The first batch of new residents’ folk language teaching support staff, Chen Shanlan: Helping the children of new Taiwan understand the roots of culture

With the opening of local language classes for new residents in primary schools, Chen Shanlan from Indonesia has suddenly become a "teacher". She hopes that through language teaching, the children of new residents will know more about the culture of their mother country, and the children in Taiwan will also learn more about the culture of their mother country. Get to know Southeast Asian countries.

"Halo. ibu guru." There were only three students in the classroom, and the sounds of the children reading loudly, laughing, and running were no less loud than a class of thirty people. It turns out that this is an elective course for new residents in Indonesian. The students are playing a different kind of "Monopoly". After drawing lots and counting the advances, they turn over the Chinese cards, then find the corresponding Indonesian words from the middle of the table and read them out. Compete to see who reaches the finish line first and you can taste crispy noodles from Indonesia. If you hadn't actually been in the classroom, it would have been hard to imagine that the children were studying so energetically in the warm and cold morning.

What ignited the children’s enthusiasm for learning was Chen Shanlan, who taught Indonesian. She is one of the first pioneers of the new residents’ language teaching support staff of the Ministry of Education’s State Education Bureau. In addition to teaching at Jisui Elementary School, she also teaches Indonesian at Wensheng Elementary School and Peking University Elementary School in New Taipei City. In August of this year, after the 108 curriculum was put into effect, the New Resident Language was included in the elective courses in the language field of elementary schools. Seven Southeast Asian languages: Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, Malaysian, and Filipino, open to students as electives.

"I never thought about becoming a teacher," said Chen Shanlan. From being a new immigrant to being responsible for teaching the local language to new residents, everything was unexpected for her. Originally a native of Indonesia, Chen Shanlan just graduated from university 20 years ago, but the anti-Chinese incident in Indonesia happened. Chen Shanlan moved to Taiwan to find a job, so she met and fell in love with her husband and became a Taiwanese daughter-in-law.

Before teaching Chinese to the new residents, Chen Shanlan said: "I worked as a cleaner for a technology company in an industrial zone, as an interpreter for the Immigration Department, and later as an interpreter at my husband's train station. She was working in a factory to help, but she never found her niche. "Three years ago, she took part in a junior high school supplementary school and was introduced to the "New Resident Folk Language Teaching Support Personnel Training Course" by a teacher at the supplementary school, so she decided to give it a try. After completing the training, I tried teaching at the summer camp of Yangmei Elementary School in Taoyuan City. "The first time I taught Indonesian to primary school students, I fell in love! I saw that the children wanted to learn my language!"

Seeing the sparkling eyes of the children and their desire to know more about Indonesian culture gave Chen Shanlan a lot of encouragement. In addition to using the "Indonesian" learning textbook compiled by the New Taipei City Education Bureau, she also matched different unit contents and took the students to make Indonesian unique turmeric rice and wayang shadow puppetry. "Children just like to do it with their hands, eat and play with their hands." Games, don’t force them to learn and write, start with these activities so that children like to speak and understand.”

“Not only do I teach my children about Indonesian culture, but the students also teach me more Chinese. " Chen Shanlan said with a smile that once she wanted to teach her children to "take the elevator". She pronounced it correctly in Indonesian, but when translated into Chinese, she pronounced it as "indication". The children quickly corrected Chen Shanlan, "So I am their teacher. , we are also their students, learning from each other."

"When I first got married and came to Taiwan twenty years ago, I felt like I was treated as an outsider. Many people heard that I was from Taiwan. When I come from Indonesia, I always ask: Do you not eat pork? Why don’t you wear a headscarf?” Chen Shanlan shook her head and explained that not eating pork and wearing a headscarf are Islamic norms and do not represent the life of all Indonesians. There are still other religious beliefs in the country.

In order to let students understand the most authentic Indonesian life and culture, when she takes her children back home to visit relatives every winter vacation, Chen Shanlan will bring back a variety of local products and board games from her hometown, such as Enaak Chicken Faced with the Congklak shell game, Chen Shanlan said: "My son laughs at me. Being a teacher is more serious than being a mother!"

Even if there is only one class a week, primary school students cannot remember much grammar and can only learn the basics. Greetings and daily vocabulary, "After taking the class, many students are now returning to Indonesia with their mothers to visit relatives, and they can greet the flight attendants in Indonesian on the plane." Chen Shanlan is happiest, "The children have completed one semester. After the class, he told me that he could whisper to the mother of the new resident and write a Mother’s Day card to her mother in Indonesian. My mother was very touched, and so was I. "It allows students to learn more about the culture of their home country, and also allows the new residents to learn more about it. The closer parent-child relationship has become Chen Shanlan’s biggest motivation for teaching.

At the teaching site, she once heard other teachers and parents question: "Why do we need to learn the new residents' dialect?" Chen Shanlan admitted that she was speechless at first, but she was not discouraged, "I came to Taiwan twenty years ago." Year, now I feel that I am accepted and regarded as a member of Taiwan. I want to help build a bridge so that children in Taiwan can know Indonesia better, and I can introduce Taiwan to Indonesians in Indonesian in the future. ”

Faced with the newly added elective course of local language for new residents in the 108th curriculum, Chen Shanlan is full of expectations and plans to call on more sisters from Southeast Asian countries to participate in the training. “I hope this teaching can be developed into My ambition."