That’s not bilingualism. Not enough.
I’m talking about a paradigm shift. What I want to see is an English-speaking politician in the legislature and as soon as he starts speaking, all the other who can’t speak English put on a headphone and start listening to synchronized translation. I want the tv caption with English real-time.
The more I think about it, the more hypocracy I find in the current situation. For one whole generation Taiwan has sent the brightest or the wealthiest overseas. It is about time that the entire society reaps the benefits of English. I see the one-laowai-per-school as an perfunctory act by the current establishment to fool the general public into thinking that their kids can get a Disneyland-ish experience. At the end of the day, only the more well-off’s, the or the privileged can send their kids abroad. I’d say, make the country bilingual so people can achieve proficiency at home.
And? The obvious has been stated. 
It’s not hypocrisy, it’s just misunderstanding: hypocrisy suggests that there are a group of people who understand and control the disconnects in policy you are starting to notice. Here are some ideas you may wish to kick around: 1. The primary goal of education is not to educate lower middle class people, in any culture. 2. Languages are utilitarian, not badges of attainment / signifiers of anything, really. 3. Languages are not learned by children, in classrooms, rare outliers excepted.
Taiwan is already (at least) bilingual. Ahem.
Yeah, I agree, but the question is how to implement it. This is what officials have been lazily scratching their heads about for decades.
Sorry to be utterly predictable here, but unless they radically change how English is taught in Taiwan, nothing will ever change. It hasn’t worked – for the mass of students – for the past 50 years, but still they figure it only needs minor tweaks, like having native speakers up front.
Emphasizing proficiency isn’t enough. They need to start from acquisition instead of learning, which in Taiwan is memorization.
[quote=“ironlady”]Sorry to be utterly predictable here, but unless they radically change how English is taught in Taiwan, nothing will ever change. It hasn’t worked – for the mass of students – for the past 50 years, but still they figure it only needs minor tweaks, like having native speakers up front.
Emphasizing proficiency isn’t enough. They need to start from acquisition instead of learning, which in Taiwan is memorization.[/quote]
exactly. if you disagree with this then take a look around at all the weird shit such as ‘no.1 blowjob master’ on a babys t-shirt.
When I was in junior high, 1 out of 50 was born overseas and was a native English speaker.
Today, out of the same class, one third of us have studied and lived overseas and can speak English.
I did a quick survey on my cousins. Same ratio. One third.
Self-selection. One-third of Taiwanese certainly haven’t studied abroad, and even if they had, they wouldn’t speak English to any meaningful degree.
[quote=“sofun”]When I was in junior high, 1 out of 50 was born overseas and was a native English speaker.
Today, out of the same class, one third of us have studied and lived overseas and can speak English.
I did a quick survey on my cousins. Same ratio. One third.[/quote]
It’s just you and your cohort.
it doesn’t mean anything I’m afraid. Most of the younger Taiwanese I interact with have almost no English proficiency. we need to look at the stats.
I think both of you are overlooking the dynamics. People who you interacted with just yesterday, those who currently don’t speak English, may in 2 years actually be studying or living abroad, and maybe half of them will never come back to Taiwan. Then, those who come back to Taiwan may loose their English proficiency in 2 years.
Alternatively, suppose English is made the official languages now. Then, looking forward, we’ll have
a retention and recovering of English proficiency for current Taiwanese residents.
injection from overseas Taiwanese and their offsprings (with good proficiency) back into Taiwan.
Both 1 & 2 actually reenforce the English language environment in Taiwan.
Seeing other Taiwanese (asian faces) speaking and using English everyday motivates more to do the same. They don’t need to go overseas just for English.
this is a positive feedback loop.
Take a look at Ma Ying Dog’s family and Tasi English’s family.
It is very common for a Taiwanese person to have relatives and friends who have been born, lived, or studied in one of US/CAN/AUS/UK/NZ/EU. The estimate of “One third” for my generation is not an exaggeration.
I have huge problems hiring professionals with sufficient English ability in the local market. Basically the low wages and management style have driven anyone with ability overseas and into MNCs. I had to resort to hiring Taiwanese working overseas back to Taiwan.
Someone could look at the effectiveness of SK’s elementary school English program since it wouldn’t be that much different than what Taiwan would get. My guess is that the results are not that great.
I’m not as down on learning English in schools/buxibans as most in this thread but my students will always be limited due to zero real world usage outside of the classroom. I try to encourage them to watch TV in English at home but the reality is that if a show is dubbed they will listen to the dubbing. If there isn’t dubbing then they will just read the subtitles. This was actually one of our non-scientific reasons while traveling as to why the Dutch typically have great English.
I’m not sure that making something mandatory like has been suggested does much to improve the situation unless it’s a heavy handed approach like the KMT did with Mandarin.
In Teaching in an English Village (EV), EVs seem based on Situational Language Teaching (language pedagogy wiki): how to use a credit card, ordering at a restaurant, asking directions, etc. English to function in “practical” situations.
SLT still appears in textbooks today, and is historically connected to PPP, widely used by CELTA in decades past:
Present & teach the language for the situation, then students Practice & Produce the situation. Like EV.
SLT might be practical in an ESL environment; students can immediately practice ordering food outside of class.
But it’s clearly impractical for EFL, because EFL students can’t practice these situations in Taiwan.
Teaching EFL students a series of situations… failure is predictable, regardless of teacher “certification”.
Includes imported foreign trainers with no Chinese, experience, or success in TW classrooms.
Effective methods can only be locally developed by teachers (local or foreign) innovating in TW classrooms.
Of course, most teachers in public schools (& unis) soon give up due to class structures:
No CELTA, TEFL/ESL, MA-TESOL/AL program anywhere trains teachers for this TW TEFL environment.
Such “certified” teachers will do little better in large, mixed-ability classes… in TW public schools or unis.
Don’t believe me? Read the archives. Or get whatever “cert” you want & test it for yourself.
Kids learning language in classrooms isn’t impossible. (They still learn how to read & do “exam English”.)
Don’t underestimate their intelligence & language learning ability.
Some private schools do track students into smaller classes & levels, easing the difficulty in innovation.
But the most common places to find smaller classes & similar levels? … buxibans.
Few TEFL teachers innovate… no external directives/incentives, or internal motivation/desire.
But expecting govt, employers, or overseas academics to know how to innovate or reform TW TEFL… is idiocy.
None of them are inside classrooms here, so obviously they won’t fucking know what to do better.
Only teachers (TW or foreign) are in the classroom trenches. But most don’t know what to do either, as results show.
So it’s our job to experiment, innovate, & reform… nobody else is in a position to.
If you can eventually innovate successfully & consistently produce results, then people will listen to you.
And give you a raise & respect. Or, don’t innovate & just keep fingerpointing at everyone outside the classroom.
And guess what will change for TEFL or yourself, your skills, results, & pay, if you keep doing that?
Nothing. As the archives also show.
They’re rich families. Do you know many people who are not rich? They don’t have the money to study abroad and sometimes don’t even go to college. Yes, there are people in Taiwan, in this day and age, who don’t go to college, and I know a bunch of them out in Taoyuan and Taichung. They put in insane hours of hard work at factories and markets and restaurants to make a decent living. But I don’t know any who can speak English on any serviceable level.
Great post by cloud13 above. I have worked in similar programs in Southern Taiwan (albeit about 10 years ago) and nearly quit teaching because of the impossibility and exhausting futility of the program. While the ELV program is no doubt being implemented with the best of intentions (and funds apparently), it will never bring the results the government hopes for because of the reasons cited by cloud13. That said, if anyone holding a valid overseas teaching certification is looking fora cushy job FOB, these ELVs offer a nice opportunity. My school lost a few of our part-time teachers last school year to their salary and benefits.
Tawian will not experience the kind of success in English that Singapore or Hong Kong have had without a real environment for students to actually practice English and see its value. While Taipei has pockets where English can be used, most students rarely encounter these situations or use Chinese rather than take advantage of the situation.
Taiwan doesn’t need laowai’s to teach English at all to get results. Seriously, look at Europe. A good chunk of EU English 2nd language speakers speak English fluently and flawlessly. They were not taught English by foreigner but their own countrymen. On a per capita basis Russians, Romanians, Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, can out speak and out read Taiwanese in English anyday. What Taiwan really needs is a comprehensive ESL program that is proven to work and replicate it utilizing Taiwanese English speaking staff.
If Taiwan wants more foreigners in Taiwan to make it more multicultural, then they have to adopt policies like the UK, CAN, US etc. Since that won’t happen, Taiwan will always get the White monkey teacher and the Filipino maids and Vietnam wives. That’s reality.
[quote=“Lt.Myron Goldman”]Taiwan doesn’t need laowai’s to teach English at all to get results. Seriously, look at Europe. A good chunk of EU English 2nd language speakers speak English fluently and flawlessly. They were not taught English by foreigner but their own countrymen. On a per capita basis Russians, Romanians, Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, can out speak and out read Taiwanese in English anyday. What Taiwan really needs is a comprehensive ESL program that is proven to work and replicate it utilizing Taiwanese English speaking staff.
If Taiwan wants more foreigners in Taiwan to make it more multicultural, then they have to adopt policies like the UK, CAN, US etc. Since that won’t happen, Taiwan will always get the White monkey teacher and the Filipino maids and Vietnam wives. That’s reality.[/quote]
Nope, the issue is Taiwanese (and Japanese, Korean, Arabic) students’ L1. Euro-L1 students will always get further with less tuition. Think about your own language learning. With motivation, think how much further you’d get with Italian than Arabic.
Taiwan needs skilled language teachers. Nationality is irrelevant. fwiw, I think Taiwan does pretty well, in a public school system.
You’re right about Taiwan becoming more international: Taiwanese kids are motivated with English because they can do fine without it. But that begs the question- why bother in the first place?
dude why did you leave that job lol, you were living the dream
I can answer that question as I also participated in JET. The job position just isn’t challenging in the slightest. Sure the wage is great for somebody just outta university but after a few months working 8-5 you start to feel like you’re going nowhere in life. The program isn’t permanent but everyone who participates in the program is usually automatically given a new contract for another year providing they haven’t screwed up somehow. You can do a max of 5 years, no exception.
Some people dislike the program for the following reasons:
Not all rent is free. Mine was only subsidized. Meaning they paid 35% of my monthly rent. I still pay all the bills of course. You can’t choose your apartment either. Some get huge modern houses which they may have to pay 240 000 yen deposits for (renting and set up costs is much higher than taiwan ) or they may be put in a frozen box with a cockroach infestation. No selection.
You’re absolutely replaceable. An average day is teaching 5 days a week. You will stand in the class for 50 mins whIle the Japanese English teacher teaches English in Japanese. All the students sleep for that part. Then you will be asked to read a page of a book for 1 minute or play a game with the kids for a period. This routine rarely changes for the year. Any monkey could do your job.
The first 3 months are hell. In addition to settling into a new culture and way of life you’ll be expected to “work” of course. But since most JETS arrive in early August (when the schools are closed) you’ll have to sit in purgatory in the local board of Education with the other "teachers " from 8 to 5. No work is done. Everyone plays games or reads comics or studies Japanese. You get paid 280 000 yen for doing this “work”. 20 people in a room getting paid for doing jack all. You feel almost embarrassed to be earning a living this way. People on state welfare payments and working summers in that place start to look really similar.
Endless drink nights at the izakaya. The Japanese love to let their hair down big time at the weekend. At the start it’s awesome being invited to drinking parties with co workers every week. But soon it eats into your pockets big time. You’ll have to contribute part of the fee which is usually anywhere between 5 - 10 000 yen a night for the nomihodai (all you can drink) and the venue. You may be assigned to upto 4 different schools. So every weekend you’ll be asked by some body to another drinking party. Due to Japanese social pressures you can’t really say no as its seen as rude (causing the host to lose face) and usually as the shiny new foreign toy you are the guest of honour. Expect to see married co workers who were seemingly decent men invite you to go rent a prostitute or visit a soapland after these parties.
The other foreign teachers are often freaks/social outcasts. Some of the strangest people I’ve ever met in my life worked in this program. At the beginning I was proud to be selected for the program as its very competitive. After seeing some of the oddballs who got selected I soon changed my opinion. Aliens have more social nuances. The “normal” participants just use it like a gap year to go drinking non stop, clubs, anime events and basically goofing off. A year of that gets old quick.
You’ve no selection over where you’re placed. You can choose 3 possible destinations when applying but it’s a known fact that the powers above don’t pay attention to your wishes at all. Some people are placed in big cities like Osaka whilst the unlucky ones are placed in the absolute boons. One girl was put into a tiny island with practically no people. She had to take 2 boats to get to school. No social life or even fellow foreigners on the island. She started to become depressed and suicidal and eventually went home. There have actually been suicides on this program by the way. Only recently. Google it
Which leads me to… No support network. Japansee society is geared towards being perecived as strong and not causing bother to others. Hence the high suicide rate. If you’re in trouble keep it to yourself is the attitude. In my time there a fellow foreign teacher committed suicide. It was clear that individual wasn’t mentally sound but no support was offered by the employers or those supervising to assist. When it happened they held a big ass funeral and expressed shock. But fellow teachers weren’t so surprised. Privately I witnessed those in the office more concerned not with the death of a person but the inconvenience caused by said individuals “selfish actions”. I actually heard this said by a high ranker. They told some of the schools said deceased went home. Absolute bs. And they didn’t set up any new support lines after the death to try to prevent it happening again. Left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths.