MOE to amend Buxiban Act: No students under six years old

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

The China Times has a front page story about how the Ministry of Education has drafted a bill to amend the Buxiban Act. The proposed legislation will prohibit Buxibans from enrolling students before the age of seven. Buxiban owners are understandably upset, claiming that 1/4 of Buxibans will go out of business and that parents should have the right to choose how they want to educate their children.

Sorry i don’t have time to translate the article now, but here is the link. While it might not pass (similar legislation died a few years back), it could have a big effect on the climate for English teaching in Taiwan. I’d be watching this closely if I taught kids.

There seem to be entrenched forces in the Ministry of Education and the academic world (in taiwan) that are convinced that children must not be exposed to foreign languages at an early age lest it hinder their native language skills. Needless to say, all this research in Made in Taiwan. This is a common problem with the research that informs policy-making in Taiwan, but that’s another story.

Here’s the link.

2

[quote=“Feiren”]. I’d be watching this closely if I taught kids.

[/quote]

Probably bears watching for those that teach adults as well - there may be a lot more more job seekers in that sphere if it goes through.

3

Correction: No students under six. Moderators–can you change the thread title?

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[quote=“cfimages”][quote=“Feiren”]. I’d be watching this closely if I taught kids.

[/quote]

Probably bears watching for those that teach adults as well - there may be a lot more more job seekers in that sphere if it goes through.[/quote]

Why should it affect those who teach adults at all?

5

Pretty dumb move at a time of record unemployment as this is going to affect Taiwanese far more than foreigners.

6

I was talking to a grad school applicant the other day who is also convinced of this phenomenon. She was unable to explain her reasoning adequately. I mentioned that people in many parts of the world (including Taiwan) grow up bilingual, citing Singapore as a good example of a place where people grow up learning more than one language and becoming fluent in both (or all) without losing any sense of cultural identity, and indeed that the earlier a child learns languages the better.

One of her arguments is that children will confuse the two languages, but it’s well known that children quickly overcome such problems as they grow older. Another is that children will lose their cultural identity, but how can this be so when all their time except a couple hours a day at school is spent immersed in Taiwanese culture and language? They’re speaking Chinese at home with their parents and other family, watching Chinese TV and movies, playing with friends who speak Chinese, being taught classes by teachers who speak Chinese, going on outings to shops and parks where people speak Chinese, etc.

Then she also said, Chinese is very different from English… it’s so much harder than English, and has so much ancient literature attached to it, citing Analects of Confucius and Dream of the Red Chamber. But Analects is essentially written in a different language - Old Chinese is an ancestor language to Modern Chinese, just as Old English is to Modern English - and Dream of the Red Chamber is 400-year-old Modern Chinese, equivalent to Shakespeare in terms of its difference from modern language, and in the US we don’t start studying Shakespeare until junior high.

This is a bizarre and frustrating Taiwan-only meme that overlooks all the accumulated evidence the world over that young children are absolute masters at learning languages.

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[quote=“El Toro”][quote=“cfimages”][quote=“Feiren”]. I’d be watching this closely if I taught kids.

[/quote]

Probably bears watching for those that teach adults as well - there may be a lot more more job seekers in that sphere if it goes through.[/quote]

Why should it affect those who teach adults at all?[/quote]

May send teachers away from kids and increase competition (decrease wages possibly) for adult jobs. Just a thought.

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Yeah, the links says 6. But considering the Chinese way of reckoning, wouldn’t this make the age limit 5?

Also, it says “6歲以下” which in my limited experience translating legal texts would mean “under six years old”, and not “six years old or under”. This is also corroborated by “未足六歲”.

So wouldn’t that make the age limit 4?

9

Possible but it’s a different skills set and demands. More likely it will drive people to leave.

10

OK, here’s a fast translation of the article. I’m pretty sure a kid has to be at least six. The object seems to be to keep pre-school children out of English classes.

The Ministry of Education has decided to change the name of the Supplementary and Continuing Education Law to the Supplementary Education Act. The Ministry will also add an article providing that “Supplementary Schools [buxibans] shall not enroll children who have not reached the age of six.” After the bill has been approved by the Executive Yuan and sent to the Legislature, more than 4,000 buxibans are expected to see their business affected.

Officials from the Ministry said that the prohibition on enrolling children under the age of six is intended to protect the emotional and physical development of pre-school childern. However courses that help children develop physical coordination or the arts are exempt. In other words, buxibans will not be able to enroll children under six in English, abacus, or speed reading classes in the future, but they will be able to enroll them in music or dance classes.

An earlier version of this bill was proposed by the Ministry in 2007 causing a strong reaction by the buxiban industry. The Legislature nonethless passed the bill on its first reading [there are three, the second is crucial]. After a new Legislature was returned last year, the draft bill was sent back to the government. Now with the election of Ma Ying-jeou, the Ministry is proposing the bill again.

According to Ministry statistics, there are currently 18,699 buxibans. Of these, many are English, speed-reading, or abacus buxibans that enroll children under the age of six.

If the bill is passed, 1/4 of Taiwan’s buxiban’s are expected to be affected.

The current law does not regulate the age at which buxiban’s can accept students. This has led to the great popularity of buxiban’s for English language. A buxiban that enrolls a pre-school child can take in up to NT$300,000 per year. That’s more expensive than an elite kindergarten.

Dr. Lin Pei-jung of the Taipei Municipal Education University’s Department of Early Childhood Education said that kindergartens and daycare centers are required to be located on the first or lower floors of a building to prevent the students from having accidents. The teachers are also required to have earned credits in early childhood education. The current laws have no such requirements for Buxibans.

Many parents rush their kids off to English-language Buxibans hoping that their kids won’t “lose at the starting line.” Dr. Lin said that “It’s not necessarily good for kids after they grow up if they study English before they go to school.” Many children who study English before the age of six easily become self-satisfied. Later on this cause them to read or write poorly. A National Taiwan University Professor has also done research showing that students at National Taiwan University with good English in general did not begin studying English as pre-schoolers.

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Given the Dr. Lin is a professor at a prominent college of education, my suspicion is that what is really at work here is a drive to make sure that the many students enrolled in early-childhood education will be able to find work after graduation or certification. If kindergarten and daycare centers don’t have to compete with buxibans and their unlicensed teachers, then there should be a net gain of jobs for Dr. Lin’s licensed students. Never mind the overall effect on unemployment.

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I don’t care what the China Times says or how it’s interpreted by Chris’ grad student contact, this age of language learner stuff is not what this is about. In fact, buxibans are supplementary schools. They are legally defined as providing supplementary education for citizens. english.moe.gov.tw/content.asp?CuItem=8207&mp=1

Historically, the KMT in China established preschool education for children too young to attend public schools. The aim of the schools has always been defined as socialization and not education. Following the lifting of Martial Law, control over education lapsed and Taiwanese began to look to supplementary education to fill holes in the public system. as we all know, that was the end of childhood for most kids here. The MOE under the DPP began enforcing the law.

The MOE has been working toward reducing the amount of studying done by Taiwanese students. As much as the headline of this post is true, it is certainly aimed at getting young children out of schools where they are being forced to study.

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[quote=“Chris”]Also, it says “6歲以下” which in my limited experience translating legal texts would mean “under six years old”, and not “six years old or under”. This is also corroborated by “未足六歲”.

So wouldn’t that make the age limit 4?[/quote]

I would say that it means below six years old - so a child can start attending English classes on his or her 6th birthday.

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[quote=“Omniloquacious”]

I would say that it means below six years old - so a child can start attending English classes on his or her 6th birthday.[/quote]
That’s my reading too.

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[quote=“ScottSommers”]I don’t care what the China Times says or how it’s interpreted by Chris’ grad student contact, this age of language learner stuff is not what this is about. In fact, buxibans are supplementary schools. They are legally defined as providing supplementary education for citizens. english.moe.gov.tw/content.asp?CuItem=8207&mp=1

Historically, the KMT in China established preschool education for children too young top attend public schools. The aim of the schools has always been defined as socialization and not education. The MOE under the DPP began enforcing this.

The MOE has been working toward reducing the amount of studying done by Taiwanese students. As much as the headline of this post is true, it is certainly aimed at getting young children out of schools where they are being forced to study.[/quote]

I agree with this. I think the argument about the age of the language learner is just an expedient one that experts like Dr. Lin trot out in support of their ultimate goals of getting small children out of schools where they are forced to study. I think the jobs issue I noted before is also important.

The China Times does play a very important role in affecting educated opinion (as opposed to expert opinion) in Taiwan, so this myth of language learning being harmful to young children is likely to be reinforced again. My impression is that this reporter has been on this crusade for years.

Here is Dr. Lin’s list of publications. While she is prolific, she has published almost nothing outside Taiwan, and what she has published overseas has not advnaced the thesis that early childhoodl exposure to other languages is somehow harmful.

I suspect that best way to handle Dr. Lin would be to persuade her that children can be sociaized just as well in English as they can in Chinese. That may be hard for her to accept though given Taiwan’s still-rigid ideas about the relastionship between language and culture.

16

I was talking to a grad school applicant the other day who is also convinced of this phenomenon. She was unable to explain her reasoning adequately. I mentioned that people in many parts of the world (including Taiwan) grow up bilingual, citing Singapore as a good example of a place where people grow up learning more than one language and becoming fluent in both (or all) without losing any sense of cultural identity, and indeed that the earlier a child learns languages the better.

One of her arguments is that children will confuse the two languages, but it’s well known that children quickly overcome such problems as they grow older. Another is that children will lose their cultural identity, but how can this be so when all their time except a couple hours a day at school is spent immersed in Taiwanese culture and language? They’re speaking Chinese at home with their parents and other family, watching Chinese TV and movies, playing with friends who speak Chinese, being taught classes by teachers who speak Chinese, going on outings to shops and parks where people speak Chinese, etc.

Then she also said, Chinese is very different from English… it’s so much harder than English, and has so much ancient literature attached to it, citing Analects of Confucius and Dream of the Red Chamber. But Analects is essentially written in a different language - Old Chinese is an ancestor language to Modern Chinese, just as Old English is to Modern English - and Dream of the Red Chamber is 400-year-old Modern Chinese, equivalent to Shakespeare in terms of its difference from modern language, and in the US we don’t start studying Shakespeare until junior high.

This is a bizarre and frustrating Taiwan-only meme that overlooks all the accumulated evidence the world over that young children are absolute masters at learning languages.[/quote]

These are the same people that absolutely reject -foam at the mouth- when you even theorize about language universals. Heaven forbid, Chinese is special -spacial?

These ingrained “beliefs” are the reason why they have no real bilingual schools, nor even proper English teaching. It is also why children who go to so-called English speaking schools are also isolated linguistically: their parents won’t allow them to speak Chinese nor practice it, but as the kids do not have enough enviromental input, their knowledge is “false” and their language ability faulty in BOTH languages.

I’ve always wondered what kind of books they read for linguistics and teaching here. When they go abroad to TESOL conventions, does anything filters through? Unfortunately, we know Krashen is their idol here.

And about the effects of foreign language and abilities, I love to quote a study of teaching subjects in a different language and how they found out it doubled the capacity of the child’s brain, like doing a partition on a hard disk.

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Given the Dr. Lin is a professor at a prominent college of education, my suspicion is that what is really at work here is a drive to make sure that the many students enrolled in early-childhood education will be able to find work after graduation or certification. If kindergarten and daycare centers don’t have to compete with buxibans and their unlicensed teachers, then there should be a net gain of jobs for Dr. Lin’s licensed students. Never mind the overall effect on unemployment.[/quote]

Sincerely, my awful experiences with “famous” professors and “renown” colleges here has left me with a bad taste for this kind of knowledge.

Furthermore, my observations here are that schoos dela with socialization and parenting, whiel buxiban teaches content. The kids who can pay buxiban can go into higher education, the ones who can’t don’t pass the tests and hence are doomed to manual labor, dropping out of school or worse.

It seems to me that a policy like this just widens the economic divide.

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Quick and dirty translation of article, using Google Translate and then correcting by comparing to original text:

=======

MOE Amendment: Buxibans not to enroll children under 6

The Ministry of Education decided rename the “Supplementary and Continuing Education Act” to “Supplementary Education Act,” and amend it with the provision that “Buxibans shall not enroll children less than six years of age.” If this amendment is passed by the Legislative Yuan after being submitted to the Executive Yuan, an estimated 4000 children’s English buxibans in the country could face problems.

A Ministry of Education official says that the purpose of amending the law to expressly prohibit cram schools from enrolling children under the age of six is to protect preschool children’s physical and mental development, but it does not restrict [schools that] foster children’s physical and artistic activities. In other words, buxibans that teach children English, abacus and mental arithmetic, speed reading etc. will not be allowed to enroll children under the age of six, but music and dance buxibans would not be affected.

The Ministry of Education proposed this amendment in 2007 at a time when the buxiban education industry was in the midst of a big rebound; the Legislative Yuan was still reading the bill. Early last year, after the Legislative Yuan’s elections, the bill was rejected. After the second rotation of political parties, the Ministry of Education resubmitted the case, which will be reported upon by the Ministry of Finance.

According to the Ministry of Education, short-term cram schools across the country number 18,699; among them, English, speed-reading and abacus/mental arithmetic buxibans admit children under the age of six.

If the amended legislation is passed, an estimated one-quarter of the country’s buxibans may be affected.

Existing laws do not regulate the age limit for enrollment in buxibans, resulting in a great popularity of children’s American English buxibans. Language schools enrolling a pre-school child may charge up to NT$300,000 a year, more expensive than upper-class kindergartens.

But at present children under six may attend kindergartens and day care centers. Lin Pei-Jung, director of the ROC Association of Early Childhood Education Reform and associate professor of Early Childhood Education at the Taipei Municipal University of Education, says that kindergartens and day care centers must by regulation be located on the first floor or lower floor [of a building], to prevent student accidents, and that teachers must be accredited in early childhood education. Existing law has no such requirements for buxibans.

Many parents rush their children to American English buxibans in hopes that they will “not be left behind at the starting blocks.” Lin Pei-Jung says, “Studying English at pre-school age does not necessarily mean their English will be good when they grow up.” Many children studying English before the age of six will easily become complacent, resulting in poor reading and writing. Also, research by National Taiwan University faculty has shown that NTU students who are good at English generally did not begin to learn English in pre-school.

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Is that “Taiwan six,” as in what we would call five, or six years from the date of birth? Most kids who are six by local counting principles are still in kindergarten and don’t attend buxibans. (I think…)

For those of us in the industry, it might be tough, but for Taiwanese kids’ sake, I’m all for it. An extra year of childhood for the little dudes: how can that NOT be a good thing. (Assuming the parents don’t decide to “home school” them instead… :ohreally: )

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I’ve made a few more corrections and revisions to the above translation. Consider it still quick and dirty, though.

Note that “abacus and mental arithmetic” (珠心算) schools are a particularly Taiwanese phenomenon.