With a view to improving English proficiency in coordination with the Executive Yuan's "Challenge 2008" plan, the Ministry of Education has decided to spend NT$1.3 billion hiring foreign English teachers to teach at state-run elementary and high schools and to help train local teachers. The plan will begin this summer. The target will be to recruit 1,000 foreign English teachers per year at salaries ranging from NT$60,000 to NT$90,000. This is a major change. Foreign teachers naturally have a better command of English, but that does not necessarily mean the teaching results would be better.
In the same vain, Taiwan used to be known for high TOEFL scores, but high TOEFL scores do not necessarily represent high proficiency in English. After TOEFL changed its test format to include essay writing, the test scores of Taiwanese students are now ranked 14th in Asia, better only than Japan. Such results naturally worry a government eager to internationalize. Now English courses have been moved ahead to begin from elementary school instead of junior high. But the problems in Taiwan's English education lie not with how early it begins, but with the syllabus, teaching methods and learning environment. English education in Taiwan places too much emphasis on memorization. Consequently, the learning results are poor.
Hiring foreign teachers at high salaries can only resolve part of the problem. The good points of foreign teachers are: they know the correct pronunciation; their teaching methods are lively; they can link the lessons to daily life; they can help students get over the apprehension of speaking to a foreigner. The drawbacks: foreign teachers have difficulty communicating in Chinese; they cannot explain lessons in ways that are easily understandable, leading to a great deal of guesswork for students. All in all, hiring foreign teachers is very costly and the quality of the teachers can be very uneven. At the kindergarten and advanced levels, they have much to offer that local teachers cannot. However, at mid levels, there are both advantages and disadvantages to hiring local or foreign teachers.
Hiring foreign English teachers would not be a problem if the government were financially healthy. But everyone knows that the government is in a budget predicament. A foreign teacher costs twice as much as a local teacher. Besides, hiring foreign teachers at high salaries will not only have a crowding-out effect on local English teachers, but will also seriously affect job opportunities for other foreigners in Taiwan. Last year, the Executive Yuan considered making English the country's second official language and trained more than 3,000 English teachers. Many of those teachers are still jobless, and yet the education ministry is trumpeting its plan to hire foreign teachers, thereby seriously affecting the local training programs.
This newspaper recognizes the contribution of foreign teachers to English education, but the ministry should first justify the demand for English teachers, plan training programs and arrange for an appropriate division of labor between local and foreign teachers. Ideally, it should give priority to hiring foreign trainers to train local teachers, and hiring foreign educators to compile teaching materials. This would make good use of the foreign teachers' skills -- a good justification for hiring them at high salaries. This will also divide the work between local and foreign teachers and avoid a mutual crowding-out effect between local and foreign teachers.
I came to Taiwan to pursue my degree thinking that Taiwanese are “friendly,” but I was welcomed by Taiwanese classmates laughing at my friend’s name, Maria (瑪莉亞). At the time, I could not understand why they were mocking the name of Jesus’ mother. Later, I learned that “Maria” had become a stereotype — a shorthand for Filipino migrant workers. That was because many Filipino women in Taiwan, especially those who became house helpers, happen to have that name. With the rapidly increasing number of foreigners coming to Taiwan to work or study, more Taiwanese are interacting, socializing and forming relationships with
Whether in terms of market commonality or resource similarity, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co is the biggest competitor of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). The two companies have agreed to set up factories in the US and are also recipients of subsidies from the US CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law by former US president Joe Biden. However, changes in the market competitiveness of the two companies clearly reveal the context behind TSMC’s investments in the US. As US semiconductor giant Intel Corp has faced continuous delays developing its advanced processes, the world’s two major wafer foundries, TSMC and
We are witnessing a sea change in the government’s approach to China, from one of reasonable, low-key reluctance at rocking the boat to a collapse of pretense over and patience in Beijing’s willful intransigence. Finally, we are seeing a more common sense approach in the face of active shows of hostility from a foreign power. According to Article 2 of the 2020 Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), a “foreign hostile force” is defined as “countries, political entities or groups that are at war with or are engaged in a military standoff with the Republic of China [ROC]. The same stipulation applies to
The following case, which I experienced as an interpreter, illustrates that many issues in Taiwan’s legal system originate from law enforcement personnel. The problem stems not so much from their education and training, but their personal attitude — characterized by excessive self-confidence paired with a lack of accountability. One day at 10:30am, I was called to a police station in New Taipei City for an emergency. I arrived an hour later. A man was tied to a chair, having been arrested at the airport due to an outstanding arrest warrant. It quickly became apparent that the case was related to
RSS