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Taiwan's English service improving, survey shows

A government-commissioned survey released yesterday suggested that foreign nationals' overall satisfaction in the country's English services continued to increase this year.

The Executive Yuan's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) in 2003 launched a project to make Taiwan an English-friendly environment.

Since then, the commission has conducted annual satisfaction surveys among foreign nationals to assess the plan's performance.

Tourists and foreign business people visitn Taiwan, as well as foreigners living in Taiwan for more than six months, were the two target groups of the survey.

In this year's survey, the degree of overall satisfaction from tourists and businesspeople increased from 57.9 percent last year to 61.7 percent, or an increase of 3.8 percent, the polls showed.

That number is up from 43.5 percent satisfaction in the first year the RDEC implemented the plan.

But the degree of overall satisfaction polled from foreign nationals living in Taiwan only increased by 0.5 percent, from 39.2 percent last year to 39.7 percent this year.

Jay Shih (施能傑), head of the commission, said that the differences in the results came from the fact that foreigners living in Taiwan for over six months set higher standards for the quality of English.

The degree of overall satisfaction with English services in governmental institutions increased from 47.1 percent to 50.3 percent this year.

Foreigners are more satisfied with English services provided in entry and exit facilities, educational institutions, health service institutions and financial institutions the survey showed.

Most foreigners need more English services while in police stations, shopping, seeking postal services, calling a cab, taking a bus and recognizing road signs, the survey showed.

Shih said some new questions were added to this year's survey to understand how foreigners view English services in connection with their everyday life.

"We need to make improvements in these areas since the degree of satisfaction while applying for a telephone was 34.9 percent, on renting or buying a house was 28 percent and when applying for electricity, gas and water services was about 25 percent," Shih said.

The survey was conducted during July and October among 1,068 foreigners visiting Taiwan and 1,080 foreigners who have lived in Taiwan for more than six months.
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