Education woes
It has been 20 years since I first started visiting Taiwan, a country full of warmth and hospitality.
However, as my affection for the country continues to grow, so too does my frustration with its waning education system and, in particular, abysmal emphasis on English and English instruction.
I was reminded of this when I recently took the Maokong Gondola. Instead of enjoying the scenery of the ride, I just sat there in the swaying cabin shaking my head at the English brochure I had been handed — a government-sanctioned brochure — that was plagued with amateurish English and faulty grammar.
Don’t officials in the tourism department realize that handing off translation to unqualified people only furthers the perception that Taiwan is not ready to promote international tourism or to convince the world that it has come of age; that it makes Taiwan look like a third-world country?
Quality English writing does matter to English travelers and, in their eyes, writing that is barely acceptable is never good enough and significantly demeans the quality of the product with which it is associated.
Of course much has been written about the antiquated education system in Taiwan. While Western countries are reducing class sizes and focusing on team-based critical thinking and technology-driven instruction that expects students to communicate using various platforms, Taiwan still seems content to maintain its oversized classrooms, which have little student interaction, and bushibans, where memory-driven grammar instruction is taught for no other reason than to pass a test.
Promoting authentic language development in Taiwan is simply not a priority.
G.C. Allan
Bade, Taoyuan
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