I recently attended a conference here in Taipei where many discussions were over the Bilingual Nation 2030 (BN30) policy of Taiwan. Prior to attending the conference, I happened to have re-read books about Language Policy and Planning (LPP). This was helpful for coming up with some personal observations about the policy. Here are the three takeaways from the conference, informed by findings in LPP studies.
Number one: Two languages can never coexist stably in the same domain in the same society. Therefore, trying to teach content knowledge in two languages at the same time may end up to be a futile effort unless done very skillfully. The only way for multiple languages to coexist in one society is for those languages to be used in different domains. Within the context of elementary and secondary education in Taiwan, it seems that the main vehicle for conveying content knowledge will be Mandarin; while English will be used for classroom interactions.
Number two: It is very difficult to make people change their linguistic behavior, unless using very coercive means. Actually, Taiwan already is a very rare example of success. Under the high-handed one-party rule by the KMT, Mandarin successfully supplanted Hokkien (a.k.a Taiwanese), Japanese, and other indigenous languages in Taiwan because there was a large-scale stigmatization campaign of the latter by the government. As the democratization advanced, millions of dollars and massive effort went into revitalizing Hokkien, Hakka and aboriginal languages, but the attrition of those languages has been unstoppable. On the other hand, people tend to voluntarily shift towards the language with higher prestige that promises economic gain and ability to communicate with the larger society. This is why many Hakkas abandoned their language in favor of Hokkien, and later, Mandarin. What the KMT government succeeded in doing was artificially creating a situation where Mandarin became the prestige language. So, if English proves to be a language with real prestige and utility, people will jump at it without any coercion. (This may especially be the case, after hearing in the conference of a finding that very small percentage of Taiwanese people were worried that adopting English would threaten their cultural identity.)
Number three: Immersion approach may work best in changing the linguistic behavior of the next generation. In direct contradiction to the mainstream voice in the profession which claims using the learner's L1 to scaffold their L2 learning is the most efficient method, L2-only immersion programs are known to produce good results, where children acquired high proficiency in L2 while maintaining L1. However, it must be noted that many of these immersion success stories originate from locations where children get a lot of exposure to both languages outside classroom. It also presupposes that there is a sufficient number of teachers highly proficient in L2.
Based on the above points, here are some observations about the prospects of BN30. If the goal of the policy is to shift the medium of instruction (MoI) from Mandarin to English, the chance of success does not seem very high under the current approach. (Indeed, the policy statement of the Taiwanese government states that one of the main goals of the policy is to increase the number of students who are capable to attending English as a medium of instruction (EMI) courses in universities.) It may succeed, though, in replacing Mandarin with English as the language of classroom interaction between teachers and students, while the medium for imparting content knowledge remains Mandarin. This will create a situation hitherto non-existent in Taiwan, namely, English being used as a language for domestic communication, albeit in limited domains. It may have an indirect effect of creating a generation more predisposed to learning English further, so as to enter EMI programs in higher education. In any case, it is essential for the government to clarify the goals of BN30 in more concrete terms, and adopt measures that are more finely tuned to accomplish them.
