In the past, junior high school textbooks were published by the National Institute for Compilation and Translation, under the Ministry of Education. Although they were not easy, English beginners could handle them since not too much new vocabulary was taught in the first few lessons.
Such standard textbooks have been abolished today. My students, who are both in the seventh grade at different schools happen to use the same English textbooks -- which contain a lot of new words with very difficult explanations on the first page.
There are even more new words on the second page, and 20 new words on the third page. For example, my poor students have to learn "tape recorder" and "CD player" [by the third page]. We usually teach words that are easy to pronounce at the beginning level. The word "recorder" is never easy to pronounce.
Both my pupils took a year of English when they were in the sixth grade. But they only had one hour of English-language instruction per week, and their teachers could hardly make strict demands. One can well imagine how depressed they are when they suddenly have to learn such difficult words.
I asked them to show me their English textbooks for the sixth grade and almost fainted when I saw the content of the books -- it's even more difficult than that for their first year of junior-high. I just couldn't stand it when I read the sentence "How do you like the weather here?" on the first page. I don't believe that anyone in the world could teach this to little children who are still learning their ABCs.
My pupils told me that many of their elementary school classmates didn't understand English at all and therefore ignored their teachers' instructions. Those who understood the lessons had long been attending language schools.
Without my tutorship each weekend, the two kids would have definitely given up the subject completely. They also told me that many of their classmates now can't read any English word and are perhaps ready to give up.
Many junior high students have given up learning English because they never attended any language schools in the past. They are a disadvantaged group today and will be even more disadvantaged tomorrow.
My professor friends have no sympathy for this. Their children start learning English in kindergarten and attend language schools after entering elementary school. For these children, today's English textbooks are way too easy.
Let's not underestimate the seriousness of this matter. The gap between rich and poor in our society is rapidly broadening. The problem will become worse if more impoverished students give up learning English due to their financial difficulties.
Will my article have any effect? I dare not ask. Those in a disadvantaged group usually don't read newspapers and therefore won't support me. Those so-called education reform activists won't support me either, because they think that education has to be liberalized and that the less interference the ministry has in education, the better.
Still, I hope that government officials can squarely face the textbook problem. Today, many students in their first year of junior high are forced to study English textbooks that they are not ready for. If this is the result of the nation's education reforms, I have to ask, why did we make these changes?
The new Basic Competency Tests for junior high school students have shown a terrible fact: Results for the English test were distributed over a curve with two peaks on each end, which means that most students are doing either very well or very poorly in the subject. The polarization of students' English competency will become worse if this trend continues.
Lee Chia-tung is a professor at National Chinan University.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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