Bilingual lessons from Singapore
By Lin Po-kuan 林柏寬
The Taipei City Government recently announced a new round of junior-high school teacher recruitment for the next academic year. Despite the limited number of openings, the available positions for bilingual teachers in eight subjects was 60, almost the same as for regular teachers, 66.
For example, in music, life technology and information technology, there were openings for regular and bilingual teachers, who would teach in English and Chinese. There were 12 vacancies for bilingual physical education teachers, but how would such teachers help improve students’ physical fitness?
The government has pledged to turn Taiwan into a “bilingual nation” by 2030, hoping to equip students with better international competitiveness by improving their English ability. This is a good policy, but it might help to look at a nearby multilingual country: Singapore.
Tri-Valley - More critical community input needed
Mike Christopherson
Crookston Times
Crookston-based Tri-Valley Opportunity Council, Inc. needs much more community input submitted online by the communities it serves, and it needs it quickly, as in, by Friday, May 7.
It’s the input the community action agency receives via its annual “Community Forum” initiative that drives the development of its two-year strategic plan, formulated by Tri-Valley’s Board of Directors.
In a more normal time, Tri-Valley would host a series of in-person community forums in communities throughout its primary service area. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tri-Valley is asking people to submit their input online. Tri-Valley released the links last month and urged a widespread response, but, this week, Tri-Valley leaders announced that they have received “very few responses” and they need a lot more, by May 7.
OTTAWA Ottawa Public Health is reporting a second consecutive day with more than 200 new cases of COVID-19, following two days with less than 200 cases. The Ottawa Public Health COVID-19 dashboard is showing 254 new cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa on Friday, and no new deaths linked to the virus. Since the first case of COVID-19 on March 11, 2020, there have been 22,940 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa, including 486 deaths. The 254 new cases of COVID-19 in Ottawa on Friday follows 281 new cases on Thursday, 181 new cases on Wednesday and 186 cases on Tuesday. Ottawa Public Health data shows Ottawa s weekly incidence rate dropped to 170 cases per 100,000 on Friday. It was 222 cases per 100,000 last weekend. The positivity rate also decreased from 11.7 per cent to 10.9 per cent for the period of April 16 to 22.
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OTTAWA Ottawa Public Health is reporting 181 more people in the city have tested positive for COVID-19 and one more person has died. This brings Ottawa s pandemic total to 22,405 laboratorty-confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 484 resident deaths. The number of known active cases of COVID-19 declined on Wednesday, as did the number of COVID-19 patients in local hospitals. The weekly incidence rate of new cases per 100,000 residents has fallen below 200, and the estimated reproduction number, which shows how many secondary cases are caused by a single infected individual over his or her infectious period, remains below 1, suggesting that viral spread is slowing.