Bridging bilingual boundaries: Taiwan’s nationwide strategy for EFL transformation

Taiwan’s nationwide bilingual education initiative aims to integrate English into primary and secondary education while maintaining subject integrity. However, large-scale implementation presents challenges related to administrative constraints, teacher engagement, and balancing content mastery with language development. This study investigates how Taiwan’s bilingual education model navigates these challenges and adapts strategies for effective implementation. Using a nationwide census-based approach, survey data from over 16,000 participants across diverse regions were analyzed to identify key patterns. The findings reveal that while teacher collaboration between subject specialists and English instructors enhances both linguistic and disciplinary learning, institutional barriers and uneven policy execution hinder progress. Strategies such as the Satellite Collaboration Project and cognitive learning approaches have been employed to address these challenges, yet their effectiveness varies by region and school resources. The study underscores the importance of leveraging nationwide census data to refine policy frameworks and ensure adaptive, evidence-based decision-making. These insights contribute to the broader discourse on bilingual education, offering data-driven perspectives on how large-scale EFL initiatives can navigate systemic obstacles and support effective bilingual instruction in K-12 settings.