TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s 2030 bilingual plans are in full swing as senior high schools are adopting a multi-pronged approach to honing students’ English skills.

The approach involves all-English classes to achieve mastery of the language, increased English instruction for specific disciplines, international cooperation via online lessons, and other subsidized programs, according to the Ministry of Education (MOE).

To foster an environment where pupils can directly converse with native speakers, senior high schools are incentivized to hold online classes in collaboration with institutions in the U.K., the U.S., Australia, and Canada. The MOE seeks to boost the number of participating schools from 94 in 2021 to 250 by 2030.

Schools are also encouraged to promote all-English classes, at least for the discipline of English, which the MOE said can be achieved by incorporating multimedia resources and graphics. For other disciplines, arts and technology, for example, bilingual instructions can be added gradually and conducted on a topic-by-topic basis.

Increasing opportunities for students to engage in English conversations with their peers has been key to helping them improve their speaking and listening abilities, which can be seen in schools of various levels. Kaohsiung’s National Sun Yat-sen University, for example, has invited international students to host extracurricular activities such as contests for more English exposure.