I was teaching phonics the other day and the word “fig” came up. I asked if any of the kids knew what a fig was and all their hands shot up and they almost automatically told me the word in Chinese. When I asked them how they could know such an odd word they showed me a list of 100 fruits.
Swiss chard, calrabi, xigua (doesn’t even have a friggin English name!) jalepeno, etc. They told me that all the kids in their school have to memorize this list for some exam.
Now why the hell are they making a bunch of elementary kids memorize a list of obscure fruits and vegetables? They didn’t even know what most of the words were in Chinese. How does this help theml?!
I’ve been constantly asked the name of fruit that I’ve never seen before. It’s fairly standard bushiban practice in my experience for kids to memorise foods eaten by foreigners rather than local food largely due to the texts being written by foreigners who aren’t familiar with Chinese/Taiwanese food.
Before I came to Taiwan I’d never heard of a Shaddock, wax apple or soursop, knew of rambutans, jackfruits and durians but nothing about what they looked like or tasted. Now I know a number of seven and eight year olds who know these term (off by heart!)
yep. took me off-guard at first as well. over time i rationalized it away as an example of education via rote memorization. taiwanese kids are very good at memorizing. heck, if they have honed these skills more power to 'em.
the school year starts and all the kids are cutting up that big green citrusy thing. and asking you what it is called. finally another teacher tells you it is a “shaddock”. OK. it is a shaddock.
but then…in studying chinese in jr. high stateside i knew what chou doufu was and had never beheld any of it’s intrinisic delight.
[quote=“skeptic yank”]yep. took me off-guard at first as well. over time i rationalized it away as an example of education via rote memorization. Taiwanese kids are very good at memorizing. heck, if they have honed these skills more power to 'em.
the school year starts and all the kids are cutting up that big green citrusy thing. and asking you what it is called. finally another teacher tells you it is a “shaddock”. OK. it is a shaddock.
but then…in studying Chinese in jr. high stateside i knew what chou doufu was and had never beheld any of it’s intrinisic delight.[/quote]
Actually, are you talking about the pommelo that is popular during the Moon Festival (Mid-Autumnal Festival) which occured in September this year?
never heard of shaddock, have heard of pomelo (stress on first syll. is correct, i believe) … not to say it can’t be so …
also called it a chinese grapefruit before i knew pomelo …
good for them to know fruits that they see everyday, although if they try to use words like this with a lot of foreigners, they might be met with blank stares.
but what’s with the pronunciation guide there - no vowels in this word?
also wondering which source it is, as i like the etymological history of words …
Shaddock, pomelo and grapefruit. One of these three can be used to describe the other two…I read somewhere. And I wonder whether or not even the best dictionaries always know exactly what they’re talking about. Once I saw a picture of a “wax apple” with the appelation “bell fruit” underneath it.
Well aside from feeling inferior because young students are able to name more fruits than you can, and are better at rote memorization what’s wrong?
For better or worse, rote memorization is a part of language learning when you are not immersed in the language. I don’t need to put xigua on a flashcard because I see it, use it, and eat it on a regular basis. If these kids were in an English speaking country then they could eliminate the need for this type of rote memorization and move on to memorizing the multiplication table or all the elements or the names of the planets (which I haven’t used since grade school but still know - hey, does this mean rote memorization really works!!!).
No, if these kids were in an English speaking country they still wouldn’t need to learn ‘swiss chard, calrabi, xigua or jalepeno’ I managed to live in one for 21 years, graduated from an English university, and read more English than all the students in the whole school put together ever will, and I don’t know or care what these are. (except maybe ‘jalepeno’ because I like Mexican food.)
I can guarantee that if one of those students ever goes to an English county and asks for a xigua he or she will not get a melon of any kind. I would also be reasonably certain that they wouldn’t get a swiss chard or calrabi in an average supermarket.
Taiwan spends so much time trying to learn English, but compared to other countries (i.e. European ones, middle Eastern ones who I have had direct contact with) they might as well not bother.
What is the point or learning to spell ‘swiss chard’ if you don’t know how to/have the confidence to say
Despite the teaching of “conversation English” most of the English a majority of Taiwanese will ever encounter and/or use will be in the written form. Therefore, learning grammar and lots of new words may overshadow learning useful words.
Put that together with the varying levels of teaching competence at individual schools, some schools lacking “great” teachers or programs may end up using the time doing spelling/phonics lists, which are hard to muck up.
That may explain somewhat bizarre vocabulary. Odder things occur:
I once knew a Taiwanese guy who knew so many idioms and slang phrases that he could carry on a conversation without ever saying anything literally, all metaphor and analogy.