Highlights of our Bilingual Education Program

CMU College of Medicine actively promotes the BEST program, aiming to enhance students' international perspectives and diversified abilities. Furthermore, the college aims to cultivate biomedical research leaders with cross-disciplinary innovation and cooperation abilities and international competitiveness. To promote bilingual education, the College of Medicine has established a Bilingual Education Promotion Committee, which works closely with the Bilingual Education Center, a university-level unit, to promote the English proficiency of all faculty and students. The implementation of our bilingual education program is described from three aspects: I) Training of EMI Teachers, II) Promotion of EMI Courses, and III) Holding English Enhancement Activities.

I) Training of EMI Teachers

1. Providing Comprehensive EMI Training Workshops for Basic Medical Teachers and Clinicians: Forty teachers, including the Dean of the College of Medicine, have completed EMI teacher training workshops. The workshops equipped and encouraged teachers to offer EMI courses.
2. Providing Continuous Education of Teaching Pedagogical Methods and Uninterrupted Online Learning: Currently, 50 faculty members, including 25 from the College of Medicine, have completed the Cambridge University EMI Teacher Online Certification Course.
3. Organizing Faculty Development Groups: We have established inter-disciplinary EMI faculty development groups, where teachers can share their EMI teaching experiences and hold EMI-related seminars. One of the College’s EMI Faculty Development Groups was recognized as one of the best faculty development groups at CMU (https://reurl.cc/VL3DVA).
4. Providing a Variety of EMI Faculty Development Courses: We have established an EMI class observation and feedback mechanism and also provided one-on-one EMI mentoring sessions for EMI teachers. We were honored to have CMU distinguished alumni Prof. Yih-Ming Yang, an Emeritus Professor from Emory University, Atlanta, USA, share advanced medical EMI pedagogical strategies. (EMI Training Sessions Report: https://cmucfd.cmu.edu.tw/gallery/965).
5. Conducting Cross-Campus EMI Experience Exchange: We held a cross-campus EMI online meeting with the EMI executive team of National Yang-Ming Chiao-Tung University (NYCU). We learned from each other and strategized the future cooperation objectives in forming the Taiwan Digital Bio-medicine EMI League. 

II) Promotion of EMI Courses

1. Promoting EMI Courses: At the beginning of the semester, we held EMI courses and English enhancement activities at three campuses of CMU, to promote the EMI courses. In the 2023/24 academic year, the total number of students enrolled in EMI courses increased from 114 to 317.
2. Designing Interactive EMI Classroom Activities: CMU EMI courses empower our students to engage in interactive EMI classroom activities, inspire them to step out of their comfort zone, and motivate them to express themselves in English.
3. Training EMI Teaching Assistants: Ten medical students have completed the EMI TA online training course provided by the Resource Center for EMI of National Taiwan Normal University.
4. Promoting EMI courses through Peer-to-Peer Publicity: to encourage students to take EMI courses, we held the "EMI Course Learning Experience Video/Poster Contest and Popularity Award Voting Activity." More than 3,000 people watched and voted for the popularity awards. Please refer to the Bilingual Program website for more information: https://cmemi.cmu.edu.tw/news/138
5. Promoting EMI Courses from Basic Medical Sciences to Clinical Practice: We emphasize the continuity of the three stages of students' English learning experience. In the first stage, students can take the English Service Learning Program and the EAP/ESP Program in their freshman year to build up their English foundation. In the second stage, from sophomore to senior years, students can take professional EMI courses, participate in the on-campus English competition, and participate in short-term training abroad. In the third stage, medical students can take EMI clinical courses. For example, 36 physicians and 252 students attended the Neurosurgery EMI Clinical Course (VP Boot Camp) held every Tuesday in the 2023/24 academic year. The program also connects with renowned overseas medical schools regularly (e.g. National University of Singapore, University of Wisconsin-Madison, etc.) to discuss cases and research on the most updated international medical journals.

III) Holding English Enhancement Events

1. Providing a Variety of Extracurricular English Enhancement Activities: the wide range of English enhancement activities we offered included study abroad and overseas career development sharing sessions, Golden Brain Research Proposal Presentation Competition, International Culture Week, TOEIC on campus, International Culture Tour at CMU- "A Little Journey on Campus", and weekly English Corner sessions, etc.
2. Active Participation in International Academic Associations: Through the efforts of CMU medical students, the Taiwan headquarters of the Asian Medical Students' Association International (AMSAI) is located at China Medical University. This association aims to promote the exchange of medical students in Asia, deepen the influence of Taiwanese medical students in the international community, and participate in the development of a multinational youth community (https://reurl.cc/M8ZNdk).
3. Holding World-Class Conferences and Building a Bilingual Learning Environment: In the 2023/24 academic year, CMU hosted two Masters Forums on International Volunteering Services. The first event featured Dr. Kerry and Dr. Nahed from Harvard University, who shared their experiences in international humanitarian healthcare education projects. Another Master’s Forum invited Rev. R. Santacana from the Providence University, Taichung City to share his 30-year service experience in Taiwan. Students in the College of Medicine presented their international service experience via video conference virtual presentation. Furthermore, we held the “International Conference on Advanced Biomedical Science” (ICASBS, Taiwan). Speakers in the conference included Nobel Prize Laureates, and members of the National Academy of Sciences. Meanwhile, graduate students also held a poster competition.