Kindergarten teaching illegal for good reason?

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
181

I wonder how you’d have reacted to TPR and TPRS if they hadn’t been endorsed by someone with a Ph.D. in linguistics. [color=#FF0000]EDIT: ATTENTION, PLEASE: THE SENTENCE WHICH FOLLOWS THIS NOTICE IS OF AN IRONIC NATURE: [/color] After all, it’s just a bunch of running around and playing, right? [color=#FF0000]END OF IRONY.[/color]

[quote]The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding; so that all those specious meditations, speculations, and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose. . . .

The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.[/quote]–Francis Bacon

182

Charlie: How I came to TPRS, as ironlady says she also did, is that I was doing what the other people were doing and it wasn’t working. I observed large numbers of people who had been taught by traditional methods and couldn’t speak English very well considering the time they’d put in. Anyway, the point is that TPRS has been developed, and is still being developed, by people who have both qualifications and experience in teaching. It hasn’t just emerged out of a black hole.

Also, I’m not sure what you mean by TPRS being a bunch of running around and playing. It’s not at all.

183

[quote=“heimuoshu”][quote=“PigBloodCake”][quote=“bigduke6”]
Edit: I would like to thank heimuoshu for messaging me to tell me I typed “there” instead of “their”.[/quote]

Its a common mistake :ponder:[/quote]
Which is exactly what I typed in the PM. I also said that there is no need to do what others have done and rip a spelling error or grammar error, that is easy to make when typing, apart and that most of us make that mistake at least once a week.
Bigduke told me to get a life. Thought I was being nice.
On another point, yes an expert in Lithuanian Tax would not automatically be an expert at Taiwanese Tax but he would know a hell of lot more about it and be much better at analyzing it than some guy that has lived here and paid tax for 20 years.[/quote]

He would have some insight in general terms, just as a person with an degree in education from their home country would have of the education system here. This I am not arguing as stated before.
Actually a person filing their own taxes here for 20 years would know more about the specifics than an expert from another country.
With no knowledge of the specific legislation (allowances, write offs, deductions, rates etc) such expert would be as useless as tits on a bull.

This is my point, without trying to put down anyone teaching here with a degree in the field. I actually respect that as the systems must be totally different.

At the end of the day, border security has hit the nail on the head. We are teaching in Taiwan for gods sake. It is not exactly the holy grail of the education world. Yes, I had aspirations of teaching at Oxford, but I chose Taiwan instead.

The system is totally fucked, but this is what makes it work.

Parents think they are giving their kids a top notch education, so they are happy.
The kids are happy getting away for the KGB torturers at their Chinese school.
The teachers are happy as they are earning decent cheese to basically doing jack shit.
The school owners are happy as they are making some money.

My God, try to raise the standards and the whole system will fall apart.

Sometimes the rust is all that is holding the old banger together.

184

That was that thing that we Americans don’t get, that irony thing.

You don’t like squeaky hammers; some people don’t like TPR:

Please note that the above is not my opinion about TPR; it’s those guys’ opinion. I think Asher started experimenting with this approach around 1964 or 1965 (who knows, maybe earlier than that), and that carries some weight with me.

I’m neutral about TPR right now–slightly skeptical (I’m skeptical about every approach that involves a classroom), but leaning toward interested.

I’ve posted about this before:

Years ago when I was rooting around in the library for stuff for a term paper for a linguistics class–just a sort of survey course–I read part of a first-person account about a psychologist who had suffered a stroke and had entirely lost his language faculty–not just his speech faculty, but the whole thing. He claimed he had even lost the ability to distinguish between things. He had a form of aphasia–I don’t think it was Wernicke’s or Broca’s; it must have been some other kind.

Anyway, he said he regained his ability to use language through music therapy. I thought that that sort of music therapy must have been pretty fancy stuff, and maybe it was, but I found some music-therapy materials in the library, and it just looked like a bunch of songs to me. That’s why I don’t disparage the use of songs and chants in language teaching.

The main thing I remember learning about Chomsky in that brief little class was that whatever the process might be that is involved in getting the ability to use a language, it isn’t what we used to think it was.

Oh, and to bring it back [color=#FF0000]on topic[/color]:

Anyway, I don’t view this thread as one primarily concerned with language education. I view this thread as primarily involving people (note: not everyone in the thread) discussing law–which almost always boils down to the use of force–with gleams in their eyes and/or stridence in their voices. It’s kind of a creepy thread, really.

Some of you guys are discussing a malum prohibitum situation as if it’s a malum in se situation. Some of you guys seem to misapprehend what laws are for.

185

[quote]There are things that are more and less effective in teaching. There are educational theories, and there is educational research to back certain things up. There’s this great meme in the English speaking world that people can walk into a classroom without having had exposure to any of the research, without any training, without any coaching, without any observation, without feedback, etc. and just be a fantastic teacher just because that person is inherently a fantastic teacher. As though anyone could just do any really complicated job well simply because they’re inherently fantastic. Some people can be good teachers without training, but they’d be better teachers if they went through a process. That does not imply that everyone who receives training will be a good teacher, just as training in any other profession does not imply greatness or competence either, though if the training is rigorous, it should weed out most of the bad people.
[/quote]
I agree that training would make natural born teachers even better. It might even make some bad teachers acceptable.

However, whenever somebody talks about ‘research’ I cringe. It was once said that there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics. Research and studies can be manipulated and are quite different than facts. I heard a guy who was debating evolution say that much of the debate on evolution vs creationism depends on how you interpret the evidence. Much of the same would be true in any debate people would have about the merrits of teaching a foreign language to kindergartners. I rely less on research and more on observation.
It has been said that the children in the video I posted will most likely lose their Mandarin ability when they grow up. First of all, the verdict is out on that. Those children haven’t grown up yet. They will have plenty of chances to prove you wrong. Also, has anybody heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If those children go home to cynical adults who tell them that their Mandarin ability will be useless outside of their school or China and they don’t encourage the children to practice it outside of school with their friends, you can expect failure. If you have parents who believe that there is worth in their knowing the language and encourage them in it, even if they do not know the language later themselves, you can expect them to keep their ability.
There are other benefits here beyond the multilanguage ability. What about the melting pot? What about the invaluable experience these Children are getting by spending much of their childhood learning about and studying a different culture? You can’t put a statistic on that.

Finally, let’s say for the sake of argument that a child from Australia goes to a Japanese speaking kindergarten. He learns to speak fluent Japanese at the age of three or four. He later losese that ability when he goes to a non-Japanese elementary school and goes home to parents who don’t speak a lick of Japanese. Therefore, he loses his Japanese language ability. I will bet you that same child as an adult will be back to fluency within months, if he ever goes to live in Japan and has to survive on his language ability day to day. Heck. Even watching non-translated anime that was totally in Japanese might do the trick :wink: .

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[quote=“Whole Lotta Lotta”][quote]
However, whenever somebody talks about ‘research’ I cringe. It was once said that there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics. Research and studies can be manipulated and are quite different than facts. I heard a guy who was debating evolution say that much of the debate on evolution vs creationism depends on how you interpret the evidence. Much of the same would be true in any debate people would have about the merrits of teaching a foreign language to kindergartners. I rely less on research and more on observation.[/quote][/quote]
Really. So all the research being done is rubbish? There are people who read and do research and understand it, those who read the abstracts and conclusions so they can quote it and look smart and those who clearly have no idea what they are talking about.
Maybe if we rely more on research and less on other things we would know more. Maybe of we read the thread we would know that originally this started about education in a non-native language at kindergarten and not about whether it is good to learn another language at a young age.
It is great to learn another language at a young age. It is just not great to learn how to interact with peers (which is a developmental milestone at that age) in a language neither fully comprehend. I guess observation might prove me wrong but research doesn’t. Now the problem is what to believe. Research or observation. Wait a second, it’s the same thing except that observation is usually not peer reviewed. That means there is no-one to check if you made any mistakes anywhere. In research we usually have those and damn it those peer reviewers can be a real pain in the butt.

187

Thanks for that. This has been an interesting thread but last few pages it seems to me has gotten off track a bit. I just temped a bunch of stuff not tightly on topic and intend to continue.

188

[quote] Maybe of we read the thread we would know that originally this started about education in a non-native language at kindergarten and not about whether it is good to learn another language at a young age.
[/quote]
Actually, this whole thing started when a guy asked about reporting the school he was working at illegally to the CLA.

189

[quote=“Whole Lotta Lotta”][quote] Maybe of we read the thread we would know that originally this started about education in a non-native language at kindergarten and not about whether it is good to learn another language at a young age.
[/quote]
Actually, this whole thing started when a guy asked about reporting the school he was working at illegally to the CLA.[/quote]

Frankly, I don’t see anything wrong with the OP reporting illegal activities such as foreigners teaching English in kindy/buxiban/whatever. He’s gonna get death threats and further isolation from the expat community but what he’s doing is like snitching on medical marijuana dispensary selling extra joints under the table.

190

[quote=“PigBloodCake”][quote=“Whole Lotta Lotta”][quote] Maybe of we read the thread we would know that originally this started about education in a non-native language at kindergarten and not about whether it is good to learn another language at a young age.
[/quote]
Actually, this whole thing started when a guy asked about reporting the school he was working at illegally to the CLA.[/quote]

Frankly, I don’t see anything wrong with the OP reporting illegal activities such as foreigners teaching English in kindy/buxiban/whatever. He’s gonna get death threats and further isolation from the expat community but what he’s doing is like snitching on medical marijuana dispensary selling extra joints under the table.[/quote]

This would depend on his reasons for doing it. Most of the time it is just about a vendetta against a person or the school. And most of the time it is the snitch who is the person of questionable character. The person who gets caught is a normal guy.

191

So you snitched and had a couple of people deported before does that mean we should all assume you are a person of questionable character?

192

I moved some posts on TPR/TPRS here: Ci & tprs

193

[quote]My God, try to raise the standards and the whole system will fall apart.

Sometimes the rust is all that is holding the old banger together.[/quote]
Actually, I disagree with this statement. There is the old saying ‘If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.’ But what if it is broken.

And now I may have to eat some crow. Today I asked a Chinese teacher at my school how an ex-pat’s child’s Chinese is. Her reply was that it wasn’t actually all that good. Then, I asked how his English is and she said that it is even worse.
There may be some cultural misunderstandings in my interaction with that Chinese teacher. I have spoken to the child in English on many occasions and his English ability seemed fine to me. Maybe she was only talking about his scores on test and his ability to write. But it would be normal for a seven year old to write English at only a seven year old level. And maybe his ability to write Chinese is better because he is practicing writing Chinese everyday.

Maybe, in trying to get children to read, write, andcommunicate verbally in foreign languages, we are asking too much of them. But I have never seen this kid make a mistake in English, so I wonder what the Chinese teacher is talking about. And my supervisor said his spoken English is fluent, so he doesn’t need to be in my English class.

All that said, I would still ask do any of the people defending the law as it stands if they know for sure that the people who made this law have advanced degrees in education? If they do, have they been in a classroom in the past twenty years, if at all?
As for people who repsonded to my post about research, much teaching theory and practice is made up of two things: one is the research. But the other part is the field practice. Most teaching materials are dreamed up in an office somewhere, but later on they are field tested. And the field testing is the most important part. It is much more important than the ‘research’ done in a lab somewhere at the institute for survey studies.

About all this other stuff about TPR vs TPRS, I think people would do well to read Howard Gardner and his work on different kinds of intelligences. People who are strong in bodily kinesthetic learning may do well with TPR. Personally I consider myself more of a spatial/visual learner. I might do well with a teacher who sets up clear logical steps that I can see on a whiteboard (I wish my Chinese teacher would do this). Maybe people who would do best with TPRS would do better are better at learning by listening.
The problem I have with research and studying is that it doesn’t take into account the individual.

194

So you snitched and had a couple of people deported before does that mean we should all assume you are a person of questionable character?[/quote]
First of all, that happened in Korea and not in Taiwan. Have you ever been there. The rules are a little different there.
The person who I snitched on beat up his girlfriend :fume: . He did this in the place where I was living no less. I didn’t go to the police with this because I was advised that this would be viewed as a problem between him and I :unamused: had I gone to them, and the girlfriend would be of no help, because she would blame herself for the abuse and his throwing her across the bedroom and smacking her head into the doorknob :fume: . This guy was a threat to the personal safety of many people. Myself included. He also vandalized about 1,000 dollars of my stuff. Many people wanted this guy gone. When I finally stepped up and did something it turned out the Korean FAP had actually wanted this guy out of the country and were looking for a reason to get rid of him. In the foreign community there I was viewed as a hero :discodance: .

195

BTW Tempo Gain. I think the recent exchange between SatTV and I should be moved to Reporting illegal schools/teachers to the authorities.

196

[quote=“Whole Lotta Lotta”][quote]My God, try to raise the standards and the whole system will fall apart.

Sometimes the rust is all that is holding the old banger together.[/quote]
Actually, I disagree with this statement. There is the old saying ‘If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.’ But what if it is broken.

And now I may have to eat some crow. Today I asked a Chinese teacher at my school how an ex-pat’s child’s Chinese is. Her reply was that it wasn’t actually all that good. Then, I asked how his English is and she said that it is even worse.
There may be some cultural misunderstandings in my interaction with that Chinese teacher. I have spoken to the child in English on many occasions and his English ability seemed fine to me. Maybe she was only talking about his scores on test and his ability to write. But it would be normal for a seven year old to write English at only a seven year old level. And maybe his ability to write Chinese is better because he is practicing writing Chinese everyday.

Maybe, in trying to get children to read, write, andcommunicate verbally in foreign languages, we are asking too much of them. But I have never seen this kid make a mistake in English, so I wonder what the Chinese teacher is talking about. And my supervisor said his spoken English is fluent, so he doesn’t need to be in my English class.

All that said, I would still ask do any of the people defending the law as it stands if they know for sure that the people who made this law have advanced degrees in education? If they do, have they been in a classroom in the past twenty years, if at all?
As for people who repsonded to my post about research, much teaching theory and practice is made up of two things: one is the research. But the other part is the field practice. Most teaching materials are dreamed up in an office somewhere, but later on they are field tested. And the field testing is the most important part. It is much more important than the ‘research’ done in a lab somewhere at the institute for survey studies.

About all this other stuff about TPR vs TPRS, I think people would do well to read Howard Gardner and his work on different kinds of intelligences. People who are strong in bodily kinesthetic learning may do well with TPR. Personally I consider myself more of a spatial/visual learner. I might do well with a teacher who sets up clear logical steps that I can see on a whiteboard (I wish my Chinese teacher would do this). Maybe people who would do best with TPRS would do better are better at learning by listening.
The problem I have with research and studying is that it doesn’t take into account the individual.[/quote]
How long is this crap going to continue for. I have read and read Gardner over and over. Have you read any of the criticism of his theory. You should because maybe then you’ll understand it better.
Language research isn’t done in a lab. It observes people in real life (the individuals you talk about) and then analyses what happens based on certain variables. You would do much better of you actaully understood what you were talking about. Give us a break here. You clearly are clueless and then you question the qualificatins of people working for the Taiwanese ministry of education. Yes you are right. They are idiots cause they haven’t read Gardner and they’re not white. No complain all you want about how I say things. I don’t care. Get a book and read. Try a research journal first so the next time you complain about research, your opinion wasn’t thought up in starbucks or dante’s with a bunch of other illegal kindy teachers. It is insulting to us who spend hours on research when some guy comes along with an opinion and when we tell them they have no idea what they are talking about everyone gets all excited and tells us to clam down. If you want to crit research, understand it first.

197

[quote=“heimuoshu”][quote=“Whole Lotta Lotta”][quote]My God, try to raise the standards and the whole system will fall apart.

Sometimes the rust is all that is holding the old banger together.[/quote]
Actually, I disagree with this statement. There is the old saying ‘If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.’ But what if it is broken.

And now I may have to eat some crow. Today I asked a Chinese teacher at my school how an ex-pat’s child’s Chinese is. Her reply was that it wasn’t actually all that good. Then, I asked how his English is and she said that it is even worse.
There may be some cultural misunderstandings in my interaction with that Chinese teacher. I have spoken to the child in English on many occasions and his English ability seemed fine to me. Maybe she was only talking about his scores on test and his ability to write. But it would be normal for a seven year old to write English at only a seven year old level. And maybe his ability to write Chinese is better because he is practicing writing Chinese everyday.

Maybe, in trying to get children to read, write, andcommunicate verbally in foreign languages, we are asking too much of them. But I have never seen this kid make a mistake in English, so I wonder what the Chinese teacher is talking about. And my supervisor said his spoken English is fluent, so he doesn’t need to be in my English class.

All that said, I would still ask do any of the people defending the law as it stands if they know for sure that the people who made this law have advanced degrees in education? If they do, have they been in a classroom in the past twenty years, if at all?
As for people who repsonded to my post about research, much teaching theory and practice is made up of two things: one is the research. But the other part is the field practice. Most teaching materials are dreamed up in an office somewhere, but later on they are field tested. And the field testing is the most important part. It is much more important than the ‘research’ done in a lab somewhere at the institute for survey studies.

About all this other stuff about TPR vs TPRS, I think people would do well to read Howard Gardner and his work on different kinds of intelligences. People who are strong in bodily kinesthetic learning may do well with TPR. Personally I consider myself more of a spatial/visual learner. I might do well with a teacher who sets up clear logical steps that I can see on a whiteboard (I wish my Chinese teacher would do this). Maybe people who would do best with TPRS would do better are better at learning by listening.
The problem I have with research and studying is that it doesn’t take into account the individual.[/quote]
How long is this crap going to continue for. I have read and read Gardner over and over. Have you read any of the criticism of his theory. You should because maybe then you’ll understand it better.
Language research isn’t done in a lab. It observes people in real life (the individuals you talk about) and then analyses what happens based on certain variables. You would do much better of you actaully understood what you were talking about. Give us a break here. You clearly are clueless and then you question the qualificatins of people working for the Taiwanese ministry of education. Yes you are right. They are idiots cause they haven’t read Gardner and they’re not white. No complain all you want about how I say things. I don’t care. Get a book and read. Try a research journal first so the next time you complain about research, your opinion wasn’t thought up in starbucks or dante’s with a bunch of other illegal kindy teachers. It is insulting to us who spend hours on research when some guy comes along with an opinion and when we tell them they have no idea what they are talking about everyone gets all excited and tells us to clam down. If you want to crit research, understand it first.[/quote]
You complain that people have insulted you (particularly Big Duke) and then you use the language that you have above. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. First of all, I am not truly questioning the qualifications of people working in the Taiwanese Ministry of Education. I was asking if they have advanced degrees in education. This is something I do not know. Do they have degrees in education? How much time have they spent in the classroom? I don’t know. Can you give me the answer? I have read some research journals and they don’t all reach the same conclusions that you do. Also, one of the first things I was taught about reading research was to always read it critically. I never said they are idiots because they haven’t read Gardner. I said he is a good person to read for a different opinion of intelligence. I was saying that it sounds like TPR and TPRS both have their advantages.
You don’t know me and know nothing of my qualifications. For the record, I do not work in a kindergarten because I don’t have time (I work many different jobs. All legal. All in the afternoon). My how you race to conclusions. I spend my mornings working on a Master’s Degree at the moment at a reasonable uni here in Taiwan. No CELTA yet, but that is coming this summer. I have done some prepreratory research for it, just to be ready when I really get to work on it. Were you also implying that I am a racist, because the people I was criticizing are non-white? WOW :noway: ! You really have no idea how to control yourself. It has nothing to do with what race they are. Otherwise, why am I over here. I really think you read too much into-and mis-understand what I am saying.
You also seem to think that just because you have an advanced degree means that anyone who disagrees with you is absolutely wrong. Your DELTA seems to have made you hair-trigger sensitive. There are alternative ways of seeing things you know.
And you also seem to have missed the top part of my post were I was actually questioning some of what I said earlier about children acquiring a language at an early age (actually I am shocked you missed it). I hope that when I finish my Master’s Degree and CELTA that I will never use that as an excuse to think that I know everything.
BTW, did you see that part at the top were I did disagree with something Big Duke said? Nope. You missed that part. You miss all of the areas were people might possibly agree with you because you are so sensitive.

I really think you should reconsider Xanax. That other drug you mentioned doesn’t seem to be working.

198

I also think the public should have the right to know the qualifications of the people working in the ministry of education, or any other government office for that matter. Asking them what their qualifications are is not challenging their authority (Though sometimes their authority may need challenging).

199

Hey. Wait a second. Howard Gardner is a professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard University. He probably works hard everyday testing and researching his theories. He probably has many advanced degrees involving cognition. If people who have lower degrees of education have no right to question people of higher degrees of education, shouldn’t very few people have a right to question him? Boy, I’ll bet you he gets really hot under the collar when people do.

200

So you snitched and had a couple of people deported before does that mean we should all assume you are a person of questionable character?[/quote]
First of all, that happened in Korea and not in Taiwan. Have you ever been there. The rules are a little different there.
The person who I snitched on beat up his girlfriend :fume: . He did this in the place where I was living no less. I didn’t go to the police with this because I was advised that this would be viewed as a problem between him and I :unamused: had I gone to them, and the girlfriend would be of no help, because she would blame herself for the abuse and his throwing her across the bedroom and smacking her head into the doorknob :fume: . This guy was a threat to the personal safety of many people. Myself included. He also vandalized about 1,000 dollars of my stuff. Many people wanted this guy gone. When I finally stepped up and did something it turned out the Korean FAP had actually wanted this guy out of the country and were looking for a reason to get rid of him. In the foreign community there I was viewed as a hero :discodance: .[/quote]

No need to be upset. You did it because you viewed the guy as a menace and a threat. But the woman though no fault of her own also got deported yes?

If the Korean FAP had wanted him out they could have done so at anytime without any real reason. Yes I have been in Korea. I am sure you are a hero, we all are when we do the right thing.

What I am pointing out is that people will rat out for their own personal reasons. You posted your reasons. Some will do it because they have a dispute with the schools and want to do something that hurts the school but in the process affects other people. Or some school owner will rat out another, or somebody rats someone out just because they don’t like them. I got ratted out by a Canadian teacher in Chiayi who thought I was working without an ARC ( well I was ) because I was new and he used to report newbies to the FAP because the the new school he worked at was trying to screw up other schools with new teachers assuming they were working because they couldnt have had time to get an ARC.

The other point is that people are willing to work illegally and knowingly do so because their boss has “guanxi” so they are taking a risk, or becuase they think it their right to teach in violation of the law because the law something they disagree with. But in todays world a phone can take a pic people have hidden cams in their clothing or in a briefcase or even openly wear a helmet cam. Even some expat run bars have been ratted out by people claiming they hire illegal pinoy workers who in fact are ROC citizens.