NTNU Highlights Bilingual Education and Research at Taiwan-UK University Forum
NTNU recently joined the Taiwan-UK University Consortium, established last year. The consortium’s inaugural forum, held from November 6 to 8 at National Sun Yat-Sen University, convened representatives from eight leading universities in Taiwan and the United Kingdom to explore opportunities for international collaboration in research, teaching, and other academic fields.
Participating UK institutions included the University of Edinburgh, Newcastle University, the University of Liverpool, and the University of the West of Scotland. Taiwanese universities represented were NTNU, National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University, and National Sun Yat-Sen University. On November 20, 2023, the Taiwan-UK University Consortium signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Edinburgh, with a commitment to fostering faculty and student exchanges, deepening academic research collaborations, and advancing pivotal issues such as bilingual education and net-zero emissions.
The consortium’s initiatives will include faculty and student exchanges, joint research, professional training, and the development of a knowledge-sharing platform designed to facilitate dialogue on emerging technologies and critical global topics. The consortium also seeks to integrate resources from government, business, and society to strengthen collaborative efforts.
The forum drew distinguished guests, including Cheng-Chih Wu, President of NTNU; Chih-Peng Li, President of National Sun Yat-Sen University; John Dennis, Representative of the British Office in Taipei; and Susan Milner, Director of the British Council in Taiwan. NTNU representatives included Tzu-Bin Lin, Vice President for Teacher Education; Yi-De Liu, Vice President for International Affairs; Sonya Fan, Deputy Executive Director of NTNU's Resource Center for English-Medium Instruction (EMI); and Fan-Wei Kung, Assistant Professor in the Department of English.
In his address, President Cheng-Chih Wu noted that, as the Taiwan-UK University Consortium’s inaugural event, the forum highlighted the achievements of a year of collaborative efforts and marked an important stride for the advancement of academic partnerships. President Wu extended his gratitude to the Ministry of Education and the British Council for their support, as well as to National Sun Yat-Sen University for its detailed organization to ensure the event’s success.
During the forum, NTNU representatives highlighted initiatives in teacher training, research development, and bilingual education strategies, sharing practical insights and outcomes. Vice President for Teacher Education Tzu-Bin Lin presented an overview of Taiwan’s pre-service bilingual teacher training and professional development programs for in-service teachers, explaining Taiwan’s dual-track language policy that integrates both international and national language directives.
Vice President Lin also outlined recent findings by his team on bilingual education, foreign English teachers, and the language identity of new residents, proposing potential areas for collaboration with UK counterparts. These included research on localizing bilingual teaching methods, evaluating the effectiveness of EMI instruction across different educational stages, constructing EMI and multilingual models based on Taiwan’s bilingual data, applying cross-language practices in bilingual classrooms, and enhancing bilingual instruction through multimodal approaches.
The forum not only offered an opportunity for meaningful dialogue between Taiwanese and British scholars but also established concrete directions for future cooperation. Yvonne Foley and Annie Yang, scholars from the University of Edinburgh, engaged with Vice President Tzu-Bin Lin on the impact of bilingual education on student identity, with plans to host Vice President Lin at the University of Edinburgh in January to further explore collaborative opportunities. The successful completion of the Taiwan-UK University Consortium Forum marks a significant milestone in Taiwan-UK bilateral cooperation. The consortium will continue to broaden its initiatives in bilingual education, net-zero emissions, and other fields, fostering academic development and substantive exchanges, and contributing meaningfully to Taiwan-UK higher education collaboration.