‘New’ Language Policy and Planning in Taiwan in the 21st Century: Planning, Implementation, and Challenges

Internationalization of Taiwan has emerged as an issue of national concern as a result of economic globalization and educational reform since the turn of this century. This led to the formulation of a language policy in recent years to develop Taiwan into a bilingual nation by 2030. The goals of this new bilingual language policy include (1) elevating national competitiveness, and (2) cultivating people’s English proficiency. The most important language planning agency is the Ministry of Education, which has promoted to adopt CLIL (content and language integrated learning) approach in 1-12 year compulsory education, and EMI (English as a medium of instruction) in colleges. This bilingual education policy is extensively different from previous ones. How has it been planned and implemented and what kinds of social and cultural changes it may bring up have become our national concerns. However, how and to what extent the new bilingual education policy has been implemented is yet to be investigated. This study attempts to do so. Data will be collected through policy documents, questionnaires, and interviews with policy planners, classroom teachers, and students in order to obtain an in-depth understanding of the planning and implementation process, the benefits and the challenges of the implementation and the consequent social and cultural changes. Data will be analyzed with the language-in-education policy framework proposed by Kaplan & Baldauf, Jr. (2003), which includes access, personnel, methods and materials, resourcing, community, and evaluation policies. A theoretical framework drawn from language policy and planning, and bilingual education will be used for interpretation. This study is expected to contribute to our understanding of this bilingual planning process, challenges of the implementation, and the directions of social and cultural changes it may bring up. The result will serve as a good reference for our government in language education policy.