The Investigation of Japanese Education at senior high schools in Taiwan-In the Case of Kaohsiung City

• Main Authors: Te-hsin Kuo, 郭德信
• Other Authors: Kingto Chang
• Format: Others
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/68999440260375760358

碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 應用日語所 === 97 === In 1995, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan began a program on Japanese language education by providing second foreign language courses for senior high schools. To promote it, the ministry announced the first and second stages of a high school second language program, totaling 10 years, and removed obstacles confronting the project. In 2006, the ministry announced “Subsidy Guidelines for Senior High School Second Language Education” to encourage the opening of second language courses, by providing subsidies for teachers, relevant software and equipment as well as subsidies for teaching-related activities. In 2007, it set up a Japanese teaching resources center in National Hsinchu Girls'' Senior High School. Meanwhile, a series of relevant activities were also held: “Teaching Workshop”, “Senior High School Second Foreign Language Teaching Planning Symposium” and “Senior High School Second Foreign Language Course Outline Symposium”. The 21st century has seen the world become a global village. Countries all over the world are announcing their foreign language education policies. The number of Japanese learners in Taiwan is the fifth biggest overseas. Actually, teenagers in Taiwan are deeply interested in the Japanese social and cyber cultures, media, and entertainment. The Japanese Government canceled the visa requirement for Taiwanese in 2005 and provided vacation part-time jobs in 2009; these steps have made trips to Japan more convenient and certainly have increased the number of tourists. Therefore, it is anticipated that there will be an increasing number of Japanese language learners. A program based on Japanese as a second language course for senior school students must also be well-organized to face the diversity of Japanese learners and the variety of their motivations. I have been a vocational school Japanese teacher for 15 years, during which time I also assisted language teaching in community senior high schools for several years. To understand more about teaching Japanese in Kaohsiung senior high schools, this research is conducted through field study from the perspectives of: teaching goals, classroom arrangements, classroom activities, teaching materials, teachers and students, with the senior high schools in Kaohsiung taken as the examples. This research is also conducted through questionnaires issued to the students. The results are analyzed in the hope that the data can serve as reference for the government’s legislation and also that Taiwan’s society will desire to learn Japanese better. Learning Japanese enables senior high students to expand their international horizon, while lay an important foundation for their future prospects and life journey.