Taiwan's struggle with English

Taiwan's struggle with English
Standards are slipping despite countless hours spent studying the language



By Lee Seok Hwai
The Sunday Times 25 March 2012

Madam Chen Hui-wen feels her 14-year-old son's pain when it comes to learning English.

'One time, he had to memorise 100 words for a test, and he got 80 of them wrong,' said Madam Chen, who lives in the southern city of Kaohsiung.

All is not well with the state of English in Taiwan. Despite learning the language from the age of nine and all the way through high school, many Taiwanese struggle to carry out a conversation in English.

English-language classes are often fixated on grammar drills and memorising words, with little chance for students to practise speaking.

As a result, experts say, Taiwanese students have been overtaken by Chinese students - who have been studying English with a vengeance, and Taiwanese executives are losing out on top jobs in the international labour market.

'Look at the Asia regional directors of multinational companies,' said Professor Chen Chao-ming of the English Department of National Chengchi University.

'How many of them are Taiwanese? Most are from Hong Kong, Singapore and India.'

While the problem is not new, a recent report by the University of Cambridge's English assessment arm for non-native speakers, or Esol Examinations, showed that Taiwanese students have fallen behind.

Last year, for the first time ever, Taiwanese primary school pupils fell behind mainland Chinese children in Esol scores for children aged seven to 12.

Not only that, Taiwanese high school and senior high students aged 13 to 18 trailed behind students in South Korea, Hong Kong and India, according to the biennial report.

The test is not mandatory. Some 20,000 children in Taiwan took the test at elementary level and about 6,000 at the high school and senior high level, Ms Wang Su-wei, manager at Esol Taiwan, told The Sunday Times.

Taiwanese children start learning English from the age of nine, with two lessons a week until Primary 6. In high school, they attend between two and four lessons a week. They have four lessons a week in senior high.

Despite countless English tuition centres and cram schools across the island, standards remain patchy at best, say education experts.

Professor Vincent Chang, dean of the Chinese Culture University's College of Foreign Languages, said the crux of the problem is that English is not widely spoken in Taiwan. 'English is not a survival skill here. Sixty per cent of people are not good in English but that has not hampered their career,' he said. 'Most people learn English to pass school examinations.'

Deputy Education Minister Lin Tsung-ming agreed. Chinese, the mother tongue, remains the top priority of language education in Taiwan, he told The Sunday Times.

'We need to lay a good foundation in Chinese first, before going on to English,' he said.

Still, he pointed out that more universities are trying to raise English standards and now offer more courses taught in English to attract international students.

At the primary school level, the ministry is recruiting more foreign teachers, and sending Taiwanese teachers overseas for training.

Still, the emphasis on grammar and memorisation means students are able to read and write with reasonable competency, but falter in listening and speaking.

To Prof Chen, the problem is that class sizes are large and there are not enough lessons. 'As soon as they get home, they forget what they learnt in school,' he said.

He is involved in a long-term experiment in seven elementary schools in Taitung, one of the poorest regions in Taiwan. Pupils attend two lessons per week, with each lesson planned around a theme - colours, for example.

'Before the class, pupils are asked to find anything of the colour blue, and bring it to class for activities,' he said. 'They are also encouraged to read story books.

'In this way, learning is made to be fun and not rushed, and students actually retain what they learn in class.'

Such a change is needed for all students in Taiwan, he said, but that would require a change in mindset from the top.

Meanwhile, for parents like Madam Chen - whose son struggles despite attending tuition classes and having one-on-one lessons with a home tutor - it feels like a losing battle.

'I've never heard him speak in English,' she said. 'We just don't have the environment for that.'

seokhwai@sph.com.sg

David Crystal's links

1) David Crystal - Which English?
Which 'English' should we teach our students? Global English with Professor David Crystal. Another innovative feature of Global - Macmillan's new course for ...

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2) David Crystal - How is the internet changing language today?

How is the internet changing language today? Global English with Professor David Crystal. Another innovative feature of Global - Macmillan's new course for a...

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Phrase-worthy - Future tense

Published on Jan 6, 2012
By Geraint Wong

HUMAN beings have always yearned to know what lies in the future, so as to make plans, take precautions or seize opportunities.


But, alas, the human mind has not been endowed with prescience. Many people have therefore relied on the services of fortune-tellers, soothsayers, palmists and any who claim to be able to offer them a glimpse into the crystal ball - literally or figuratively.


This desire for foreknowledge has not abated. In fact, it has probably intensified now that people are so used to having information readily available at the click of a mouse.

These days, it is not clairvoyants but experts in various fields who supply information about the future. And a season such as this, as one year ends and another begins, tends to be a favourite time to dispense such information.


Two verbs are usually used for this purpose: 'forecast' and 'predict'.


'Forecast', of Middle English origin, means to estimate, guess or imagine something beforehand.


'Predict' derives from the Latin prae (before) and dicere (to say), so it translates literally as 'foretell'. But English is notorious for having very few true synonyms - between any two words that are very close in meaning, there's bound to be a slight difference in some respect, such as register (level of formality), connotation (underlying meaning) or collocation (usage with other words).


So while 'predict' and 'foretell' both mean to say something beforehand, the latter carries a connotation of certainty - one does not foretell an event unless one knows it is definitely going to happen. It is therefore unsurprising that this verb hardly ever appears in the news. Who, after all, can be sure about the future?


As for the two verbs that frequently crop up, 'predict' seems to imply greater conviction than 'forecast'.


Nevertheless, the words are often used interchangeably. So we regularly read about economists making both forecasts and predictions - whether they are about inflation, unemployment or the fate of the euro zone.


In fact, sometimes one verb may be used when the other is expected.


For example, while the weatherman traditionally gives forecasts, recently the following line appeared in a news report: 'The National Environment Agency predicts short showers in the afternoon for tomorrow and Thursday.' ('Cheer up, wet spell should ease today, says weatherman'; Dec 20)


And an Agence France-Presse story had this to say before the funeral of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il: 'Military marching bands would play funeral music while convoys of cars carrying flowers and senior officials would follow the coffin as hundreds of thousands looked on, the media forecast.' ('N. Korea plans huge send-off for late leader'; Dec 28)


But does it really matter which of the two verbs is used? Is an event likelier to happen just because some expert has predicted rather than simply forecast it? What factors should one consider in deciding how reliable a prediction or forecast is: the credibility of the writer, the source of the facts, the soundness of the analysis?


Best-selling author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his 2007 book The Black Swan: The Impact Of The Highly Improbable, claims that 'our world is dominated by the extreme, the unknown and the very improbable'.


He adds: 'Certain professionals, while believing they are experts, are in fact not. Based on their empirical record, they do not know more about their subject matter than the general population, but they are much better at narrating - or, worse, at smoking you with complicated mathematical models.'


Audacious words there. But whether you agree with Mr Taleb or not, his statement provides much food for thought. Who, after all, had predicted Sept 11 or the stock market crash of 2008?


So should we, in the first place, be putting faith in any talk about the future?


Perhaps we are better off not counting our chickens before they are hatched, but being content to confine ourselves to what we know will happen (barring unforeseen circumstances, of course) - scheduled events such as the London Olympics, the United States presidential election and the opening of the Gardens By The Bay and River Safari, due to take place this year.


Where such occurrences are concerned, newspapers often use the phrasal verbs 'look ahead' and 'look out for' - the idea is to offer readers a preview rather than a prediction.


Yes, we still long to know how events will unfold, how matters will turn out, how the story will end. Yet, no matter how many predictions or forecasts we read, we still can't be sure, can we? So why not just take each day as it comes and expect the unexpected? Serendipity is always a welcome thing.


Happy 2012!


gerwong@sph.com.sg

Back Story:
Yes, we still long to know how events will unfold, how matters will turn out, how the story will end. Yet no matter how many predictions or forecasts we read, we still can't be sure, can we?

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Interesting read on List of Banned Words for 2012