Today and for the foreseeable future, English is the global language and a necessary means to enhance one’s competitiveness in many job or school markets. The problem is that there is a lack of connection between the role of public education to prepare students for these markets and the actual abilities that students have when they leave school.
There are two solutions to this problem: Change the education system or change the approach to teaching English in schools. Ideally, the most effective solution is a combination of the two.
Changing the education system would mean spending more money on increasing students’ exposure to English via bilingual education, such as by teaching math in English in addition to English language classes, or making high stakes high school and college English exams more like the TOEFL iBT, which tests integrated skills and productive skills like speaking and writing.
Such changes would be very effective because teaching in Taiwan is very closely related to preparing for exams. They would force teachers and teacher educators to focus on whole language and learning “how to use” English instead of learning “about” English.
However, these changes would be very costly, especially in light of the immense expenditures already allotted to English language education.
Another option for change is the “glocalization” of English Language Teaching (ELT) in Taiwan among English teachers at the grassroots level. This would entail a blending of teaching theory, attitudes and strategies from English-speaking countries and local teaching expertise, learning styles and educational contexts.
Originating in Anglophone countries and the dominant approach and buzzword for ELT in the 1980s and 1990s, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is a learner-centered approach that emphasizes productive language practice, a mostly English classroom and contextualized language learning (as opposed to memorizing word lists).
However, when CLT has been exported to countries like Taiwan, teachers have become frustrated by students’ unwillingness to speak and the lack of available time for student-centered practice in light of pressures to prepare students for high stakes exams implemented by the government that students, parents and schools focus on.
The result is a default mode of teaching that has been in operation in Taiwan for decades and that has the teacher teaching in Chinese, emphasizing reading and writing (usually only sentences or short passages) and transmitting knowledge of English to students who are expected to absorb and reproduce it for tests.
Exams are important in the learning process, and because the examination system has a long and revered history in culturally Chinese societies, exams are a very good source of motivation for students to study.
In 1996, Jane Willis identified three essentials for language learning success: input (reading, listening), output (speaking, writing) and motivation. And she was surely right to point out that the third factor — motivation — is the most important.
She also highlighted a “desirable” key to language learning success: instruction.
Herein lies the key — and challenge — for language educators in Taiwan.
Successful language learning needs not only practice, but also motivation. High stakes tests are good sources of motivation to memorize, and memorization is an important means to learning and understanding.
Talented exam-focused teachers often teach deductively by using memorable ways of presenting explanations and then getting students to practice mechanical drills. This approach increases students declarative knowledge about language, especially in the short-term.
Nonetheless, practice is a necessary precondition to learn how to use language as a “tool” of communication. Unlike other subjects studied in school, language is a skill that is only meaningful in social interaction: Speaking requires a listener, writing requires a reader.
To achieve this, teachers need to create in-class opportunities for students to perform tasks that require a meaningful exchange of information.
Recent research also notes that inductive teaching, in which students have to do guesswork and derive rules about language use, is more effective for raising awareness of language usage and is retained longer.
Teachers need to persuade students of the rationale and value of in-class practice. This should not be a hard-sell because it is commonly known that a large population of the world — including many in international trade-centered Taiwan — increasingly require a proficiency in English for daily affairs like e-mailing and telephone calls, not to mention that managerial skills like writing reports and giving presentations are often necessary for career advancement.
A short-term view of tests needs to be balanced by long-term skill-building.
In other words, current methods of teaching and learning and testing should not compete, but be integrated with learner-centered CLT practice.
Although details need to be worked out depending on the teacher, class and institution, this is the challenge to all English language teachers in Taiwan: to glocalize ELT by balancing CLT-approaches and exam preparation.
Only then will teachers be able to motivate their students to learn how to use language for their own purposes.
Nigel Daly is the academic director at Kojen Adult Department (Gongguan branch).
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