I’ve heard stories and things of where families would have ‘German day’ or such once a week. On that particular day everyone in the family has to speak whatever language is the language of the day. I think this would probably work quite well, though if I did it when I have kids I’d suffer on Taiwanese Day and SO would suffer on Japanese Day (good learning opportunities for both of us, I suppose!)
[quote=“cyborg_ninja”][quote=“bababa”]In English-speaking parts of Canada, there are lots of French-immersion kindys, as well as French-immersion elementary schools and a few high schools.
My nephew goes to one - he understands French, can read it well, but he doesn’t really speak it properly.[/quote]
Yeah because French is an official language, bit different from a Taiwanese kid who learns English at kindy when no one else in the country speaks it on a native level (except for expats and their kids).[/quote]
French is an official language in Canada, but in most of Canada outside of Quebec very few people speak it. In my province (Saskatchewan) a child going to a French-immersion kindy is in the same situation a Taiwanese kid going to an English kindy in Taiwan is - he is not going to be using it outside of class, and he is not going to have the chance to be interacting with native speakers much, and maybe not at all.
I know languages are easier to learn when you’re younger. I always thought getting older makes languages harder to learn since we tend to try and apply logic to everything as we get older, and what is logically true for one language very rarely carries over into another. That’s a guess based off how I seem to learn though, so I have no idea =S[/quote]
1.) Most people don’t know logic, not to say that they don’t have common sense or any abilities of inference at all, but they don’t really know something like typed lambda calculus and how to translate natural languages utterances from two distinct languages into it. But I think you meant “systematize everything.”
2.) What is logically true carries over, regardless of the language. What doesn’t carry over are the exact agreement and sentence ordering rules that govern a given syntax, but that’s even true among logics.
Really, where? At Carnegies?[/quote]
Try anywhee in Tien-mu.
[quote=“bababa”][quote=“cyborg_ninja”][quote=“bababa”]In English-speaking parts of Canada, there are lots of French-immersion kindys, as well as French-immersion elementary schools and a few high schools.
My nephew goes to one - he understands French, can read it well, but he doesn’t really speak it properly.[/quote]
Yeah because French is an official language, bit different from a Taiwanese kid who learns English at kindy when no one else in the country speaks it on a native level (except for expats and their kids).[/quote]
French is an official language in Canada, but in most of Canada outside of Quebec very few people speak it. In my province (Saskatchewan) a child going to a French-immersion kindy is in the same situation a Taiwanese kid going to an English kindy in Taiwan is - he is not going to be using it outside of class, and he is not going to have the chance to be interacting with native speakers much, and maybe not at all.[/quote]
That is subjective to where he goes and what he does with his life.
Well there are many countries that have degrees recognized both in western countries and in Taiwan that teach Early Childhood. Taiwan should open up to many other English speaking countries such as India Philippines Singapore Malaysia and get people in from those countries as well as UK Australia Canada USA etc
People take salaries at local market rates. I am sure if the rates for teaching English were the same as many TA’s get who are in fact better teachers a lot of people would leave.[/quote]
STV, you are making a blanket statement by saying that many TA’s are better teahcers than the native speakers are. It is also true that many native speakers are also better teachers thant the TA’s or Chinese teachers are.
The fact is that the government has outlawed all English teaching in kindergartens by anybody. Even Chinese teachers are not supposed to do it. I was saying that the government should offer some evidence that banning it has actually helped students in the long run. Can somebody show me any evidence that this has helped students in any way? Has this helped students learn their mother language any better? The government has decided for parents that it is better that their children not learn English until a certain age. And if you want your children to learn English and they are under seven, you are up shit creak without a paddle legally. Since it has made such a decision I think it owes the public proof that it’s decision was the right one.
And to those people who have been in a foreing language school and said that they later forgot everything I bet if you were placed in a situation where that language was spoken all the time, where that was the native language of the place you were in, it would all come flying back to you in a heartbeat. I have said that before on other threads and nobody has ever once replied to this claim.
The government made its decision based on the “studies” and advocacy of a handful of charlatan linguists who claim that children are unable to learn their L1 properly when simultaneously learning an L2, when the worldwide consensus of experts in childhood language acquisition has been for decades that children learn languages like sponges, with no deficit in the learning of one language when simultaneously learning another. I once even had a student who subscribed to this linguistic BS and applied to study linguistics in the US… I got into an argument with her about it, and I hope if she was accepted to the school they’ll straighten her out.
I think the true motivator for implementing this law is something other than the supposed language learning interests of the children. (Kind of like how the USSR latched onto Lysenko’s pseudoscience rather than real agricultural science, or how the GOP favors creationism and global warming denialism over real science: it’s some kind of political ideology.)
Really, where? At Carnegies?[/quote]
Try one of thousands of private schools nationwide, tens of thousand of foreign and Taiwanese English speakers, turn on your TV, pick up a magazine, turn on Youtube, attend a toastmasters club, attend a summer camp in English, blah blah blah.
Please stop reading what you want into my statements. I said an English environment to maintain and improve one’s level. I did not say attain near native fluency in a full immersion environment.
I was tried to study Tibetan for a few months. Taiwan is not a good environment for learning, maintaining or improving one’s Tibetan. But any child exposed to English in kindie is not going to have much trouble continuing to learn English while living in Taiwan.
[quote=“Chris”]The government made its decision based on the “studies” and advocacy of a handful of charlatan linguists who claim that children are unable to learn their L1 properly when simultaneously learning an L2, when the worldwide consensus of experts in childhood language acquisition has been for decades that children learn languages like sponges, with no deficit in the learning of one language when simultaneously learning another. I once even had a student who subscribed to this linguistic BS and applied to study linguistics in the US… I got into an argument with her about it, and I hope if she was accepted to the school they’ll straighten her out.
I think the true motivator for implementing this law is something other than the supposed language learning interests of the children. (Kind of like how the USSR latched onto Lysenko’s pseudoscience rather than real agricultural science, or how the GOP favors creationism and global warming denialism over real science: it’s some kind of political ideology.)[/quote]
My thoughts exactly :bravo: . Now let’s see the Taiwan government studies of kindy students that have not gone to a kindy where English is taught that contradict the worldwide consensus.
And Mucha Man, keep in mind that SATtv lives up in the mountains and not in the cities where English is used more often. However he bases all of his opinions on what he finds to be true up there.
I think people tend to learn as they believe they are “supposed to” – usually based on their experiences in school. When you finally convince people to just soak up language rather than struggling to learn it, they make rapid progress. But it can be very hard for some people to let go of that whole “I must work hard, I must repeat, I must analyze” thing and just trust what their brains were hardwired to do throughout life.
Of course, the need to go to work and pay bills also cuts into language acquisition time pretty severely after age 12… 
I know languages are easier to learn when you’re younger. I always thought getting older makes languages harder to learn since we tend to try and apply logic to everything as we get older, and what is logically true for one language very rarely carries over into another. That’s a guess based off how I seem to learn though, so I have no idea =S[/quote]
[quote=“ironlady”]…Of course, the need to go to work and pay bills also cuts into language acquisition time pretty severely after age 12… 
[/quote]
Age 12? Man, you had it rough. No wonder you cry.
Hey, what do you think about recent claims that the adult brain is far more plastic than we thought in the past. I recal there have been some studies on learning to play music and finding that adults aren’t really that much worse off than kids, but that we simply don’t have the time to put into it and that accounts for most of the difference.
All I can tell you is that I know of no person with a normal brain (no pathology) who has failed to acquire a second language as an adult if they got enough comprehensible input and wanted to acquire it. (I do know plenty who have failed to learn a new language as an adult, through study. And my mother has acquired a little Chinese, but says emphatically that she doesn’t want to speak Chinese. I reckon that’s slowing her progress some. 
) What you’re saying is very true, I think – I could get a lot more input if that was all I had to do all day long.
Really, I never live in the cities? Shit I must tell that to my office staff in Taipei where I spend a most of my time.
Yes Ironlady I learnt Malay in the foreign service, 40 hour a week classes in a professional ( RAAF) language school ( with a proper language lab ) taught by both native and non native speakers. Age is not an issue to learning, I was 25 at the tme. I learnt Chinese at 30. Thankfully I have learnt Malay as I will be conducting a training course in Malaysia in a couple of weeks and it’s good to have both Chinese and Malay to use in addition to English.
[quote=“Satellite TV”]
I learnt Malay in the foreign service, 40 hour a week classes in a professional ( RAAF) language school .[/quote]
You must have seen a lot of action. When you show people your citizenship card, do you let them see your Victoria Cross, too? 
[quote=“Chris”]The government made its decision based on the “studies” and advocacy of a handful of charlatan linguists who claim that children are unable to learn their L1 properly when simultaneously learning an L2, when the worldwide consensus of experts in childhood language acquisition has been for decades that children learn languages like sponges, with no deficit in the learning of one language when simultaneously learning another. I once even had a student who subscribed to this linguistic BS and applied to study linguistics in the US… I got into an argument with her about it, and I hope if she was accepted to the school they’ll straighten her out.
[/quote]Agreed.
I’ve read that learning two languages simultaneously in childhood can lead to some confusion early on but by adolescence bilingual kids are all straightened out in both languages and have some advantages in meta-linguistic knowledge and cognitive benefits to boot (see Ellen Bialystok and her research on ignoring irrelevant information/executive processors)
If they really believe that bilingualism hurts children, why not attempt to stop kids from learning Taiwanese in the family home? I think the ‘no English in Kindy’ has more to do with job creation or something like that. “They’re takin our jobs!” Doesn’t matter because if a parent wants English language instruction in Kindy they have to look no further than the very visible Hess to find it.
I notice a marked difference between my students who started to learn a language in kindy and those who started learning later in life. It could be a variety of factors but overall I find the kindy-taught kids have better comprehension, pronunciation and are able to converse more naturally. Probably because it comes more naturally to give ‘comprehensive input’ to children so even an untrained teacher is likely to do it. I find myself saying far too many things that my students can’t hope to understand simply because they are adults and I feel it would be patronizing to talk to them like babies.
IronLady! I need to learn how to do comprehensive input for grown ups!!! Seriously considering buying some Chinese lessons from you just to see it in action (maybe once this cash flow problem is fixed…)
You must have seen a lot of action. When you show people your citizenship card, do you let them see your Victoria Cross, too? 
[/quote]
Nah, Jimip, I don’t go around faking what qualifications and awards I have. I did year 10, then 1 year as an apprentice Chef at 16 / 17, worked around some odd jobs, 8 months in a dpeartment store selling paints and hardware till 18, worked on a coal mine as a labourer, did contract cleaning so I could finish high school as a mature age student, started Uni but had to leave due to surgery from being hit by a drunk driver…
Language training came courtesy of the fact I was in Foreign Affairs and they decided to get rid of me by posting me work in Brunei at the Australian High Commission, so before that was sent to the Defence Force School of Languages at Point Cook, to learn Malay, at a RAAF base for traning pilots and language students from various government departments, mainly Defence and Foreign Affairs… Thats all she wrote,
But our Australian Current VC hold you can read about here below
Corporal Roberts-Smith - who single-handedly stormed 2 enemy machinegun positions in Afghanistan in 2010
Read more: smh.com.au/entertainment/tv- … z1nsPFSmpK
Flippant comments about VC recipient 'a disgrace smh.com.au/national/flippant … 1u2mk.html
You know I have never even thought of that 
?
[quote]IronLady! I need to learn how to do comprehensive input for grown ups!!! Seriously considering buying some Chinese lessons from you just to see it in action [/quote] Ironlady, could you please define in simple terms what comprehensible input is? I am interested in it as well and think it would help me with both the teaching and learning sides of language acquisition.
Well…comprehensible input for classroom purposes in TPRS means you hear language that you can understand. Completely. Not mostly. Not somewhat. Completely.
Your brain acquires foreign languages beautifully on its own, but to do that, it needs to match foreign language to meaning. Obviously you can’t match meaning to language if you don’t know the meaning in the first place. That’s why immersion often fails – there is so much language that has no meaning attached, or has the wrong meaning attached (not to mention other factors like time, frustration, and other obligations, etc. etc.) TPRS concentrates the immersion experience by limiting the language the learner hears and making sure it is 100% comprehensible, thus ensuring that the brain is able to make those matches constantly. When the match has been made enough times (maybe 50-70 for a new word for a beginner, many more times to generalize a structure like “this is how we express the comparative in Chinese”) the language will be acquired and available to “fall out of the mouth” when desired, without thought.
You know I have never even thought of that ?[/quote]
Nobody tells you what language to learn at home and I cannot believe you stupidly suggest what you did. Just as in the US where kids speak say Spanish at home and learn English as a second language, many kids here speak Taiwanese / Hakka / Aboriginal languages at home at home but need to learn Mandarin at school and at Kindy. Perhaps because they are learning Mandarin as a second language the government policy makers decided thats enough for the poor kiddies. Maybe they have the proper educationcal qualifictions to make those policies, and whether or not you agree with them, it is what they have decided upon. I don’t think the kiddies learning English with a few 30 minute classes a week would hurt them too much either.
It’s great to here these Taiwanese speaking kindy kids saying wan tuu swee, ah bwee she.
Jimipresley does that already, not sure what system he uses, I think its waterboarding.