In a bid to make Taiwanese students more competitive on the global arena, foreign language courses including Japanese, Spanish, French and German are given this year in over 200 high schools around the island. Starting next May, the Language Training and Testing Center will also offer basic proficiency tests in these languages, of which the results can be used as a criterion for college admissions.

Students in Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School are reciting Japanese sentences, following their teacher. They are all students in the second language program.

The Ministry of Education encourages high schools to provide second language programs and in the 2010 academic year alone, 225 high schools have provided over 1,328 programs all over the country.

Starting this academic year, all students entering the Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School are required to take second language courses.

With fifteen students in a class, the school provides six programs, including Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Latin and Korean.

With more and more students learning a second language, the Language Training and Testing Center has also started to provide basic proficiency test on Japanese, French, German, and Spanish.

Some universities will recognize students' test scores when they apply for admission.

For those who want to apply for language-related departments, the language test scores will be a plus.