Wow! I am surprised to hear that at 17 years old, 1 out of 18 students can write a complete sentence.
You must know, however, that is not normal for students to not be able to write a complete sentence by that age. I think your school is a rare case and is not really an accurate representation of the High School’s in America.
The school you work at must be a special case with their background in a different language and all. Having gone to an American Public High School and taught in various schools, I have never run into that kind of problem.
Sometimes, it makes people wonder where exactly the problem went wrong…however, I have some American friends here in Taiwan who feel that they sometimes have a hard time working with their own children in the English reading, writing, and grammar field. Their kids can speak English because of their parents, but they go to Chinese school, so their reading and writing suffer in the English language. I actually have one friend who sends her son to an English school even though he’s completely fluent, he needs to work on his writing and grammar.
“Third culture kids - The experience fo growing up among worlds”. Even the reviews were interesting. Might be a book for the OP/others of us with TCK in Taiwan to read?
That does look like an interesting book. I was surprised by the 1/18 (it might have been 1/16) ratio myself. That wouldn’t have surprised me back in Brooklyn, though.
I’m taking a class in my MA program here called “Conferencing Writers” (conferencing meaning tutoring) and I brought up what happened at East High in our class discussion. Most of the people in the class, to my great surprise, told me they didn’t really have any formal instruction in writing in high school.
I certainly did. In junior year of HS, we had to take a mandatotry “Term Paper and Essay Writing” class where they hammered in the standard 5-paragraph essay format, teaching us about introductions, thesis’, topic sentences, body, conclusion. The teacher had a lot of presence in class, he commanded respect, was firm, tough, but also humorous and witty, and I think everyone tried to learn to please him. And we learned. That was at a public high school in upstate NY.
My classmates here, however, said they never learned it. Next semester I will be a composition instructor (grad TA) here at UAA, and I guess I’ll get to see where college freshmen are at today.
It is very possible. I am part Nuevomexicana (Chicanas) and part White. I’ve never felt accepted as being White or as Chicana in my home state of New Mexico, despite the fact that my Chicano ancestry predates New Mexico as a Spanish colony even on my Spaniard side, much less my Native ancestry.
Because I have a Han Taiwanese husband, I feel my children will be seen as outsiders wherever they go. It’s a privledge in itself to be able to raise children in a country where they feel like they belong. And there’s definitely benefits to that. That said, I also believe that there are benefits in exposition children to cultures that are not their own. Having to navigate two cultures. They will be exposed to an expanded awareness of the world, they have a greater potential to be bilingual (which benefits them cognitively), and they can choose social values from both cultures to fit their unique needs.
If you so decide to raise them in Taiwan, I recommend trying to find other children from the same background. I always felt more at home with biracial people. It was the only time I didn’t feel like an outsider. Maybe finding and befriending other children with the same experiences can help them find a safe place so to speak where they feel like they belong
Unfortunately, that’s true of biracial people in the United States as well. I never felt completely accepted by White people or by Chicanos. Being mixed race in many parts of the world makes you an outsider by default. The best you can do is try to prepare a child for such discrimination.
Being a foreigner in a school here in Taiwan is unusual and also being a non Chinese ethnic person is unusual. It happens but it’s usually a few kids per public school at most.
The situation in the US is absolutely nothing like Taiwan.
Your kid will be a foreigner here also.
IMHO It’s a bit challenging to raise a kid here with poor Chinese.
Although I know there are groups of foreigners who hang out together and put their kids in study and play groups together and are happy with that (maybe home schooling their kids also ).
And of course some send their kids to Private bilingual or English medium schools.
Just seen this post is 15 years old and those kids almost certainly grew up in the US if and when that couple had kids lol.
Sounds like you’re talking about Taipei. If you’re not living in Taipei you’re not likely to come across a “secluded residential area marketed to foreigners.” Is this even a thing in Taipei? I have no idea.
Here’s the thing: Is there some place where identity crises DON’T happen? It seems to me that identity crises are part of life, and embracing them might be better. Who am I? How am I different from other people? Which differences are good? Which are bad? These are always good (and productive) questions to ask yourself.
My half-American kids went through public schools here. During their time in elementary, junior high and senior high they visited the States every two years, and one of them attended the second grade in the States. We asked them again and again if they were ok with where they were, and if they ever thought about going to school in America. They refused every time.
I think the one thing you want to avoid is home schooling. I’ve had many friends who’ve home schooled their kids, and such kids always get weirder and weirder.
That was a really interesting read. Posts used to be much longer back in the day*. I suppose in 2005 there was less to do in Taiwan.
My daughter’s mixed, but looks white, and she seems to be doing fine. I think the natural bilingualism is such an incredible advantage in life that it more than balances out the occasional ignorant comments
EDIT: *I forgot about the poor people starving thread.
The topic itself might be relevant, but the posts near the beginning of this thread are less so. Having to scroll down through so many replies to get to recent information is counterproductive.
I really wish threads that haven’t been used for more than six months would just disappear.
