NTHU TAKES CHINESE LANGUAGE, TAIWANESE CULTURE TO AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 30 (Bernama) -- National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) has recently received a grant from the Ministry of Education's (MOE) Chinese Proficiency Program.

It is also preparing to send specially trained teachers to teach Chinese at top universities in the United States, including the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 

The Program will also bring students at US universities to Taiwan to study Chinese, engage in cultural activities, and assist in bilingual education at primary and secondary schools.

In addition to deepening exchanges between Taiwan and the United States, the Program will also help raise awareness of Taiwan at American universities, according to a statement.

President for global affairs, Yen Ta-jen said that in addition to having extensive teaching experience, the Chinese teachers selected to go to the United States are also adept in such traditional Chinese pastimes as paper-cutting, mahjong, and chess, and some are also skilled in playing the erhu, landscape painting, and Peking Opera makeup, all of which are highly effective forms of cultural diplomacy.

NTHU has already signed memoranda of cooperation with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Duke University, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has been sending Chinese teachers to the United States since 2021-end. 

Duke University and the University of Hawaii have already sent six students to study Chinese at NTHU with support from the Chinese Proficiency Scholarship.

Furthermore, NTHU has also signed agreements with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to set up Chinese language centres, arrange for exchange students, and to jointly develop course materials.

-- BERNAMA