Taiwanese aren’t willing to admit that Filipinos are better at something than they are.
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Han Guo Yu said it out loud basically.
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Yes. Refreshing, if unintentional, candor.
What I’m talking about is the proposed future where some classes in public schools are taught in English. I think it’s pretty clear the context of the first paragraph of the post you quoted what I meant by the second. If it’s not, nevermind. I know what I’m talking about.
I imagine the first students placed in all English classes will be the top English speakers to demonstrate the program works. It will probably be a few years before students start going to anxinbans to do math-in-English homework. The author sort of makes one interesting point about using western methods. It would make sense if the courses are based on western curriculum. If they are locally produced, they may be designed for the same rote learning regurgitated on homework and tests. Either way, the anxinbans and going to have to do a lot of adapting. I wonder if they will adapt fast enough or if new schools will form to re-teach kids the all-English material. It can get expensive for the parents.
Of course, the whole plan could be jettisoned or made into an AP type program if the KMT gets in power again or if it proves to be too unpopular. The author of the article doesn’t give any evidence that it is a brave but unpopular position, but it may prove to be if it’s not implemented well.
From personal experience, US Math is way too easy. Textbooks were a joke. When we switched from English language, US curriculum, loan per year textbooks, to Cuban Math textbooks… oh boy. So kids studying here on US or any Western Math textbooks will fall behind. There will be an outcry. Either that or they will have to switch to like college level Western Math books.
Yet kids will keep on tyieng their shoes in the middle of the road and following the su su that invites them to have afternoon tea.
They could start with Sciences here, but I foresee a problem. When textbooks talk about genetics beyond bloodtypes equals character, that is going to be interesting. Or language universals. heck, any linguistics.
KMT will not like at all if any history book presents China in a less than flattering light, ie, not the cenetr of the universe. How dare those Westeners say they had culture before us!?
I find it gullible and prejudgemental for the writer of the article to say that foreign teachers are working illegally in the public school system. Here I am teaching in the bilingual program in a public school here in Taiwan as a foreigner and I am here legally on an ARC.
One point was made in the article talking about the educational reforms on moving away from exams and rote learning to practical student-centered learning. That I would agree with because from what I see in my school compared to South Korea, there is more learning by doing in the grade 3 EFL classes I am co-teaching. I cannot make the same approach to teaching English here as I did when I was in South Korea a few years ago.
I was talking with an advisor from the MOE, and she told me that the goal of making Taiwan a bilingual country by 2030 is not possible. So somehow I feel it may turn out to be a farce.
What if the KMT is elected to run the government before 2030? Will they scrap the bilingual programs? I don’t mean to be negative, but if this does not work out well, then I cannot expect to stay here too long.
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He is not alone. The US Health and Human Services statement has “If you use traditional Chinese, you can get language assistance…” on their language assistance page, and this wording has propagated to disclaimers on dozens of healthcare organizations in the States.
Edit: sorry, just realized the comment I responded to is over a year old and not really on topic.
So… how about that no English in kindergarten thing? Seems like a big disconnect with the bilingual goal, to basically outlaw learning a new language at the time in life when you can really acquire it best. When I was in Taiwan, some of the most natural English I heard from Taiwanese people–adults included–was from kids who had spent 3 years in a kindergarten conducted in English in the morning and Chinese in the afternoon.
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Allow me to once again state why Taiwan is a failure in the English bilingual thing: NO ONE is willing to change ANYTHING about how language is taught in this country. Some schools with FETs do engaging teaching for the non-standard English classes. But English continues to be a thing that you cram in your brain and take tests that don’t test anything practical, not something that is used to communication purposes.
On Friday, all the English teachers and the administrators in my school got pulled into a meeting with the principal. The point of the meeting was to show us a curriculum that an FET from about ten years ago created for the school. Apparently this curriculum gained many awards. There are awards for curriculum planning??? When you make a competition out of something that should be collaboration, it’s no longer working towards a goal of bringing everyone up, and instead makes winners and losers out of teachers and the schools they work for. 
freaking 
.
The problem that I had with that meeting? For one thing, the principal accused me of teaching “the same thing every year”. She claimed that “family members” “often” called to complain that I teach in 8th grade the same thing I taught them in 7th grade. Ummm… no I don’t? But if I was, it’s called “review”. It’s how language learning works. You review things. But she made the face that a four year old might make when asked to eat to broccoli when I called her out on it.
Then we got to the “requirement” “in my contract” that I “must teach a summer camp before I can go home for the summer”. (the contract says that the school can “ask” the FET to lead summer camp. Kinda different). This was followed up with “the FET before you lead 8 hour a day, three-day all-English camps. There was no Chinese spoken the entire time!” Jokes on her – I’m friends with the FETs who taught at this school going back to 2010. I started a group chat where I sarcastically praised them for their brilliance in being able to run three straight days of “all English” camps, to which they all replied with something to the extent of “can I please have some of what you’re smoking?” and “the students can’t even say their names in English, how on earth can you think we ran camps entirely in English?” Yeah, as if I didn’t know that. Thankfully, they know the principal is full of and told me not to beat myself up about it all. I’m not beating myself up about it, I’m wanting to beat up the principal about it!!
And then we had my moment of “I’m outta here”. I’m not actually, but I really need a new job – The principal complained that I teach content that is “too easy”. “the students have 5 years of English before coming to our school, you know. Stop wasting their time on this ‘what’s your name’ and ‘where are you from’ nonsense.” Sure, but they don’t know what “what’s your name?” means or how to answer the question, so if I don’t “waste” time on it, they never learn the most basic English phrase, even though I could ask and answer that question in about 8 different languages by the time I was 12, despite growing up in the very monolingual white 'burbs of 'murica and not exposed to anything but herp-derp Spanish “class”.
the TLDR version is: Taiwan needs to hire people who are qualified to speak on the topic to come in and smack every school administrator, principal, and teacher over the head with “you’re wrong and so are your approaches”. This will never happen, so Taiwan won’t be bilingual, no matter how many white people…I mean native English speakers who might not be white people…they hire to work in the public schools.
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Where is the dangling participle?
(Sorry, just noted the dates on this article-something I’ve criticised others for before. Still, question stands.)
Many educators try to blame the teacher when in many cases the issue is either the material is useless and not practical so the kids zone out or taught in a horribly boring, rote way. Any attempt to make it fun or practical isn’t appreciated by the establishment. Plus many kids don’t give a shit about English but their parents force them and when they don’t learn anything they blame everyone but their 小王子. It’s gotta be the teachers fault.
Knife fighting
Boxing
Music
Singing
Tourism
English
Being humble
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@nz That’s sad to hear you are having difficulties at your school. Everything you post tells me you are a passionate and professional teacher. They should be rolling out the red carpet for you instead of sticking their noses in your business. It’s such a laugh that parents can question the methods of an experienced teacher.
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Shhh. You’re going to give the Taiwanese a complex. 
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If that’s what is happening. The principal could be bullshitting.
True.
Problem number uno: No parent of any child in my school cares even a tiny bit what happens in our school. They want their kids to arrive at school at 6:30 am and not come until 10 pm., where they will send their kids to bed (with the assumption that somehow they ate dinner). So the principal is just making shit up to make me feel bad. Good thing I have thick skin and am not an idiot. Her problem will be when I finally decide to go get a job at an international school and ask her if FETs are still over paid when I tell her my new salary. This would require me to leave my co-teachers, who I generally like, and friends outside the school, as there are no international schools within a two hour radius of me, but it would be incredibly satisfying, and I will suggest she go find some Christian missionaries to replace me. (The first two foreign teachers at my school were here on some radical Christian exchange program and apparently were total pushovers – their words, not mine.)
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Interestingly, when I saw “小王子”, I was thinking of “The Little Prince” (movie, though the book is mildly relevant) that came out a few years back. The kids in Taiwanese schools need more experiences like the girl in the movie, exploring and building stuff that may or may not work, and using their imaginations. Call me crazy.
Edit: *defying her mother’s wishes and doing things that are interesting to her instead of pursuing her mother’s dreams.
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I’ve tried to get adult students to come up and make their own sentences after giving examples and I often get stares that say ‘you’re the teacher, you tell me’ and ‘my brain is off today, don’t bother me.’
Younger kids are more imaginative but the school system has crushed most of that out of them.
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I personally think trying and falling short is much better than just saying it won’t work. It might take longer than ten years, but it’s possible