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9 - Preparing English Teachers in the Twenty-First Century: The Case of Taiwan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2020

By
Hsi-nan Yeh  and
Chiou-lan Chern
Edited by
Amy Bik May Tsui
Amy Bik May Tsui
Affiliation:
The University of Hong Kong
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Summary

English has served to facilitate the internationalization process in Taiwan; English education, at the same time, benefited enormously from internationalization in terms of the great emphasis attached to it. In order to ensure the quality of English instruction, English teacher education needs to respond to any changes in the national primary and secondary school curricula as well as changing demography, which may influence English teachers’ instructional practices. In this chapter, an overview of the teacher education system in Taiwan is first introduced as the background. Following that is a discussion of local responses to globalization, which include making English a second official language; the promotion of English for communicative purposes; new policies in major cities regarding foreign language education; an English proficiency benchmark for English teachers; and further teacher professional development for international mobility and global competitiveness. Addressed in the next sections are some critical issues in teacher education that demand further research, such as the power relationship between English and local languages, the belief in native-speakerism, and the promotion of English as the medium of instruction. Some suggestions for future directions in language teacher education are also provided.

Keywords

globalizationteacher educationsecond official languageinternational mobilitycurriculum guidelines
Type
Chapter
Information
English Language Teaching and Teacher Education in East Asia
Global Challenges and Local Responses
 , pp. 175 - 194
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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