wfn.org | TCN: Local church helps children explore beauty of Taiwanese

["Lydia Ma" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>Taiwan Church News

>2972 Edition

>February 9~15, 2009

Local church helps children explore beauty of Taiwanese

>Reported by Chen Wei-jien,

>Written by Lydia Ma

Just after the Ma administration slashed funding for promoting  certification of Taiwanese language, interest in learning Taiwanese  language crept up in Taiwan. This trend was especially evident among  Presbyterian churches that have long supported more training, education,  and usage of Taiwanese in Taiwan.

Taichung Soa-lok (Sha-lu) Presbyterian Church used this occasion to  organize an all- Taiwanese spiritual retreat so that children can learn  more about their faith and Taiwanese language simultaneously. The  retreat was held at Hsinchu Bible College and 17 students ranging from  junior high school to college attended the two-day event. Students read  Taiwanese children poetry and Bible verses in Taiwanese language and  tried to speak only Taiwanese throughout the retreat.

According to Soa-lok Church Pastor Chang Tian-Tsung, this is the first  time that the church tried to hold a Taiwanese language youth retreat  and the reason was because it felt Taiwanese had been undermined ever  since the Ma administration took office. The church wanted to educate  the younger generation of believers to be fluent in Taiwanese.

Chang noted that many youths are unable to read out loud Bible passages  or sing hymns in Taiwanese during church services, and some make  frequent mistakes in pronunciation because youths in Taiwan receive  their formal education in Mandarin. They also pronounce a lot of  Taiwanese words incorrectly because of Mandarin, prompting him to  organize a Taiwanese language spiritual retreat.

Chang reported that youths who participated in the retreat showed the  most interest in Taiwanese children poetry and songs. The retreat  allowed them to learn about Taiwanese culture and history while delving  into spirituality by reading Taiwanese children poetry.

Though everyone agreed that they would only speak Taiwanese throughout  the whole retreat, Chang recalled that some youths stumbled during  conversations and showed difficulty pronouncing some Taiwanese words  accurately because Taiwanese has eight different tones in addition to  many identical characters that have different pronunciations.

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