About once a week I read an article about how students these days can't write, or can't spell, or just don't know much. These articles have been appearing regularly for more than 100 years, going back to 1880, when Harvard University introduced remedial writing classes because so many students were failing the new entrance exams. In 1894, Harvard criticized high school writing teachers for the poor performance of students entering college.
Note that these were the best students in the US attending the best university of its time.
The articles appear in nearly every country, with writers in each country complaining of low standards and often saying that their students are behind those in other countries.
Taiwan has contributed its share. Recent examples include contributions by Eileen Han ("Failing in English," March 27, page 8) and Hugo Tseng ("English scores low in college test," July 24, page 8). In their pieces, both comment on the quality of student essays written for the College Entrance Examination and suggest that Taiwanese students have serious problems writing in English.
Missing, however, from these accusations is real evidence that there has been a decline and that performance is lower than is to be expected. A number of analyses comparing student performance over time have found no decline of literacy in the US. I know of no studies comparing English performance of today's students in Taiwan with those of previous years, but these analyses need to be done before accusations of declining standards are made.
We can make a crude comparison of English proficiency in different countries by looking at TOEFL scores. The only Asian countries that do better than Taiwan on the TOEFL, discounting countries in which English has official status or is very widely used, are China and Korea. I suspect that in China, only the most advanced English students take the TOEFL: three times as many students take the TOEFL in China as in Taiwan, but the population of China is 50 times larger.
There is thus no evidence one way or the other that English proficiency in Taiwan has declined and an examination of TOEFL scores suggests that Taiwanese students are doing quite well compared to students in other countries.
Of course, we should always try to do better. As reported several times in your newspaper, there is very strong evidence that a powerful means of increasing competence in written English is extensive reading ("Reading for fun is vital to learning a language," July 8, page 8).
In addition, research has showed that wide reading is very helpful for improving writing, reading and vocabulary for those studying English in Taiwan, including studies by Syying Lee (
In his article, Tseng describes one exceptional essay he graded that was impressive in both its use of the English language and its content.
It wouldn't be surprising if this student has done a great deal of reading in English.
Stephen Krashen
Tamsui
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