The Ministry of Education plans to thoroughly overhaul English teaching in elementary schools between now and 2011.
One of the priorities is improving the quality of teachers. The plan makes it clear that English teachers will have to pass English proficiency tests at a higher level and gradually improve their qualifications.
I would like to believe that the plan is based on good intentions. By aiming high, it may produce better results than would otherwise be the case.
It must be said, however, that English has been taught in elementary schools since 2001. Several years have gone by, so why has training excellent English teachers proven to be such a difficult process?
The standard of the high-intermediate level General English Proficiency Test (GEPT, 全民英檢) is not an unrealistic target.
According to the Language Training and Testing Center (LTTC, 語言訓練測驗中心), which sets and administers the GEPT, candidates who pass the high-intermediate level have mature English skills.
They are able to use English over a range of contexts. They may make a few mistakes, but not enough to impede communication. Their English ability is the equivalent of university graduates who majored in something other than English.
The LTTC lists a number of professions for which such a level of competence in English would be desirable, such as business professionals, information management personnel, secretaries, engineers, research assistants, flight attendants and tour guides.
Still, it must be said that the GEPT high-intermediate test does present a certain degree of difficulty: It is not a piece of cake, by any means.
I know from my own experience on university assessment committees that the threshold of competence for master’s degrees in linguistics or bachelor’s degrees in English or other foreign languages is not higher than this standard.
The department where I teach used to require undergraduate students to pass the second (writing and speaking) stage of the GEPT high-intermediate test before graduating. Many students complained that this was a tough ask.
Last year, the requirements were lowered to the first (listening and reading) stage of the high-intermediate test, but many students still fail to pass on the first attempt and must take additional courses to satisfy the requirements for graduation.
It is a little ironic that many students majoring in English or other foreign languages cannot pass the GEPT high-intermediate test even after several attempts — and it is not for want of trying.
According to LTTC standards, English teachers should have advanced skills, speak fluent English with few mistakes and be able to apply it in academic and specialized fields.
Their ability should be equivalent to that of graduates or postgraduates majoring in English or other foreign languages, or those who have studied abroad at undergraduate or postgraduate levels and obtained degrees in English-speaking countries.
I can confirm that this standard is beyond the reach of most or all of my students. As to whether graduates from other top colleges have such abilities, I cannot say.
In recent years I have paid many visits to schools in remote areas of southern Taiwan to conduct experiments or hold tests on English phonology.
I found that the main reason for the poor English ability of students in these areas is that there are few capable teachers. In addition, the students’ parents are not well off economically or socially, while the children lack social and cultural stimulation.
So, when it comes to learning English, tens of thousands of these students are fated to fail from the very start.
Schools and communities in these areas may attempt any number of flexible approaches — like sharing and rotating teachers between schools or relying on substitute teachers — but they still can’t find a solution for the shortage of capable teachers.
Cultivation and allocation of English teachers is just one component of sensible deployment of teaching resources.
If the Ministry of Education wants to promote reform in English teaching, it will have to confront this problem first.
Setting a threshold for elementary school English teacher ability could raise the prestige of English teaching as a profession, and it could motivate teachers to improve their skills through in-service training.
Equally, however, the threshold may have the opposite effect if it makes it even more difficult for schools to hire the teachers they need.
It therefore remains an open question whether the Ministry of Education’s plan will succeed in improving the ability of elementary school English teachers.
Su Fu-hsing is a professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at National Chiayi University.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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