文獻顯示在雙語或多語的社會，主流語言﹙即有著優勢的特定族群所說的語言﹚會逐漸取代支流語言，且語言教育通常會加速此現象，所以在多語社會母語教育一直是研究學者及政府所關心的議題。臺灣是個多語、多文化的社會。臺灣有50多種地方語言（或方言）1，包括國語2、客家語3、閩南語4、原住民語言5及大陸地方方言6。依據殖民時期的語言政策，在公共場所禁止使用臺灣母語，而日語及國語（北京話）則被採用成為殖民時期的唯一官方語言。因此，臺灣的母語正在消失之中。臺灣教育部近來推動母語教育，從2001年開始將母語教育列為國小的必修課目。然而，在二十一世紀國際化的影響，臺灣的英語教育也勢必要向下衍伸；因此臺灣的語言教育政策面臨了前所未有的挑戰與角力。今年，臺灣歷經第兩次政黨輪替，全民都把焦點放在新教育部長的語言政策，此篇文章將探討臺灣自光復後的語言教育政策（包含母語與外語教育），並討論在二十一世紀全球化的衝擊下，何種語言教育政策才能真正消弭臺灣目前的族群對立。

It is believed that in bilingual or multilingual societies, "a ‘majority’ language-that is, a language with greater political power, privilege and social prestige- comes to replace the range and functions of a ‘minority’ language. This process is often accelerated and facilitated by the education in majority language. Thus, implementing mother-tongue education has always been a concern to researchers and governments especially in multilingual societies. Taiwan is no exception since it is a multilingual and multicultural society. There are more than 50 indigenous languages (or dialects) in Taiwan. In addition, Taiwan has been colonized by several foreign regimes since the 17th century, and according to colonial language policies, native languages were prohibited in the public domain, and Japanese and Mandarin were adopted as the only official languages in each colonial period. As a consequence, the native languages today in Taiwan are vanishing. The Ministry of Education in Taiwan has recently made mother-tongue education to be a compulsory subject in elementary school, starting from 2001. On the other hand, due to globalization in 21st century, English education is crucial as well. This year, the KMT party has taken back the political power from the DPP party; therefore, the new Minister of Education is scrutinized by Taiwanese people on his language policy. This article will start reviewing the language policy in post-1949 Taiwan and discuss whether if there is a kind of language policy to reconcile and unify different ethnic groups in Taiwan nowadays.