past 20 years, both in everyday life and in terms of language. So we are basically not encouraged to study our mother tongues.”

Elaborating, she relates that, from a young age, she would overhear her peers imitating and making fun of the way foreign workers talk. “In such situations, kids are afraid to use that language. That’s not something individual parents can reverse, but requires a change of the overall social climate,” she offers.

In the United States, most schools in regions with large immigrant populations, like California and New York City, have made Spanish and Chinese required parts of the curriculum, demonstrating that foreign languages should not just be learned through self-study behind closed doors at home.

What is more, the second generation’s study of their parents’ mother tongues poses no challenge to Mandarin’s status as the official language. After all, being born and raised in Taiwan, Chinese is not a problem for them; rather, it is the languages and dialects of their mothers and fathers that has gotten lost.

One Class per Week, Learning More than Language

The New Immigrants’ Language Curriculum Guidelines, which take effect in August, start from first grade with one class per week. The language of study is up to the student to choose, depending on interest. In junior high school, it can be an elective as part of the flexible study curriculum, and in high school it is made an elective under the second foreign language curriculum.

In addition to textbook materials on paper, the K-2 Education Administration also commissioned National Central University and the Institute for Information Industry to formulate digital study materials for the immigrant languages. At present, books one through four of the first study phase have been completed, covering bilingual voiceovers of texts in the seven designated languages, as well as interactive questions and answers and songs.

Each primary school class is 40 minutes long, prompting some people to express their skepticism that students can ever become fluent in a foreign language. “The point is not those few hours of instruction, but that the country respects these languages,” says Kimyung Keng, whose mother hails from Indonesia.

“Thirty or 40 years ago, we called indigenous people ‘mountain people,’ and hung dog tags on anyone that spoke Taiwanese. Now we don’t do that. When a country places an ethnic group’s mother tongue within the education curriculum guidelines, it’s fine if it’s less than an hour as it can help reduce prejudice,” says Keng.

Hung Yung-shan, director of the Curriculum and Instruction Research Center at the National Academy for Educational Research, says, “How to use the study of different languages to promote understanding of all of the people that live in this country is the concept behind the new curriculum design.”

“In recent years, the United Nations has repeatedly stressed the desire for a more tolerant world. Taiwan has always been a society where diverse cultures coexist. In the past few years the number of students born to new immigrants has continued to climb, so naturally this area shouldn’t be overlooked,” she adds.

At present the second-generation offspring of Southeast Asian migrants in Taiwan number 48,000 at the primary school level, 43,000 in junior high school, 45,000 in high school, and 17,000 at the university level, totaling around 150,000. Including their parents, who number around 80,000, immigrants and their children have become an important component of Taiwanese society.

Going it alone to become a global trailblazer is not an easy feat. A body of 126 different teaching materials was formulated over the course of three years and 1,051 editorial meetings. Hung Yung-shan offers that this can be credited to Taiwan’s long-term efforts in the area of immigrant languages and cultures.

“Members of our curriculum editorial committee run the gamut of people from across the educational field and society that have had an ongoing interest in the migrant sphere and have become actively involved in improving their rights in various areas.”

Hung gave the examples of immigrant language convener, Professor Hsia Hsiao-Chuan, of the Graduate Institute for Social Transformation Studies at Shih Hsin University, who has long spoken on behalf of immigrant women in Taiwan; Leli Elementary School teacher Wang Hsiao-hui, a member of the curriculum committee who has delved deeply into immigrant languages and cultures; and Taipei University of Education Professor Wang Ta-hsiu, who has been involved in teacher training.

“The new immigrant language curriculum guidelines came together when everything else was in place, allowing these long-term efforts to come to the fore,” said Hung.

Teaching Moments A Diverse Society Cannot Miss

Mr. Nguyen Anh Dung, director of the Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, expressed gratitude to the Taiwanese people and society for their willingness to embrace new citizens, saying “It’s hard enough for us to compile textbook materials ourselves, yet Taiwan has put together teaching materials for seven new immigrant languages, facilitating the diverse development of education.”

Given the trend toward the internationalization of industry, quite a few parents and young scholars are sanguine about educational resources and shaping a new generation of multilingual talent. Still, beyond the commercial opportunities, making efforts to understand others who live with you together on the same territory is a lesson that no diverse society can afford to miss.

An atmosphere of fear of pushing out English and threatening the primacy of Mandarin, along with lingering stereotypes and misunderstandings, will take time to assuage and eliminate through the teaching of the immigrant language and culture curriculum, so that the next generation of students will truly appreciate what it means to live together.