I hope that the thousand English teachers includes a healthy contingent of minority groups. I can’t wait to hear how the Min. of Ed. deals with inevitable complaints when they find out that their kid’s qualified, highly-educated teacher is (potentially):[ol][li]African-American[/li][li]Chinese-American[/li][li]Turbaned[/li][li]tattooed[/li][li]South Asian[/li][li]Gay[/li][li]From a visible religious minority (Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, etc.)[/li][/ol]
America’s population is wonderfully diverse, but I wonder if the Taiwanese will see it that way. And I’m sure that the U of Maryland can not screen out “undesirable” minorities without facing huge lawsuits… Hee-hee… I can’t wait for the show to start… 
ImaniOU is talking about the JUICE program in Hsinchu. The workers were without a job 6 months into the contract and JUICE wouldn’t cancel their ARC’s so they could get another legal job.
This was a Hsinchu gov’t program that worked through an agency. It was badly run and completely mismanaged. Do some research about it on Tealit and you’ll find some interesting posts about it, if they are still there.
This is what I foresee for the MOE plan. JET is still a failure and Epik(Koran version of Jet) is much much worst. Your whole year is decided by the person who is in charge of you. If they like you, it can be nice. If they hate you, than it will be a living hell. I suggest you read this at tealit to get a better idea
tealit.com/forum/viewtopic.p … highlight=
CYA
Okami
[quote]13. Argues that Taiwan’s “special conditions” make wholesale importation of Japanese or Korean models questionable.
[/quote]
Whenever I hear this horseshit about Taiwan’s “special conditions” I want to reach for my gun. This is the oldest, lamest crutch that the Taiwan people use to get out of listening or following the wisdom of another country that has already been through a similar situation.
The Taiwan people love to re-invent the wheel. “Round you say? Taiwan has special conditions; we will study the matter further and come up with a better plan more suited to Chinese.”
One teacher interviewed on CBC this morning objected to the introduction of the foreigners on the basis that they “wouldn’t understand the childrens’ cultural background and wouldn’t be able to properly grasp the ‘barriers to learning’ experienced by the kids.” But to give the report some balance, they also inteviewed a 10-year-old kiddie, who enthusiastically asserted that he’d rather have a foreigner teaching him English because then he’d be able to learn correct pronunciation. Could it be a case of the kids being smarter than their teachers?
I do agree with Wix that the basic idea is good – not just good, but very necessary for Taiwan’s future development. As others have said, it’s the details and implementation that give cause for concern.
As for the attractions of taking up such employment, while I can’t see that it would have much appeal for mature and well-qualified EFL teachers, I can say for sure that I would have jumped at the chance to do something like that when I was in my early twenties and fresh out of college.
:shock:
Even in the most catastrophic scenario, this program could do little to HARM the state of English acquisition courses for children learners in Taiwan.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that this introduction of allegedly qualified professionals adds a much needed breath of dedication and intellect to the English teaching climate in Taiwan.
Cranky,
I’m sure you are correct, at least partially. However, a girl from our office left our firm to go through that training and she successfully completed the same. Her English is very poor, and I was shocked that she made it through the training program. But she is teaching now, in a Taipei elementary school. I doubt that she is the lone exception to what you term “a well-trained pool of new local English teachers” even if many of those from this pool are good teachers.
The kids better hope they get one of the good ones.
[quote=“Okami”]
This is what I foresee for the MOE plan. … Your whole year is decided by the person who is in charge of you. If they like you, it can be nice. If they hate you, than it will be a living hell. I suggest you read this at tealit to get a better idea
tealit.com/forum/viewtopic.p … highlight=
CYA
Okami[/quote]
Thanks for the link, Okami.
Battle-Scarred is good, isn’t he! Reminds me a lot of Lol. How come he’s posting on Tealit and not here on Segue?
Good question, Omni. Too bad we can’t invite him over here without getting our invitation deleted… :? 
Okami wrote in reply to Battle Scarred’s TEALIT thread[quote]Good points Feiren, but this is Taiwan land of cheap knock offs and still the number 2 pirater of goods in the world. [/quote]Seems Battle Scarred is already with us here at Segue :shock:
Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the breakfast beverage…it seems to have given everyone tealit on the mind.
As for JUICE, or whatever new name they have come up with to disguise their reputation, I knew a few people who came over with them, JUICE held their passports claiming to need them for their ARC, and I haven’t heard from those people since. Their supposed free pre-arranged accomodations were sleeping on a tatami mat in some woman’s house. And they withheld tax and part of their money (the break-your-contract-and-you’ll-never-see-your-$40,000-again fee), before these people got their ARC.
Although this program is through the MOE, it seems to have all the makings of another JUICE scam. I wonder how much money people back home are paying for the training courses and application fees for this…
Of course, however this program gets initiated, the applicants abroad will be largely in the dark about both their options and the nuts and bolts of how things work in Taiwan. The program will exploit their ignorance and will get them in situations they wish they were not in.
Basically, these applicants will be in dire need of segue.com.tw
When this app process starts in march, how can we as a community reach out to these applicants; how can we refer them to the information that they need so that they are better informed about the situation they might be signing on to; not to discourage applicants per se, but at least to make sure applicants know what they’re getting themselves into.
If i hadn’t stumbled upon segue off of a referral (thanks miltownkid) and found out more about my own options, I might have gotten myself in a particularly sticky situation. But now with a whole new slew of people perhaps to be interested in doing the Taiwan thing, how can we get them to see the light?
There is an article in today’s Taipei Times entitled: Minister defends plan for English.
The following is a quote from the article:
Exactly what kind of strange accents is he talking about?
Another quote from Law on foreign teachers in public schools under revision in the Taiwan News:
And American and British accents are the same?
I think the Taipei Times and Taiwan News are quoting the same person here even though the name is spelt differently.
==============================================
There is also an interesting post by Mr. Battle-Scarred over on tealit.com. Click here to have a look.
Strang - gee ac-ce -sents???
Didn’t you know, English is only taught so that the Taiwanese can carry on their long tradition of speaking English at the dinner table.
Understanding any accent other than one that adds syllables where there weren’t any will be completely useless.
So those people from Maryland with their strange American accents might as well just stay home.
What a poor argumement these teachers make. And I am almost certain teachers do not make NT$30-45k a month. They make more.
And what has their brilliance in the classroom added up to so far, anyway?
Kids having to attend bushibans until all hours of the night just so they can pass standardized tests, even though their formal teachers do nothing more than exactly that, for one!
God I hope I have enough money when my kids are of school age to avoid these self-concerned idiots.
Quote:
Hsu also singled out Australians as “having a different accent from other English-speaking countries.”
What?? The Taiwanese don’t study in Australia, don’t immigrate to Australia; don’t go there on vacation?
Another thing:
PFP Legislator Sheu Yuan-kuo (
Strange accents - well I am from New Zealand. I was listening to NZ radio today and I thought they sounded really strange - I had to listen hard, my accent has changed too much since I moved here. A lot of people think I’m American - I hate that 
especially if I found myself on a hi-jacked plane
Thanks Alleycat, I wondered when someone was going to bring this up. Sure, those high school teachers may only get 40k or so in their paypackets, but what about all the under table cash from the bushibans that surround the school? They all take major kickbacks from local cram schools for recommending their students go to bushiban x instead of y or z. Even more cash comes from lending out the diploma to some hack friend who wants to open a cram school, hasn’t the first idea how to do it, can’t get the license by himself etc. Hell, I’m not a teacher, don’t have kids and even I know this. How the hell can these teachers look the camera in the eye and squall about their low salaries?
How many of you were taught a second language in high school, like French, German or Spanish? Was your teacher a native speaker?
This half-assed idea is doomed to fail, just hope it’s sooner rather than later.
The Taiwanese really are a strange bunch. I don’t think I will ever undestand this obsession with accents. Do they honestly believe there is a one-size-fits-all American accent ? Are they trying to maintain a Texan, Californian, and New Yorker all speak with similar accents ? Never mind British or Aussie accents. Move 200 miles south of New York and the accent’s the same is it ?
Where else in the world would you have to put up with this nonsense ?
[Moderator’s note: What about the Irish accent?]
Move 200 miles north of London and they don’t even speak English anymore 
I have relatives I need a translator to have a conversation with, and I mean on my side of the family, not the wife’s.
WIX,
The comments of the Chinese in the papers shows one thing: how pig ignorant they are of what they are talking about. And these are the people who are planning on importing “talent”? Jez…
Nothing peeves me more then the issue of accents and saying that my accent is no good. I say stuff them all. I’m an Aussie and proud of it and I am very glad that I don’t speak with an American acent. There are more English speakers in the world that do not have an American accent, compared to those that do, and secondly, what exactly is an American accent, a New Yorker? a Californian? a Texan? someone from Alabama?
I’ve been told by several people that I should try and talk like an American whilst in Taiwan. I always say “no way” and then ask them to speak Chinese like a Beijinger. Hell, even here in Taiwan, accents differ (even in Mandarin, look at the difference from Taipei to Kaohsiung and I"m not talking about dialects). My accent is my culture, my heritage and there is no way I am going to act another accent, especially a septic tank one, in order to please a few ignorant people.
I worked for 8 years in Australia as a radio producer and presenter, my voice is perfectly adequate for professional radio work and is a valuable asset to me. However as soon as I speak over here, they say, “but you don’t talk properly and your accent is too thick”. This pi$$es me off so much.
If they were serious in wanting to learn the English language, then they would cater for the various derivatives of it. This whole issue of the language program is just one example of how Taiwan is severly lagging behind the world in being a true international destination. Many potential problems are appearing with this program and yet there seems to be an abundance of people already here that will be discriminated against in the final decision process because we are simply foreigners and we do not know.
Why is it that the Taiwanese people are so determined to think that they are better then anyone else and that they can afford to dictate by themselves what is good and what is not? It is just pure ignorance and arrogance to me.