The National Academy for Educational Research (NAER) held the award ceremony and presentation for the “2024 Chinese Language Proficiency Standards and Corpus Application Competition” on the afternoon of December 4, 2023, at its Taipei campus. Students from the Department of Applied Chinese Language and Literature (ACL) at Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU) excelled, emerging as the biggest winners of the competition. Current ACL students won three awards, including first place in the “Integrated Group,” third place, and honorable mention in the “Digital Materials Group.” Alumni also achieved second place in the “Testing Group” and third place in the “Integrated Group,” showcasing CYCU’s innovative and versatile approach to Chinese language education.
The competition aims to encourage integration of NAER’s “Chinese Language Proficiency Standards” and corpus resources into teaching, material development, and assessment to enhance the effectiveness of Chinese language education in Taiwan. Categories included “Teaching,” “Digital Materials,” “Testing,” and “Integrated.” Dr. Penelope Peng, Dean of the College of Humanities and Education at CYCU and Chairperson of the Association of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Taiwan, attended the ceremony as a presenter.
The “Integrated Group” required entries to combine elements from the teaching, digital materials, and testing categories, with first place representing the highest honor. The winning CYCU team—composed of senior students Shih Ying-An, Huang Yu-Chen, and junior student Chou Pei-Tsen—created the project “I Am Me: Lin Yu-Ting’s Fight Against Gender Discrimination at the Olympics.” This work, which emphasized the importance of gender autonomy, impressed the judges.
The team focused on the story of boxer Lin Yu-Ting to explore gender autonomy issues. Using NAER’s corpus and the “Teaching Material Editing System,” they created an e-book and designed interactive teaching activities centered on gender topics. The digital materials were developed in alignment with NAER’s Taiwan Chinese Language Proficiency Standards, incorporating experiences from digital coursework. For the testing section, they adapted news materials into test items, drawing on their coursework in “Chinese Language Testing and Assessment” to design questions, demonstrating practical application of their knowledge.
In the “Digital Materials Group,” senior students Shih Ying-An and Huang Yu-Chen secured third place with their project “NEWS CHINESE.” Additionally, senior students Hsiao Yi-An and Wang Pin-Ching received honorable mention. Notably, while the second-place winners of the “Testing Group” and the third-place winners of the “Integrated Group” were graduate students from National Taiwan Normal University, both teams included CYCU ACL alumni, further highlighting the department’s influence.
Participants from CYCU’s ACL department noted that integrating NAER’s corpus and technology significantly enhanced the efficiency of material development. More importantly, their professional training in fields such as Chinese lexicology, grammar, phonetics, teaching methods, and language testing provided a strong foundation for applying corpus tools.
Dr. Liu Yu-Fen, Chair of CYCU’s ACL department, emphasized that the curriculum integrates core subjects like teaching methodologies, multimedia instruction, and Chinese grammar. Courses in phonetics also help students develop clear and precise teaching skills. Additionally, students are encouraged to join inter-grade learning teams within the university, fostering collaboration—a key factor in their success at this competition.
