Hi,
A good Taiwanese friend of mine would like to go abroad for studying English. As I see it it’s more important that she’d be somewhere affordable for a period of time of like a year, than going to a prestigious school for three to sixe months. Any practical advice on where she should go to? I would suggest Australia but north american accent is somewhat at a higher demand around here, so I’m not sure about this. Acquiring fluency is far more important then a specific accent.
I don’t know about Taiwanese, but I’ve heard from some Japanese that Australia can be… inhospitable, shall we say. I’d probably suggest, for a reasonable compromise between accent and cost, Canada maybe? And of course I’d suggest New Zealand, but that’s just me being biased.
Hi Guest,
Canada is great, but there are big Asian populations in Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary. These also happen to be the bigger cities.
Cities such as Kelowna, Kamloops, Nanaimo, Edmonton, and others where the Chinese population is smaller might be a better choice if she wants to be forced to speak in English, that is.
Clearly one will balance “quality of life” (assuming one enjoys bigger cities and more Taiwanese friends to hang out with) with the level of English one hopes to learn. I’m not saying these two factors necessarily conflict, but it is naive to assume that they cannot. I think 914 hits on an extremely important (and often overlooked) point here. :bravo:
From the land that has train car loads of school kids chanting “Foreigner Foreigner” Hotels that claim “Hotel Closed” when a foreigner tries to book, Public restaurants that claim “Members Only, Club” Newspapers that claim: Japanese people have different intestines and can only eat Japanese rice, snow in Japan is different and imported skis won’t work…etc. etc.
No “foreigner” in Australia experiences this. :raspberry:
I know several who would debate that point quite vigorously.
Going just to study English, for more than a month or two, is going to be tough - some would say boring. If she can get by then there are all sorts of opportunities to develop her language skills by using them in real-life. (As long as she avoids the trap of hanging out with Mandarin-speakers all the time, of course.)
What age is she, and what work experience does she have? Her options are determined by her background.
There are, for instance, foundation courses available at some (good) UK universities which teach English together with specialities such as art and design.
Or she can do something vocational, such as a course in hotel and tourism which includes PAID work placement and offers a flexible work permit at the end of it.
Actually, some UK universities are now able to guarantee work permits for overseas students, valid for two years after graduation. I presume she wants to improve her English for professional reasons, so why shouldn’t she gain some international exerience too? Mandarin-speakers are quite employable these days.
And don’t worry about the accent rubbish. Unless she’s extremely advanced already she’s going to come back with a Taiwanese accent.
[quote=“guest”]As I see it it’s more important that she’d be somewhere affordable for a period of time of like a year, than going to a prestigious school for three to sixe months.[/quote][quote=“Loretta”]Going just to study English, for more than a month or two, is going to be tough - some would say boring. If she can get by then there are all sorts of opportunities to develop her language skills by using them in real-life. (As long as she avoids the trap of hanging out with Mandarin-speakers all the time, of course.)[/quote]Loretta is right; it’s tough. Just living in a country does not necessarily provide efficient language learning. Many people reach a kind of plateau where they can function to some extent but never reach advanced levels.
Don’t discount formal language learning. Apart from the explicitly taught material, there are “hidden” benefits for ones language ability. The two main ones are that one is guaranteed a large amount of comprehensible input, and that one is part of a community of language learners from lots of countries, with whom one has to use English.
The foundation courses Loretta mentioned are a good idea, although I don’t know how many universities would allow one to enrol for a foundation course only. But plain old enrolment at a language college can also be fine, and part-time work may also be permitted to students.