Pleasure boosts English
In order to improve Taiwanese students' English competence, specifically performance on the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), experts have recommended that English education be extended to all four years of college and that teacher quality be improved ("Students' English disappoints," Nov. 7, page 2).
Research shows that the best predictor of scores on the TOEFL is the amount of recreational reading students do, using material that students select themselves and read for their own pleasure. Other studies come to very similar conclusions: Students in classes that emphasize pleasure-reading acquire more grammar and vocabulary than students in
traditional classes.
These studies have been done in several different countries, and include important work from Taiwan. Professor Sy-ying Lee of National Taipei University has shown that the amount of pleasure-reading done was a significant predictor of how well students performed in a writing test. Of great interest is the finding that the amount of formal study and the amount of writing did not
predict writing proficiency.
We know from linguistics research that the grammatical system of any language is far too complex to be taught and learned. Linguists admit that they have not yet succeeded in accurately describing all the rules of any language. In addition, academic English requires a vocabulary of between 50,000 and 150,000 words, which is far too many to memorize one at a time.
Reading material that interests students allows them to absorb the complex writing style of English, gradually acquire the huge vocabulary they need, as well as complex grammatical rules.
Before prescribing "more of the same," we might consider taking advantage of this easier, more pleasant path.
Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern California
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) concludes his fourth visit to China since leaving office, Taiwan finds itself once again trapped in a familiar cycle of political theater. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has criticized Ma’s participation in the Straits Forum as “dancing with Beijing,” while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) defends it as an act of constitutional diplomacy. Both sides miss a crucial point: The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world. The disagreement reduces Taiwan’s
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is visiting China, where he is addressed in a few ways, but never as a former president. On Sunday, he attended the Straits Forum in Xiamen, not as a former president of Taiwan, but as a former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman. There, he met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Presumably, Wang at least would have been aware that Ma had once been president, and yet he did not mention that fact, referring to him only as “Mr Ma Ying-jeou.” Perhaps the apparent oversight was not intended to convey a lack of
A foreign colleague of mine asked me recently, “What is a safe distance from potential People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force’s (PLARF) Taiwan targets?” This article will answer this question and help people living in Taiwan have a deeper understanding of the threat. Why is it important to understand PLA/PLARF targeting strategy? According to RAND analysis, the PLA’s “systems destruction warfare” focuses on crippling an adversary’s operational system by targeting its networks, especially leadership, command and control (C2) nodes, sensors, and information hubs. Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, noted in his 15 May 2025 Sedona Forum keynote speech that, as
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) last week announced that the KMT was launching “Operation Patriot” in response to an unprecedented massive campaign to recall 31 KMT legislators. However, his action has also raised questions and doubts: Are these so-called “patriots” pledging allegiance to the country or to the party? While all KMT-proposed campaigns to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have failed, and a growing number of local KMT chapter personnel have been indicted for allegedly forging petition signatures, media reports said that at least 26 recall motions against KMT legislators have passed the second signature threshold
RSS