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Introduction to Department of Southeast Asian Studies
The population of the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is over 600 million. ASEAN established the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) at the end of 2015, becoming the world’s third largest market after China and India. Currently, it is the second largest trading partner of Taiwan. With an average economic growth rate of 5-7% every year, it is in its high economic growth stage; its characteristics include demographic dividends and an increase in the middle-class income year by year. In 2016, the British journal, The Economist, predicted that the AEC is poised to become the world’s fourth largest economy; its future is full of potential. To adapt to the changing trends in world development, Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, the only university of languages in Taiwan, started to offer courses in Southeast Asian languages in 2008, based on the spirit of 50 years of excellence in its foreign language teaching. In the 2014 academic year, it established the Center for Southeast Asian Languages Teaching. In the second half of 2018, it begins to offer Southeast Asian language proficiency tests and the Master of Arts in its Southeast Asian Studies (MSEAS) Program. In the 2019 academic year, it will establish the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, hoping to cultivate more “dual-specialty” and “interdisciplinary” talents with high international mobility that will be well-prepared for the ASEAN market and active in both Taiwan and ASEAN.
Introduction to Center for Southeast Asian Languages Teaching
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In view of the fact that recently ASEAN has been receiving worldwide attention, Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages has been implementing different language related programs funded by the Ministry of Education including "College Minority Language Courses Grant Program (2008-2009 academic year)" and "College Multi-language Courses Grant Program (2009-2012 academic year)." Between the 2008 and 2012 academic year, the university has offered five multi-language courses, including Korean, Thai, Indonesian, Malay and Vietnamese to the college and university students in southern Taiwan.
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To promote multi-language development, our school's Division of Extension Education has set up diverse language courses at its Kaohsiung and Tainan branches. In addition, we have provided exclusive tailor-made courses for enterprises in the southern regions such as China Steel Corporation and Kwang Yang Motor Co., Ltd., to meet their business needs
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We have also been collaborating with Vietnamese, Malay, Indonesian, and Thai teachers to design various teaching materials for four Southeast Asian Languages, each with 20 digital lessons at four levels respectively. After the preparatory work in 2013, the College of European and Asian Languages formally established the "Center for Southeast Asian Languages Teaching" in 2014, in the aims of nursing qualified professionals capable of using the learned language in related industries as well as increasing our students’ work opportunities and their competitiveness in the future.