CLIL Connections: Supporting Taiwan’s Bilingual Education 2030 Goals
QI Teacher Enrichment program 2021
27 August 2021 I The Queensland Institute
Supporting bilingual education through the CLIL approach
“Guess what? I wanted to tell you that I finished the second round of open teaching today at my school and my Principal and colleagues really enjoyed my lesson! I used our training program warm ups, group work and techniques - all in ENGLISH. Sometimes it's hard for me to integrate content and language because I don’t have a bilingual textbook yet but it’s getting smoother and easier! I used gestures you showed me a lot. Some of my students couldn’t speak in English but they could reply in gestures. It really encouraged me to try bilingual education more!”
It’s teaching stories like this from our Taiwanese colleagues’ classrooms that inspire our team at The Queensland Institute (QI) to continue to innovate and support bilingual educators globally.
In August 2021, QI was pleased to facilitate a two-week Teacher Enrichment Program in partnership with National Taiwan Normal University. More than 80 primary and secondary teachers from all regions of Taiwan came together to participate in a highly practical, customised training program, delivered by QI fully online.
The program was specifically designed to advance Taiwan’s Bilingual Education 2030 goals. QI Directors, Philippa Coleman and Fiona Wiebusch, worked with the NTNU Academic team to co-design a program of activities to enhance bilingual education outcomes for Arts and Music educators.
The program incorporated best practice principles in Content and Language Integrated Learning, English as a Medium of Instruction, and bilingual education practices to motivate young learners. Participants had an opportunity to engage in demonstration workshops, guest lectures and sharing sessions which culminated in peer teaching activities.
Overall, the program was enriching for both the Taiwanese educators and our QI trainers, Vicki Bos, Ceara McManus, Melika Stannard, and Fiona Wiebusch, who revelled in the opportunity to share creative approaches to enhancing arts and music education in Taiwan schools.
"I learn about the CLIL concept, approach, practical activities, and online teaching. All of these are very inspiring and useful to me."
“Even though I'm not really good at English but I still learned so much. I improved my English this two weeks! It's a new way to teach!”
"For the teachers in Taiwan who are about to do some bilingual in their class, I could say that this is the top choice for them to join this program. We really appreciate that we got the chance to be here, we do have the opportunity to train ourselves to be a better teacher with more confidence and skills!”
The Queensland Institute looks forward to continuing our successful collaboration with our Taiwanese partners and colleagues in 2022.
Taiwanese educators share their course experience and thanks in the video below (2:30mins):
QI gratefully acknowledges the support of Trade & Investment Queensland, Taiwan. Learn more about Taiwan’s bilingual education goals discussed at the Taipei X Queensland Webinar, 28 October 2021. QI was an invited speaker at the event (see 35:00mins).
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