ENGLISH FLUENCY IN TAIWAN

Low Success Rate of English Fluency in Taiwan



Low Success Rate of English Fluency in Taiwan

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to enlighten and discuss the low success rate of the English language teachers in Taiwan's private night schools. This paper aims to explore the scope of English language in Taiwan and enlighten the reasons behind the low success rate of English language teachers. An interesting feature in the contemporary Taiwan is the valuing of English language education in its participation in the global race, which was one of the main factors that contributed to the recent curriculum reform of its English language Policy (Collins, 2001, 34-39). Indeed, the learning/teaching of English has become a major focus of attention in almost every dimension of the society (Yeh, Lehman, 2001, 101-107).

The Taiwanese society had virtually no contact with English language before the 1945 retrocession of Taiwan from the 50 years of Japanese colonialism to the nationalist party government Kuomintang, or also known as KMT, of the Republic of China (Collins, 2001, 34-39). The study of English language was further damaged in 1954 with the introduction of the Joint Entrance Examination. The whole processes of English as Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and learning at both junior and senior high schools, for better or worse, were influenced and quite often even regulated by the entrance examination for higher education (Collins, 2001, 34-39). The study of English in Taiwan was literally about the study of grammatical knowledge.

Discussion and Analysis

In private night schools, teachers provide supplementary lessons in the subjects that children study on their day schools including English. One of the expectations is that children will be able to get higher grades in day school if they attend night school because the teachers in night schools prepare the children for their day school tests and lessons (Yeh, Lehman, 2001, 101-107). By achieving high grades at day schools, parents believe that the children are likely to achieve sufficient marks in JCEE which is now known as College Entrance Examination (CEE) to be able to enter university. Hence, there is an expectation that children will do well academically at their day schools if they attend private night schools.

English is the international language for most people from different countries to communicate with each others. And, globalization is the aims for all the big firms in the whole world, people who can speak English get more advantage for jobs. Taiwan is not like China, American or Australia owns big land (Yeh, Lehman, 2001, 101-107). English thereby becomes an important language to do business with foreign countries. In the beginning of the nine-year mandatory education system in 1968, English was not taught until junior high schools. When in high school, students are the most occupied with English, having at least 5 hours of English classes every week during these six years, not to mention the extra hours spent in various buxibans. Buxibans are different from private English language programs in the sense that their only function ...