"Being International Society" - Two Language Centers in NCKU are Inaugurated with Excitement at Sept. 17.

TAINAN, Taiwan -- Each language is like a window, and every window shares different experiences, feelings, knowledge, arts and cultures with all citizens around the world. National Cheng Kung University had an inauguration ceremony for both the NCKU Chinese Language Center and the NCKU Foreign Language Center together on Sep 17th to bring the world into NCKU and to publicize NCKU to the world with a hope to build up the best language learning platform around the world. Not only many invited esteemed guests attended, but also the band "ANDES" formed by a group of international students performed with South-American music.

The Chinese Language Center and Foreign Language Center together were formally opened at 12 noon, Sep 17th on the entrance hall of Hsiu-Chi Building, Kuang-Fu Campus, and attended by Prof. Ming-Jer Tang as the Vice President of Academic Affairs, Prof. Hwa Dai as the Chair of Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Prof. Chang-Min Chen as the Dean of College of Liberal Art, Prof. Wen-Jen Hsieh as the Director of NCKU Library, Prof. Andy Y. G. Fuh as the Dean of College of Sciences, Prof. Rong-Fu Wu as the Director of the NCKU Chinese Language Center, and Prof. Chung-Hsiung Lai as the Director of the NCKU Foreign Language Center.

Prof. Ming-Jer Tang commented that NCKU has contributed much effort and resources to promote humanistic education and to enhance internationalization of NCKU. NCKU has emphasized much on Chinese language education for a long while, and, in addition to providing the needed resources for the NCKU Landmark Projects in Humanities and Social Science, has given full support in workforce, such as qualified lecturers, and grant supports to Chinese Language Center and Department of Chinese Literature in research and development in Chinese reading and writing. Now these two centers, originally under the Language Center of the College of Liberal Art, both have been promoted to those directly under the administration of college. Hence, both centers are expected to have more responsibility in linguistic education. Both centers should work closely together to make the best education in Chinese and foreign languages, and even more, to become the world center of language education.

Prof. Chang-Min Chen as the Dean of College of Liberal Art appreciated full support and assistance from Academician Michael Ming-Chiao Lai as the NCKU President, and Prof. Ming-Jer Tang as the Vice President of Academic Affairs. Prof. Chang-Min Chen mentioned that both NCKU Chinese Language Center and Foreign Language Center have solid background and abundant resources, especially in teachers, supporting staffs and facility, and, hence, have delivered plentiful teaching outcomes and achievements. These excellent achievements of both centers have attracted hundreds of students to NCKU to pick up their proficiency every year. He also commented that internationalization in the NCKU College of Liberal Arts has been somewhat realized, so that hundreds of international students could be encountered in the faculty hall every day, which could certainly be regarded as the best stage to show the success of NCKU's effort in internationalization. The faculty also looks forward to having more exchange in different cultures in NCKU to appeal for more exchanges in humanities, music, and cultures.

More than 100 invited guests and students together participated lively. The foreign students around the world performed a series of cultural and folk activities at 11:40am before the inauguration. Prof. Chang-min Chen as Dean of College of Liberal Art held a welcome party at the meeting room on the seventh floor of College of Liberal Art, and shared new versions and guidelines as "Whole Language Policy of NCKU" with all invited guests.

Prof. Rong-Fu Wu, the Director of the NCKU Chinese Language Center, commented that the predecessor of the Chinese Language Center of the College of Liberal Arts is "Chinese Language Laboratory Center of the College of Liberal Arts", which was established in the Fall of 1982. Later, it was replaced as "Chinese Language Center of the College of Liberal Arts" with expansion of the center. It has been rated as one of the four main language centers in Taiwan by Ministry of Education at 2007, and has also been the biggest Chinese Language Center in Southern Taiwan. One mission of the center is not only to support Chinese training of foreign talented workers for Taiwanese industry, but also lecturing more than 600 international students of NCKU in Chinese. There are also lots of study tours every summer and winter vacation. In the future, Chinese Language Center will comply with NCKU's policy in internationalization to attract more foreign people learning Chinese in NCKU, as well as to provide more diverse and qualified Chinese language courses and materials to overseas partner academic institutes of NCKU. The center will also make the greatest effort in editing better and suitable learning materials and audio books, designing a proper Chinese language proficiency test, and syllabi for interactive distant teaching courses for all interested in learning Chinese.

Prof. Chung-Hsiung Lai, the Director of the NCKU Foreign Language Center, indicated that the Foreign Language Center of the College of Liberal Arts evolved from the "Language Laboratory of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature" established in 1970. It was replaced to "Foreign Language Center of the College of Liberal Arts" in 1983. "There are four divisions of Foreign Language Center, which are to coordinate English education of NCKU and to provide an English learning friendly environment, to offer advanced studies of all kinds of foreign languages, to take charge of English achievement tests campus-wide and nation-wide, and to offer paper revision service in English," said Prof. Chung-Hsiung Lai as Director of Foreign Language Center. Specifically, the Foreign Language Center is assisting "Eagle Project" to remodel and revise English courses of NCKU and to provide a comprehensive English friendly learning environment. Besides that, it provides many advanced studies for students and community in Southern Taiwan by expanding services of continuing education to community, and by commencing devised, practical and novel courses. On the service provided by the center for English reports and manuscripts, the center aims to become as the "Writing Center" in the future to provide better service for all teachers and students. At last, the center is hoping to extend the English test service with close collaboration with international English test institutions, and looks forward to being the internationally recognized language training and testing center in Southern Taiwan.

Some Bolivian students are learning Chinese language in NCKU now and also attended the inauguration ceremony. They had a band called "ANDES" with Vladimir Darwin Vasquez Rivera as a singer and guitarist, Jesus Quisbert Menoza playing "Charango", Juan Carlos Quisbert as a drummer, and Saul Trigueros playing panpipes. In the opening ceremony of both centers, they performed three melodies as Mama Sapaqui, Luz Del Ande, and Estas Enmi Corazon to the beautiful and brilliant homeland and "you are always in my heart" symbolized as Chinese language center and foreign language center. Their wonderful performance and resonant singing got warm applause.

About National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan:

NCKU is located in the ancient city of Tainan, the historical and ancient cultural capital city of Taiwan, which boasts more than 50 national relics sanctioned by the government and is approximately 250 kilometers south of Taipei. It is connected to all major cities in Taiwan by the recently initiated state-of-the-art Taiwan High Speed Rail. Further, this historical heritage is the pride of Tainan City and represents a rich cultural resource to NCKU. The technological sectors in the Southern Taiwan Science Park offer students at NCKU a stage to apply what they have learned into practice.

With three quarters of a century of distinguished history, with well over 130,000 powerful alumni now dotting the globe, many have achieved supreme successes in arts, business, education, science, technology and healthcare and are ready and willing to assist, with 22,000 academic selective students and 1200 academically significant faculty members currently, both have a healthy dosage of international flavor, with enormous regional support, and with a permeating culture of proactive intellectual growth on the world's stage, NCKU in Tainan, Taiwan, has evolved from its engineering genesis to become a powerful comprehensive, research and international university in Asia Pacific.

Since NCKU's establishment in 1931, it has developed into a research intensive and comprehensive university with integrated academic fields in nine colleges: Liberal Arts, Sciences, Engineering, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Planning & Design, Management, Social Sciences, Medicine, and Bioscience & Biotechnology. NCKU currently offers 40 undergraduate programs (excluding Program of Bachelor's Degree), 78 master's degree programs, 54 doctoral programs and 20 master's degree programs for working professionals.

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