Abstract
Features of the Program on Bilingual Education of Shih Chien University
Shih Chien University always hopes to become the world’s best university in living sciences. Our development focus has been in Asia, with a goal of broadening our vision in multilingual teaching. Currently, we’re participating in the BEST Program (Program on Bilingual Education for Students in College) of Ministry of Education in order to have trainee bilingual teachers and communicate with teachers and students from partner universities as well as hold various empowerment events for teachers and students. We also share bilingual teaching resources with many senior high schools in Taiwan. We aim to encourage students to become professionals who are familiar with international affairs and have international competitiveness.
1. Integrating teaching and administrative resources in our campus to complete the platform of communication and coordination designed for bilingual teaching: The Vice President for International Affairs is designated as the director of bilingual project who sets up office for bilingual project to make a coordination of resources for our school, partner universities and partner senior high schools in Taiwan to draft a strategy for bilingual teaching.
2. Encouraging our teachers to improve English Medium Instruction (EMI) capability and acquire related credentials; Stipulating incentives for each department and college to open EMI courses; Making more opportunities for students to take specialized elective courses.
3. Strengthening students’ basic English skills and interests in taking EMI courses. They can improve their basic English skills by taking “English courses for Freshmen Year”. Each college will provide elective EMI courses in general education, so students can choose the curriculum they’re interested in. By doing so, we can attract more students to take EMI courses.
4. Implementing a “Co-Creation and Co-Learning” project, which is to open EMI courses along with partner universities. We will invite teachers from both partner universities and our school to open and design EMI courses together, thus creating a chance for students from partner universities and our school to have mutual learning and discussion.
Highlights of our achievement in 2021
1. Intensive summer training camps: Our school hold a EMI training camp that lasts for 4-6 weeks for the freshmen in order to help them prepare for taking bilingual courses. In 2021, we have opened an EMI preparation course that is consisted of 8 curriculums, including TOEIC listening and reading skills, programming thought, business English introduction, accounting introduction, economics introduction, English presentation skills, advanced courses for English comprehensive skills and English conversation.
2. Connecting English learning resources with our partner universities: In order to provide a diversified course selection, our Office of International Affairs has connected learning resources with our partner universities and invited teachers from partner universities to carry out intensive EMI courses to nurture our students with professional knowledge and skills. In 2021, we offer the “Asia Summer University” that includes 4 curriculums and provides opportunities for students across all departments in Taipei campus to take EMI courses in general education.
3. Each college opens at least one EMI courses in general education: In 2021, there are 10 EMI courses in general education with 468 students attending these courses.
4. Empowerment training for teachers: Our school cooperate with Studio Classroom to open EMI teaching workshop, and our teachers can participate for free. The training content is specially designed to make teachers fully and efficiently use English as the language for instruction and teaching. Furthermore, they can use diversified and comprehensive teaching strategies and skills to motivate students in learning and increase their learning performance. We also expect that these empowerment training can help our teachers have more confidence in using English to participate in domestic and foreign activities of their expertise. There were 2 batches of EMI teaching workshops in the first and second semester of 2021.
5. EMI teaching proficiency certification: Our school cooperates with Studio Classroom to develop EMI teaching proficiency certification project. When our teachers complete the full teaching proficiency training courses, they are rewarded with EMI teaching proficiency certification. There are 17 teachers who have passed “EMI Teachers Empowerment Training Certification” and granted with certification in 2021.
6. Establishing a “Bilingual Seed Teacher Training Project”: This year we corporate with Queen’s University Belfast in North Ireland, UK to hold the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching. In the summer of 2021, we’ve picked out three assistant professors to be our “Bilingual Project Seed Teacher”. We’ve arranged for them to go to the United Kingdom to accept full EMI teaching training. Once they have finished the training, they can open EMI courses in their respective department and college in the future.
