My other half is thinking about doing some evening classes to brush up her English and one of the places mentioned was the British Trade and Cultural Office. Does anyone have experience of the standard there - any spouses gone there for classes?
Thanks in advance for any help!
You mean the British Council?
Aye, that’s the one. It’s on the BTCO website though (hence my confusion). 
Didn’t they get forced to stop teaching class for a while by the local buxiban organisations?
Did they get licensed or what?
Kenneth
Yeah, I don’t think they teach English classes at all. They just administer exams.
Hmm, on the British Council website it seems like it’s still running. NT$17,500 for 50 hours tuition - there are definitely classes listed on there, not just tests.
Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle…I had no idea.
I would be inclined to say that the tuition at the British Council would probably be of a very high standard.
[quote]We believe that a teacher has a key role to play in learning English. At the British Council all our teachers meet the following minimum requirements:
are native speakers of English
hold an internationally recognised practical teaching qualification specifically in English as a foreign or second language as well as a first degree
have a minimum of 5 years relevant teaching experience
are committed to a student centred learning approach[/quote]
Bad Humor WARNING! Read it and destroy
That’s wot it sez on the Brit counsil websight.
I fink I canna do it noo. I woz burn in Scotland, I done my TEFL cert. I teached more than five years. and I kinda like student centres, lots of beer there… Woz I committed? Too many times!
Kenneth
I met the guy in charge at the BC a couple of years ago when he was getting their buxiban thing together, and he was complaining about the quality of applicants for the jobs he had advertised. They ended up hiring mostly from overseas, I believe.
As far as I know, they focus on IELTS preparation classes as they have an unfair advantage over other schools in that they also administer the exams. (Saying that, I believe that they don’t specifically hire examiners as teachers.) NT$350/hr sounds about right for that. I’m sure the quality is just fine.
Realistically, what’s the point in an adult with a British SO taking language classes? If she’s hopeless at the basics then is she honestly going to improve this time? They learn this stuff for years in high school, why should it suddenly get easier just 'cos she’s at the BC?
If she’s already a competent language user then a bit of home study might polish up the rough edges, but what she needs to do is to use English in real life. She’s got you to to talk and do stuff with, why take a class? You guys do talk, right? Does she want to spend hours in a classroom with a bunch of language-learners, or does she want to spend hours talking to you?
I’m not talking about giving her ‘free’ classes, I’m talking about her living in an English-speaking environment. ie hanging out with you.
My impression of the British Council in general is that they go along with the mainstream of TEFL: that is, the mainstream as practised in continental Europe and many other places.
I think this approach is particularly suited to students who already have a few years of English instruction under their belt (not so suited to beginners as too much PPP and not enough CI, but I digress).
Classes could well provide a sense of focus and clarity which would complement the less formal acquisition through conversation. Research shows that, in terms of eventual attainment (both accuracy and fluency), instruction plus informal “immersion” is more effective than either one or the other.
Loretta - the problem is she is at a level where everyday conversation in English is no problem, so the gains to be had from talking to me in English all the time are only slight (as new vocabulary comes up fairly seldom). I was looking for classes to help her push her English further than I think I can. I don’t feel I’m a good English teacher and she wants someone who is.
Joesax - thanks for your insights. That’s kind of what I was thinking with the instruction + immersion approach. Something structured which can be reinforced in conversation with me later.
Most general English classes aren’t going to push her. She would probably benefit from IELTS prep classes, if they actually teach language rather than test-taking skills. Or give her something to study in English. That’s how we all progressed from conversation to ‘higher’ English. All that advanced vocab is no good without a context.
Actually, with advanced Taiwanese students, I find that the biggest problem is one of having no use for what they’re learning. You can get by with a vocabulary of 1000 words, and the only reason to learn more is to do more complex tasks or discuss more complicated issues. For most students here there is not much more to life than work, sleep, KTV, and shopping. What’s the point in learning words like ‘epiphytic bromeliad’ if you’re not going to ever talk about such a strange concept?
Buy her some books about things she’s interested in. Buy her some Terry Pratchett books. Find something that gives her a reason to need better English. Or send her to join my porn class! Without a context, all that advanced stuff is rather pointless. Oops, did I say that already? Sorry, I just spend an awful lot of time with adults who have no idea how to use the vocab from the word lists they allegedly memorised in high school.
I have taught three years of high school, and four of adult conversation. I agree with Joe about the instruction + immersion thing, but in this country there isn’t a lot of the immersion part. Get her using what she’s learned before letting her waste her money on more learning. I don’t mean this unkindly, and I have no idea how you guys interact, but what do you talk about together? If her language skills are sufficient for everything you do together then she’s either near-native or you’re just not communicating very much. Either way, her skills are sufficient.
I have an RSA cert and an MA in Applied Linguistics. I do not teach my wife anything beyond the odd question she might ask me. IMO, teaching or learning from your SO in any sort of organized way can get a bit messy. It is not easy for me to be both a husband and a teacher. Likewise, I ask my wife for very little help with Chinese.
My wife has done a few courses at BC here in HK. She did so based on my advice. Her experiences have been mixed. BC in HK is a probably a bit different from BC in Taiwan. I think that BCHK offers more courses than BC Taiwan. A friend of mine down there who taught at BC Taiwan before coming to HK said that he thinks the highest course offered in Taiwan is the First Certificate. BCHK offers the CAE and CPE courses.
My wife did the CPE course at BCHK. She had two instructors in two semesters. Their teaching styles were as different as night and day, but this was mainly due to the classmates my wife had in those two semesters. One group of students was very passive and expected the instructor to give long, deductive presentations of everything, so that’s what they got. That bored my wife to tears. The other group of students had much better study habits and a lot of them had done degrees overseas. My wife enjoyed their company. Even though the teacher she had for that semester was less experienced, he was able to teach the course in a more student-centered way because the students were open to it. All of these students are tested before they’re placed on the course. It’s really just luck of the draw for what kind of classmates (and thus the teaching style) a student might get.
Loretta, I agree that students need context for what they are learning, but once a person attains a certain level of proficiency, there are language skills that just can’t be picked up from the contexts that are available. My wife wasn’t going to improve her academic writing without taking a course. Since taking the CPE and a writing course, her writing has improved a lot. However, she found most other parts of the course dull. She had already scored a 9 on reading on IELTS and she reads English novels and magazines of all sorts, so the readings in the CPE didn’t really do much for her. She had also already done well on the speaking and listening parts of IELTS, so she didn’t get much from the CPE in that way, either. Aside from writing, I’d say the main benefit of the courses she took was the chance to use English in a context other than communicating with her husband or his family. Just because a non-native can function at a near-native level when doing whatever language tasks required for interacting with their spouse does not mean that he or she will be able to perform at a near-native level when performing language tasks in other contexts.