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Responding to the global upsurge
in people studying Mandarin and
in compliance with Taiwan’s goal
of promoting Mandarin-language
education, in 2014 the TaiwanICDF
transformed its long-standing program
of Mandarin-language teaching
volunteers into a program involving
the dispatch of professional Mandarin-
language teachers to partner countries,
providing the outside world with access
to more professional and higher quality
Mandarin teaching programs. The
aim is to accelerate Taiwan’s policy of
exporting Mandarin and to strengthen
cultural exchanges between Taiwan and
its partner countries.
Elevating Teaching Quality through
Specialization and Differentiation
The Overseas Professional Mandarin
Teacher Dispatching Project, launched
by the TaiwanICDF, sends professional
Mandarin teachers – either certified by
the Ministry of Education or graduated
from a Mandarin-language teaching
program in Taiwan – to serve in Taiwan’s
partner countries.
Unlike the previous program, which
involved Mandarin-teaching volunteers,
the newer program features teachers
who not only hold Mandarin-language
teaching certificates or associated
diplomas, but who have also already
gained professional knowledge and
practical experience in teaching, and
are capable of teaching and designing
curricula for students of different age
groups and educational background in
line with their abilities. This way, they can
help to fuel the interest of local people
in studying Mandarin and Taiwanese
culture.
To enhance the visibility and impact
of this project, Taiwanese embassies and
representative offices have assigned
professional Mandarin
teachers to a number
of official organizations
in our partner countries,
including diplomatic
academies, civil service
training centers and
na t i ona l voca t i ona l
training bureaus. To
satisfy the demands of academic
institutions, instructors have also been
placed in partner countries’ higher
education institutions, offering Mandarin
courses to students.
In terms of the project’s approach
to cooperation, the TaiwanICDF is
responsible for selecting qualified
Mandarin teachers and for providing
their salaries, while the partner
organizations hosting such teachers
offer a classroom, facilities and related
administrative support. To control
teaching quality, teachers are required
to produce annual teaching plans,
maintain a record of student attendance
and learning, and deliver to the relevant
Taiwanese embassy or representative
office quarterly reports, which will be
reviewed and annotated before being
submitted to the TaiwanICDF.
In addition to having the necessary
teaching skills and a passion for their
profession, the teachers selected for
the program must also display a sense
of purpose in promoting Taiwan as an
exporter of Mandarin, and be eager to
use teaching as a means of sharing and
exchanging culture with the citizens of
our partner countries.
The TaiwanICDF hopes that this
specialized and differentiated Mandarin
teacher dispatching
program will elevate
the quality of the output
of Taiwan’s Mandarin-
language teaching,
i n t u r n h e l p i ng t o
build Taiwan’s global
reputation for Mandarin-
language education. In
2014, we sent 11 professional Mandarin
teachers to serve in Panama, Nicaragua,
El Salvador, Paraguay, St. Vincent and
the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands,
Palau and Jordan.
8
Countries receiving accredited
Mandarin teachers
Overseas Professional Mandarin
Teacher Dispatching Project
Case Study
1