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Creating comprehensive Mandarin training model for Taiwanese
industry: An anticipation of Taiwan ‘Southbound policy
To cite this article: Y Ying et al 2018 IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 126 012089
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Creating comprehensive Mandarin training model for
Taiwanese industry: An anticipation of Taiwan 'Southbound
policy
Y Ying1, T N Mursitama2, Sofi1 and L Anggreani1
1 Chinese Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Bina Nusantara, Jl.
Kemanggisan Ilir III No.45, Jakarta 11480, Indonesia
2 International Relations Department, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Bina
Nusantara, Jl. Kemanggisan Ilir III No.45, Jakarta 11480, Indonesia
E-mail: yi_ying@binus.edu
Abstract. The study discusses the effort of preparing human resources in mastering Mandarin
for Taiwan industry as the anticipation of Southbound policy created by Taiwan government.
In this point, the Southbound policy represents Taiwan's government strategy in 2016-2020
which encourages multilateral and bilateral cooperation with ASEAN and South Asian
countries. One of the most important elements in the program centers as the Internship
Scholarship Program in Taiwan. Utilizing qualitative research methods, researchers collected
secondary data from various available official resources. The publications, documents, books,
and websites contain the policy and mechanism of the internship scholarship program. On the
other hand, this study conducted interviews with senior high school and vocational high school
stakeholders to create synergy in the program. This study offers a model of cooperation
between junior high school/vocational school and the candidates of the employer in the Taiwan
industry. The contribution of this research is to create a comprehensive cooperative model that
includes preparing human resources before leaving for Taiwan, providing teachers and
supplying training materials that are relevant to the needs of industry players in Taiwan
eventually.
Keywords: southbound policy, internship, industry, Mandarin training model
1. Introduction
The New Southbound Policy is a crucial part of Taiwan government strategy in 2016-2020. Taiwan
responds to every alteration in the global context and particularly the trend toward regional integration
by adapting itself as an important member of the Asia and Asia Pacific region. For this reason, Taiwan
pays especially close attention to soft power as a core aspect of its strategy to link up with other
countries. At some extent, Taiwan prepares to share its diverse experiences in many areas such as
health care, education, technology, agricultural cooperation, and small and medium enterprises to
strengthen cooperation with ASEAN and South Asian countries. From this inception, the Industry-
University Internship Scholarship
Program serves one of New Southbound Policy work items. Importantly, the program is managed
and partially funded by Taiwan Ministry of Education. Coupled with technology universities, it
cooperates with companies to design practical curriculums based on companies’ needs, and the
companies provide internship positions for students from ASEAN and South Asia. Doubtless, the
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spirit of the program purposes for assisting economically disadvantaged students. Therefore, they
would have opportunities to pursue their bachelor degrees and become skillful interns for the
companies.
The structure of the program comprises of three major parties in this program, Taiwan
technology universities, Taiwan companies, and Indonesian students. Figure 1 depicts the program
structure of internship. Following this, each stakeholder may encounter the problems. For example,
the companies set various requirements for internship positions. In this sense, they may not have
comprehensive information about Indonesian, including the culture, religion, language, and customs. It
is not easy for the company to provide their specific requirements. Following that, the universities
should communicate with different companies to provide appropriate internship students. They have to
match the students and internship positions. Not surprisingly, they have to collect information from
industry and also the international students. On the other hand, the students are unfamiliar with
Taiwan, including language, society, or culture. Arguably, they don’t have knowledge about the
company. For this reason, it provides an adventure opportunity to go overseas studying and to reside
there for four years.
Figure 1. Structure of Industry-University internship scholarship program.
Prior to students’ departure to Taiwan, the program should provide language and working training. It
aims to prepare the students with practical aspects and to build confidence for the students. That said,
the university and company cooperate with each other to enhance the basic skill of Mandarin and
working training. Undoubtedly, the comprehensive training model will increase the success of
implementation of this program, especially for ASEAN students. At a closer look, Indonesia became
the top priority because the country itself became a platform to solve conflicts in Asia Pacific and the
biggest actor in the region. At the same time, it also connects regional organizations in Asia Pacific
[2].
2. Methods
The research applied qualitative approach by conducting interviews to three stakeholders concerning
the needs of human resources that Indonesian needs to work in the Taiwanese Industries. The time
frame of interviews included face to face meeting during the three stakeholders’ visit to Jakarta on
February to July 2017. The population of the study consists of 200 Senior High School (SMA) and
Vocational High School (SMK) students from March to June 2017 in Bangka, Belitung, Cirebon, and
Bandung City by undertaking face to face interviews.
3. Results and Discussions
3.1. Language for specific purpose
Language for Specific Purpose (LSP) is a leading practical method in the field of language training
and instruction that focuses on the immediate and specific needs of learners who need language as a
medium in education, training, and the world of work [3]. It convinced that LSP has a unique
relationship with applied linguistics. In this point, the closest relation is related to discourse analysis
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IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 126 (2018) 012089 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/126/1/012089
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and pragmatist analysis. From another angle, scholars argue that LSP was practiced a lot in discourse
analysis. In this respect, there is a relation between teaching language assessment and communicative
language. It reveals that LSP has not built a profession to the maximum or a clear sub-discipline in the
world of language. [4]. In addition, LSP, as an integrated component of existing curriculum, should be
able to complete the student ability to adapt and applies their education to changing demands from the
global society recently. This reflects that LSP is a platform that provides special skills [5]. In this
spectrum, LSP courses focus on students to help them find and practice the kind of language that
meets their special professional needs. Traditionally, LSP’s students are mostly college student and
adults [6]. In this token, teaching in LSP aims to work beyond the principle. Besides, the needs and
expectations of the students are in accordance with the methods and forms of teaching, both in the
professional and non-professional sector. On that basis, the prominent consideration in LSP’s teaching
method is to acknowledge who the students are, what the learning styles are, and the student’s age. In
sum, all these factors decide the approach of teaching and preparation for future foreign language
through courses or particular module in the curriculum [7].
3.2. Mobile learning
With the modernization of communication tools, education experts had tried to take the initiative to
apply the usage of the tools in teaching and learning. Over the years, mobile learning states that
mobile tools enable the student to share information and synchronize their assignments in a wider
range and functions more impressively in a situation that requires the cooperation of experts. (Chien,
1997; Coil, 1998; Sharples, 2000a; Sharples et al., 2000b). [8], [9], [10], [11]
Several perspectives had been stated regarding the definition of the Mobile Learning. In
consonance with earlier viewpoints, mobile learning (m-Learning) is an approach to teaching and
learning that is recognized as a process of learning through the computer. In this case, the content of
the teaching is based on the network and its learning network or technology based curriculum
(Anderson, 2002; Milrad, 2002) [12] [13].
In interesting research by Lehner, Nosekabel and Lehman (2001), they argues that m-Learning is
an ability to attain process of teaching and learning in an unlimited time, specific place, and with any
tools. They convince that there are two advantages of m-Learning, which is “anytime, anywhere
learning and teaching while doing”. Furthermore, Lehner et al stated that the definition of m-Learning
includes every learning process that is related to mobile tools or any building that contains wireless
infrastructure [14].
Coil (1998) stated that with m-Learning, it enables the students to study college courses from a
distance, to access assignments wherever and whenever, to cooperate with other students in
corresponding time, to contact the teacher, and to access research materials in a larger quantity
compared to a library [15]. That definition shows that m-Learning is a form of learning that includes
the usage of technology in a building with wireless infrastructure.
Based on the result of the interviews, data showed that the enthusiasm of Senior High School
(SMA) and Vocational High School (SMK) students is significant towards the internship scholarship
in Taiwan. The occurring issues among students urge for the mastery of Chinese language before the
departure to Taiwan for the internship. Considering the time constraint in learning Mandarin, the
students and education providers request to create an m-Learning method. In this context, the provided
materials in the online learning are expected to be interactive. Moreover, it teaches the basics of
communications in a context. Therefore, a model of MALL learning for special needs (Language for
Specific Purpose) of senior high and vocational school students that will be departing for an
internship. Based on field data obtained, an interactive Chinese language training model proposes an
interactive and comprehensive Chinese training model. It evinces that the learning model
accommodates the needs of the students. A student can study independently without direct face to face
interaction with the teacher. Other than that, online video is a form of assignment by doing the
activities provided. In this training model, the range of language teaching poses a major aspect. In
conjunction with this, the internship included should consider two major parts. The first part is based
on the students’ point of view and the other part derives from the industry side. The students have to
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IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 126 (2018) 012089 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/126/1/012089
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prepare fundamental conversation, work language, and Chinese culture attachment. For the
companies, they need the internship have basic knowledge of workplace and industry specific
requirements. Subsequent to interviewing stakeholders of the schools in Indonesia and the companies
in Taiwan, the content of internship program includes daily and professional Mandarin. Each of the
items consists of several subjects. The internship prepared the students prior to leaving for Taiwan. It
takes about 1-3 months while they are waiting for the passport and student visa application. Figure 2
depicted the structure of internship:
Figure 2. The structure of internship.
3.3. Teaching Pinyin and Zhuyin
Different from Mainland China, Taiwan education has been using other Phonetic Symbols to teach
students how to pronounce Chinese characters. In this respect, the system name is Mandarin Phonetic
Symbols or Zhuyin. Moreover, people can see alphabetic Pinyin when they are walking on the streets
in Taiwan cities. Not surprisingly, the name of the streets uses both Chinese characters and Pinyin
words. Those Pinyin words are mainly for foreign travellers. However, Zhuyin is popular in Taiwan. It
is also widely used as a Chinese character entry tool for electronic input methods.
3.4. Utilizing modern computer technology to help Zhuyin learning
Facilitating Zhuyin education, our future research will provide open advanced teaching software
applications. Compared them with traditional classroom teaching, software applications are more fun
to learn with various types of contents such as sound, music, pictures, animation, and combination of
multimedia.
In this case, it enables students to watch and learn all by themselves independently. This suggests
that the main duties of teachers will change from traditional classroom teaching to introducing the
learning steps, assigning homework, checking homework progress/result, and evaluating learning
score through
3.5. Adopting Online to Offline (O2O) concepts for better teaching service
The money and time spent on learning are getting escalating. We should adopt Online to Offline
(O2O) concepts for better teaching service to help improving the quality of teaching and to reduce the
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IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 126 (2018) 012089 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/126/1/012089
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traveling cost at the same time. There are various applied types of online systems or services in
accordance with their different functions and features. The researchers delved in in depth as follows:
3.6. Online learning platform
Initially, we introduced the Student Self-learning Platform. Students may start their self-learning by
following the steps required or teachers’ guideline. In this point, it allows the students to accomplish
the process effortlessly, notably the platform registration. Following this, the system administrator
needs to key in the required primary data for the related student such as login name, password,
learning period, and available courses.
On teachers’ side, the preparation plays an important role initially. We need to prepare contents and
structures. There are three levels from top to down, courses, chapters, and units. Figure 3 showed the
ZhuYin course level. The Lesson 1 ዜዝዞዟis the part of the second level together with the chapter.
The bottom level represents the unit level. As students click on it, a tutorial video will start to play.
Regarding the slow internet connection in student local environment, the system provides a user-
friendly orange email button to submit the concern. The system will dispatch an email with the
attached video to the predefined email box at the same time.
Figure 3. Three levels structure of courses, chapters and units.
3.7. Using social media to deliver homework assignment
This application emphasizes the importance of accomplishing the homework assignment. With this in
mind, social media is very good at sending a various type of media. In this point of entry, speaking,
spelling, typing, and handwriting denote four required major skills in order to communicate with the
companies. Undoubtedly, Mandarin teachers should ask their students to learn all these four skills.
For speaking and spelling parts, the homework requires students to record their voice clips in digital
audio files. Those audio files can optimize the process of learning eventually.
4. Conclusions
This application falls under the novelty of implementation. It provides the companies more
opportunities in building connections and networking within ASEAN and South Asia countries. In this
point of entry, internship students provide the workforces about knowledge of Indonesia, and the
networking for the companies. That would assist the companies to evaluate prospectus investment.
Moreover, when the company decides to expand their business to Indonesia and at the same time the
students return to Indonesia, they naturally acquire the opportunity in the company as employees with
basic tier. Our Internship Comprehensive Mandarin Training model provided Internship Mandarin
content and O2O interact approach to preparing the students’ internship prior to their departure to
Taiwan. Doubtless, it would reduce the difficulty of the students efficiently. Consequently, it considers
both senior high or vocational schools stakeholders in Indonesia and companies to join the program.
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IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 126 (2018) 012089 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/126/1/012089
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Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the partial financial support of this research from research project grant of “Strategi
Pengembangan Daerah Perbatasan di Kepulauan Riau dalam Rangka Implementasi Indonesia
sebagai Poros Maritim Dunia (Strategy of Border Area Development in Riau Islands in the
Framework of Implementation of Indonesia as a World Maritime Axis) ” by Ministry of Research,
Technology and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia.
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IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 126 (2018) 012089 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/126/1/012089
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