It seems to me that there is a continuing cultural fascination among Taiwanese policy makers for everything foreign, especially when it comes to teaching English. Many Taiwanese seem to think that just because a curriculum or educational concept is foreign-based, it must be superior to existing ones employed in Taiwan.
This has clearly not been the case with the subject of math; Taiwanese students used to rank very high globally in terms of math skills until a European model was adopted some years ago.
The same can be said within the field of teaching English. I have seen many foreign EFL/ESL curriculums used with little success (we must not limit ourselves to British and North American, rather we must incorporate the fine programs out of Australia and New Zealand as well). Part of it has to do with the Taiwanese obsession for the new.
Many Taiwanese love to try something simply because it is novel, whether it is a new food product or an ESL/EFL curriculum. As such, many models adopted by the public and private school systems here have not been fully developed in the country of their origin before being used in Taiwan. Consequently, problems ranging from obtaining an adequate supply of teaching materials to basic "bugs" in some curriculums have not been worked out.
Equally germane, many foreign ESL or language arts curriculums were never intended to be used outside of the country of their origin. Therefore, critical cultural issues relevant to Taiwanese learners were never considered and yet entire curriculums have been imported and implemented without proper modification, obviously with limited success.
As an example, the theory of cooperative education in all subject areas should suffice. It was all the buzz in western Canada as the last century came to a close. I have seen it attempted in Taiwan, but with minimal success because of simple space considerations (too many students per class) and because Taiwanese learners are culturally not used to breaking into groups and working together as North American students are. It is worth mentioning that even among English-speaking countries, some educational concepts have not been so successfully transplanted.
When a pedagogically sound curriculum is imported and effectively adapted, often enough time is not allotted to see the results and it is abandoned too soon, often after considerable effort and finances have been devoted to its use in Taiwan. All too often, only a year or two is given to try a new curriculum when in reality it takes years of skill building to bear fruit. Again, I believe that this is a cultural phenomenon; many times I have had to explain to puzzled parents why their child is not fluent in English after only a few months of studies. It takes years to master Mandarin in a predominantly Mandarin-speaking environment, so why would they believe that it would be easier to learn English in a non-English environment like Taiwan?
This brings me to my last two inter-connected concerns: the role of the parent and the role of the teacher in Taiwan today.
Educators in general believe that learning can be maximized by direct positive parental involvement in their child's education. But during my time in Taiwan, I have seen many parents become less supportive of the teacher and more apathetic in terms of their child's education.
Likewise, the status of teachers in Taiwan has dropped since the 1990s. Indeed, at that time they were often erroneously viewed as almost infallible in most classroom matters. However, the pendulum has now swung too far to the other extreme and their every action is unfairly questioned.
Dan Ritco is a certified teacher from British Columbia, Canada, and has been an ESL/EFL teacher.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS