TAIWAN: A GOOD STUDY ENVIRONMENT, BUT NOT USER-FRIENDLY|外籍生:台灣環境.師資有優勢 但制度不友善

The Ministry of Education has also been trying to attract more foreigners to study Chinese in Taiwan, but schools in China, with all their money and resources, seem to have gained an upper hand. Let's hear what foreign students currently learning Chinese in Taiwan have to say. Zheng Shi-xian, a Korean exchange student at Shi Hsin University took two trips to Taiwan and fell in love with it. However, her teacher in Korea advised her to study in China first in Beijing or Shanghai. After a year of learning Chinese there, she came to Taiwan. ==ZHENG SHI-XIAN Center for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, SHU== If you learn complex characters in Taiwan when you get back to Korea and look for work in China, it's a little inconvenient. == KO WEN-LUNG TKU Chinese Language Center== Students at our language center have to wait for a year and a half before they can work part time in Taiwan, if they could work and study, then more Americans would come to Taiwan. The students who come to Taiwan praise its study environment and teachers, but the difficulty of getting a student visa, Chinese language certification and the system for staying in Taiwan to work are a source of complaint. Although in 2014, the Ministry of Education set a goal of becoming a major center for Chinese language teaching within eight years, over the past three years the numbers of overseas students have only risen from 15,000 to 20,000. ==CHIU YU-CHAN Counselor, MOE Int'l and Cross-Strait Affairs Section== The teaching of Chinese language as an industry has a lot of problems, there just isn't enough support and so there's no cluster effect. The businesses which do this are micro, not even small, businesses, so there's a very limited effect. Compared with China, which poses huge competition to Taiwan and each year sees NT$6.6 billion coming in from Chinese language with the establishment of the Confucius Institute offering free classes and teachers. China relaxed regulations on private institutions taking foreign students, while Taiwan still has many limits. ==WEI ZI-HAO Chinese language teacher== Currently only foreign students studying at national universities can be issued with visas, if private language schools in Taiwan could also be valid for student visas, then more students would come to study here. Although Taiwan's use of complex characters, is in some senses a restriction, those in the teaching industry feel that if the government could relax other restrictions, and invest in more resources, Taiwan could still establish a good brand for Chinese language teaching. TRANSLATED BY：CLARE LEAR 全球有1億人口選擇學習華語為第二外國語，為了搶食華語文產業大餅，教育部103年推出相關計畫，不過推動3年來，不敵中國的金彈攻勢，成效有限，來台學習華文的外籍學生們說，台灣環境和師資有優勢，但制度不友善，讓很多外籍學生卻步。 來自韓國首爾，目前在世新大學當交換生的鄭世賢，之前來過二次台灣旅遊，就愛上了台灣，但在韓國老師的建議下，先到中國的北京和上海，學了一年的華語，後來才來到台灣。 ==世新大學華語文教學中心 鄭世賢== 如果在台灣學繁體字的話 回韓國或者以後去大陸找工作 我們覺得有點不太方便 ==淡江大學華語中心學員 柯文龍== 像我華語中心的學生 我要先得等一年半 才能開始打工 如果能有打工度假 應該會吸引更多美國人來台灣 這些來台學華文的外籍學生，大多肯定台灣優質的學習環境，但對於學生簽證的取得、華文檢定考試、未來續留台灣工作等制度，都有抱怨。雖然教育部在103年訂下，要在八年內成為華語文教育產業輸出大國，但這3年來，境外學生人數從1萬5千多人成長到近2萬人來看，成效有限。 ==教育部國際及兩岸教育司參事 邱玉蟾== 華語文產業是有很大的問題 拉拔提攜的效應不夠 群聚也沒有出現 都是微小企業 還不是小企業 所以那個能量都很有限 相較中國每年砸下新台幣66億，廣設孔子學院、提供免費課程、師資，對台灣造成很大的威脅，有業者表示，中國開放民間補習班可以招收外籍學生，但台灣卻處處受限。 ==華語補教業者 魏子豪== 目前台灣只有國立大學 能核發簽證舉辦考試 若是台灣私立語言學校 也能辦理相關業務 我相信來台灣的學生 應該會增加 台灣採用繁體中文，雖然也是限制，但從業者認為，如果政府的能鬆綁更多限制、投注更多資源，台灣仍有創造華語文教育品牌形象。 記者 陳姝君 莊志成 台北報導