Exchange / Study in Taiwan - About

School of Education and Graduate school of Human-Environmental Studies of Kyushu University offers faculty-level exchange programs with two universities in Taiwan;

●       College of Education, National Chi Nan University (https://eng.ncnu.edu.tw/node/194)

●       Department of Education, National Taiwan Normal University (http://en.ntnu.edu.tw/p-DeptEducation.php)

Previously, a student from National Chi Nan University used the program to come study at Kyushu University in the school year 2018-19.  In the year 2019-20, two students from Kyushu University went to NTNU for one year exchange.  

Voices of the exchange students

For my MA dissertation titled ‘New immigrants and the rhetoric of ‘Multicultural Taiwan’: Insight into policy and practice of mother tongue education, I have been examining language in educational policy and its educational practice in Taiwan to evaluate Taiwanese multiculturalism with a specific focus on New immigrants - immigrant spouses and their children from Southeast Asia.

With an aim to obtain knowledge on Taiwanese society, acquire Chinese language skill, and to conduct fieldwork for my research, I did an exchange study at NTNU from September 2019 to June 2020. While I was at NTNU, I got amazing opportunities to study and discuss recent academic debates over Taiwanese society, history, and education with local Taiwanese students and with well-known professors in the field of Taiwan Studies. In addition, I was able to get hold of literature and official documents related to new immigrants, which are difficult to find in Japan, from the NTNU library and National Taiwan Library. Furthermore, my Chinese has improved significantly over the 10 months. While I had almost no Chinese knowledge when I first arrived at Taiwan, by the end of my exchange, I was able to communicate using simple Chinese with local Taiwanese citizens and to read literature relevant to my study slowly. Lastly, thanks to Prof. Tzu-bin LIN’s help, I got permission to conduct participant observation at two elementary schools in New Taipei city for my fieldwork and successfully collected all the data I needed for my MA research. Also, while I was in Taiwan, I encountered various opportunities to deepen my insight into my researching topic. I am thankful to everyone who was involved in making this exchange possible. Thank you very much. Drawing on my experience in Taiwan, I will continue to work hard with my research.