This semester TKU has 24 more foreign students. To meet the need of more foreign students, TKU hopes that all units will be bilingual and establish a good English environment. The Office of Academic Affairs has set up the on-line course information checking system in English, hoping foreign students can select their courses smoothly through the friendly system.

On March 11, the director of the Office of International Exchanges and International Education Pei-hwa Lee had a lunch meeting with all the new foreign students. They shared their experiences and attainments in Taiwan. Some of them mentioned that the weekly 10 hour Chinese training course was difficult although it was a big help. Pei-hwa Lee said that her Office planned to organize a Chat Corner, inviting foreign students as Chat Leaders who would learn Chinese while chatting with Taiwanese students.

To implement the on-line course information checking system in English, Curricular Section Chief Hsiu-huang Su Hsu said that her section invited PhD. Candidates in English to translate all the Chinese information into English and it took half a year to do it. It is indeed convenient for the foreign students now. Exchange students from the University of Cologne, Germany, Nick and Katarian Piterkova said that they had learned some Chinese in simplified form in Germany, so they had some difficulty reading traditional Chinese characters. With the help of the English version of the course information, it was so much convenient. English major Jessica from Minnesota, U.S.A. was very impressed and grateful for the English course information because her Chinese was not quite “communicable.” She happily said that although there were no detailed syllabi in English on the TKU Internet Webpage, many teachers had prepared their detailed syllabi in English, so there was no problem at all. Hsiu-huang Su Hsu has mentioned that TKU keeps promoting English versions for all homepage interfaces. Her Section is planning to implement the English course selection system through Internet in the future. Besides Pei-hwa Lee earnestly urged foreign students, “Everyone is welcome to my Office whenever you have any problem.” ( ~Dean X. Wang)