Most of the Taiwanese teachers I’ve worked with are nice but they always want to teach incorrect things.
I mostly want to complain, no real point to this thread.
From phonics to grammar to vocabulary. It’s exhausting. What makes it most exhausting is when I get ‘corrected’ in front of students (usually politely) by someone who does not speak English fluently or as their mother tongue.
Not all are like this but the vast majority I’ve encountered.
They seem like they want the kids to learn what the teacher says is correct. Not what is factually correct.
A few of the more open minded teachers will disagree with me at first, do their own research, then come back and tell me that I’m right. My answer (in my head) to this is always ‘yes, I know. English is my mother tongue. I don’t need google to tell me how to speak my own language.’ Afterwards they’ll still teach whatever they want though.
I was laughed at for saying rubbish bin once. Listening to people say bahx instead of box is exhausting. Being told that ‘it’s not’ is incorrect and you can only say ‘it isn’t’ is exhausting. Being told it’s impossible to sit ‘in’ a chair is exhausting.
Sounds awful. The Taiwanese English teachers I interact with at work have excellent English and never correct me, though to be fair we never teach together and the majority ignore me
Lucky. In Miaoliguo I work with about 4-5. One teacher at my buxiban speaks really well. The other 2 just soso. The other is new so I’m not sure yet. The buxiban has a huge problem finding teachers so they kinda take what they can get.
The public primary school teacher has the worst English of all the teachers I’ve worked with. She’s still really nice.
She just pissed me off today when I was teaching ‘Where’s the box?’ ‘It’s…’
And she kept going around to all the students saying ‘不是box,是bahx’.
Isn’t the point of learning a language to communicate with speakers of that language?
This teacher couldn’t string a sentence together to tell me that I won’t teach a class on Thursday and I will make up the class next week.
Weirdly the PE teacher at this particular primary school speaks English much better than the English teacher
I’m not an English teacher, but I have a pretty good grasp of the language, and I’ve come across this frequently. Someone will ask me about some obscure matter of English usage, I’ll explain to them how it generally works, and they’ll say something like “But that’s not what my teacher told me. Are you sure?”.
I think some of it boils down to a major difference between Chinese and English. While both languages are highly idiomatic, in Chinese there’s often a very limited range of how to say something “correctly”; sometimes only one way. English is incredibly flexible, which is one of the reasons it’s so popular. You can garble an English sentence any which way you like and you’ll be more-or-less understood. Even in strictly “correct” usage, you can express the same thought in dozens of different ways. The English concept of “voice”, for instance, has no direct equivalent in Chinese and it’s very hard to explain how it works to Chinese speakers. The fact that English is such a loose, floppy language that’s full of grey areas of usage just does not compute if your first language is Chinese. You want to hear that there’s a right way and wrong way.
I think this is part of it too. Although, if you are working with someone who speaks a language natively/fluently, isn’t it logical to take that as a learning opportunity?
My colleague who speaks English well has that attitude, that’s why he speaks English well.
I understand that traditionally in Taiwan it has been test oriented
Anyways, sounds like a frustrating circus
I will say, one of the things that keeps me where I am even though I’m told I can do better (on occasion, with an informal offer) is that I have worked hard to establish myself and develop something of an understanding. They see it is easier to mostly leave me alone and let me get on with it. What oversight/interference there is tends to be at least reasonable and often helpful
If you can find a good situation and dig yourself in a bit, you might outlast and outrank the problems (maybe not at a public school)
Luckily the public school job is a 4 week gig I do twice a year on top of my buxiban. I’m in the same boat. My buxiban job is going well and no one corrects me there. I know I could make more money elsewhere but I’m comfortable.
Plus there’re so few foreigners in Miaoli City that it’s easy to make a reputation for myself. I’ll slowly transition into self employment eventually
You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But as TT said, the primary intent in many cases is just to pass the test. You just need to know which of A thru D is the correct answer.
They have native English speakers (American) as part of the textbooks recordings. She still didn’t attempt replicate the sound correctly and kept going around saying ‘bahx, bahx’
It’s just frustrating
A teacher who left my buxiban a while ago kept arguing saying the government building is called ‘Miaoli Country Government’ when it’s called the ‘Miaoli County Government’ she obviously just mistyped the word but wouldn’t admit her mistake to the student
My guess would be she was trying too hard to replicate the word, which is one reason why she shouldn’t be teaching pronunciation. I remember my daughter asking me years ago what a fraaaag is. It took me a while to figure out her teacher was chorally drilling frog.
Refusing to admit to mistakes is very common. The Taiwanese teachers are in a difficult position because the students expect them to be infallible.
My Chinese (from China) teacher back in Australia referred to a circle of correctness. Side note he speaks English fluently and has a pHd in linguistics which he did in English but still considers himself a learner because English isn’t his mother tongue.
My class was filled with people of different language backgrounds. Myself having learnt in Taiwan, others with Malaysian ancestry, other’s Chinese, others just out of self-interest.
He told us all that we all may have different vocabulary for things or ways of saying things and that he would only correct us if we step out of the circle of correctness. (For example words for family members and 在哪裡 vs 在哪兒）.
I try to do the same with my students. As long as an answer is correct, not exactly how/what I say, I will accept the answer. I wish the Taiwanese English teachers here had the same attitude as my Chinese teacher back home.
I’ve been able to smack this out of my kids. “All of us are learning” gets everyone so much further than one person being the sole authority. It also invites taking chances and making mistakes, which we can all learn from.
I always think about the absolute dicks I knew in high school and college who would correct teachers/professors in the snobbiest “you’re a failure” type tone possible. It doesn’t do anything for society to be right all the time. Or my favorite, someone in America telling me “it’s called ‘boba tea’ not ‘bubble tea’.” in the rudest tone possible, with a lingering shock/horror hanging off their lips. I didn’t even bother pointing out that I live in Taiwan and that “bubble” comes from the frothy stuff on top cuz the drinks are hand shaken, aka “手搖”. Sometimes it’s more satisfying to let people be wrong…
Because Taiwanese elders (and this includes teachers) are authoritarian, and insists that you do EXACTLY as they say or else. They also do not like being corrected by anyone.
My daughter, born and raised here in Taipei, mom’s Taiwanese and I’m north American, baby always come home to tell me about the rubbish she gets handed. Elite private school. How to pronounce bathing suit? How can they screw this up?
I worked with a local “teacher” who couldn’t pronounce genre correctly. Would say ginra.
I could go on and on. It’s all a terrible fraud. Really sickening what is going on in education and so many other areas.
