Three years after Taipei City's elementary schools extended English teaching programs to the first grade, English education is still test-oriented, language experts said.
Primary schools should focus English programs on enhancing children's literacy and stimulate their interest as preparation for more sophisticated English learning in the future, they said.
"Primary schools in the US encourage children to read starting in the first grade. Teachers would ask students to write stories in the third or fourth grade to enhance their descriptive skills," said David Dai (戴維揚), president of the English Teacher's Association.
In Taiwan, Dai said, English programs in primary schools stress the importance of listening, and so writing and reading abilities are often ignored.
During a meeting to review English teaching programs in Taipei municipal primary schools since it was extended to the first grade in 2002, school principals said that they have been putting great efforts to improving the quality of English teaching and learning efficiency.
The briefing was presented by Huang San-ji (黃三吉), the principal of Taipei Municipal Wenhua Primary School, and showed that 97 percent of English teachers in the city's primary schools are certified, and that the English book collection at all schools combined reached 136,970 last year.
About 90 percent of second graders, 89 percent fourth graders and 84 percent of sixth graders passed their school's English proficiency tests last year.
Language experts, however, were not impressed by the high percentage and what school principals described as a "great performance by students" that seems to be indicated by the figures.
Instead, they questioned the necessity of evaluating children's English proficiency by giving tests, if the purpose of extending the English program to the first grade was simply to lay a foundation and stimulating the students' interest in learning English.
"Grades alone do not reveal the students' level of English proficiency. Primary school English programs should focus on increasing student's interest, instead of stressing them out with formal tests," said Lin Wen-chi (林文淇), an associate professor in the English Department at National Central University.
Lin suggested that teachers use creative learning tools, such as English learning programs on TV, radio, or interactive teaching tools on the Web as their teaching resources.
Chang Wu-chang (張武昌), an English professor at National Taiwan Normal University, suggested that primary schools should learn students' reading preferences before buying books, take the students to a library to read, and take advantage of "talking" books to make English reading more interesting.
"I also think that the promotion of English reading and writing should be extended to secondary schools, so that our efforts to build up children's reading and writing ability won't be in vain," he added.
While the English programs regulated by the Ministry of Education in primary schools are only offered to third-grade students and above, reports from the ministry showed that at least 17 of the nation's 25 cities and counties have begun English education for first graders, because the high demand for students to learn English as early as possible has propelled local school authorities to begin their English education programs in grade one or even in kindergarten.
Currently, the city's primary schools offer two English classes per week. Director of Taipei City Bureau of Education Wu Ching-chi (吳清基) said that the aim of introducing an English program to first graders is to stimulate the students' interest in learning English, but not to add to their courseload or deprive them of a Chinese-language education.
After listening to the briefing and comments, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) agreed that schools should not stress children out with tests, and suggested that schools encourage teachers and parents to read English books with students.
He also worried that many children who enjoyed learning English give it up later in secondary schools because of test-oriented English teaching.
To better understand possible English learning and teaching discrepancies between primary schools and secondary schools, another education meeting will be held in six months.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching