National Development Council

The previous Bilingual Nation Campus Fun Video Contest, “Hello! Taiwan Foods”, became a sensation in campuses around Taiwan. To further promote the Bilingual Nation 2030 policy, the National Development Council launched a second round of video contest “Where are you going?”, introducing scenic spots of Taiwan. The award ceremony was held this afternoon on November 2^nd. NDC Minister Mei-Ling Chen personally attended the award ceremony presenting certificates and prizes to the winners, and encouraging and enlightening students to continue to improve their English abilities so that they may fluently utilize their English and Chinese abilities. Minister Chen also anticipates that such an activity could further raise the awareness of the general public and that more and more people in Taiwan will know about the "Bilingual Nation 2030" policy.

Response to this 2^nd-round of competition has been overwhelming, with a total of 152 pieces of works created by university, senior high, junior high, and elementary school students. In order to attract more students to participate, NDC has increased the nominees to 30 groups. Among which, 5 entries are from university students, 8 from senior high, 10 from junior high, and 7 from elementary schools. Most of the participants are junior high and elementary school students, compared to the previous round of mostly senior high school students. Furthermore, participants come from all cities and counties in Taiwan. There are 9 nominees from Taichung City, the most productive nomination city. It is a brilliant achievement.
 

In this competition, students have demonstrated great creativity and excellent English abilities during the process. The attractions being introduced are throughout Taiwan and the contents are so fun, interesting, and lively, presenting various kinds of beautiful places and historical culture of Taiwan. Final results have thus been announced. The championship was given to “Must-visit places of Penghu” by Wei-Tse Lu from Penghu Makung Junior High School who has participated in the contest for the second time, beating the winner of the People’s Choice Award given to the Taiwanese Aladdin “Travel around Taiwan with Genie” this time. In the second place, Wu Aihua from Taoyuan introduces the beautiful scenery of Yunlin Sihu and the delicious local delicacy of oyster in fluent English.

NDC has been undertaking various promotion activities for the Bilingual Nation 2030 policy this year. Besides two rounds of campus fun video contests, there have been several English proficiency city rating activities and English situational experience events being held around Taiwan. In addition, NDC has also worked with ICRT to produce a series of 2-minute English broadcasting programs for promoting the Bilingual Nation 2030 policy, as well as conducting special interviews of celebrity for sharing their experiences in learning English. There is also a masked English singing contest “The Next Cover Artist”, which is still ongoing. These plentiful activities aim to motivate people to speak English, leading to a strengthened soft power and increased international competitiveness of the Taiwanese people, and to reach the goal of turning Taiwan into a bilingual nation by year 2030.
 

The central and local governments have been working in tandem in actively implementing relevant measures so as to promote the Bilingual Nation 2030 policy. For instance, most government official websites are now bilingual; bilingualized tender documents of government procurement; Ministry of Education working with ICRT to produce English broadcasting on fun and creative topics during lunchtime for junior high and elementary school students; bilingual demonstration bank branches are currently under planning by Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC); as well as Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) advocating for bilingual stores and bilingual menus, etc. Meanwhile, NDC has also established a free online database of English learning resources at https://bilingual.ndc.gov.tw/ for public use. The people are encouraged to speak English wherever and whenever they want to.