The Taipei City Government recently announced a new round of junior-high school teacher recruitment for the next academic year. Despite the limited number of openings, the available positions for bilingual teachers in eight subjects was 60, almost the same as for regular teachers, 66.
For example, in music, life technology and information technology, there were openings for regular and bilingual teachers, who would teach in English and Chinese. There were 12 vacancies for bilingual physical education teachers, but how would such teachers help improve students’ physical fitness?
The government has pledged to turn Taiwan into a “bilingual nation” by 2030, hoping to equip students with better international competitiveness by improving their English ability. This is a good policy, but it might help to look at a nearby multilingual country: Singapore.
Singapore has four official languages — English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. Apart from mother-tongue instruction, all school subjects are taught in English.
When Singapore declared independence in 1965, it started promoting the use of English to boost national economic development. Within 15 years, the proportion of students at English-language elementary schools had surged from 50 percent to 90 percent, while the number of students at Chinese, Malay and Tamil-language elementary schools plunged, forcing many such schools to close.
Singapore is a melting pot of ethnic groups, but even so, under its government’s English-first policy, other mother tongues are only spoken by elderly people, while more than half of households there use English to communicate.
A “multilingual country” might sound good, but English has long been the new mother tongue of Singaporeans.
As its 12-year Basic Education has only one mother-tongue class per week, the question is whether the authorities pushing the bilingual policy have spotted the problem in Singapore, where mother tongues are being eliminated.
What can Taiwan do to avoid this issue?
Building an environment for English-only instruction is an urgent task for Taiwan’s bilingual education, but how many local teachers are able to provide English-only instruction? Should students replace their Chinese-language textbooks with English ones?
The Ministry of Education late last year released a draft amendment to the Implementation Regulations Governing Early Childhood Educare and Childcare Services (幼兒教保及照顧服務實施準則), planning to relax restrictions on foreign-language education at kindergartens.
What the ministry should do is review the problems in elementary and junior-high school English-language education.
In the past few years, elementary schools in some cities and counties have extended English courses to the first and second grades, teaching students the English alphabet.
However, reports show that when they advance to the third and fourth grades, they do not have a firm grasp on the alphabet. There should be systematic teaching materials so instruction takes root and teachers’ efforts are not in vain.
At junior-high schools, the number of English-language class hours were reduced from four to three weekly with implementation of the 12-Year Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines in 2019. Ironically, the government is pushing for bilingual education while cutting down on English class hours, while the gap between students in urban and rural areas has grown.
The logic of this bilingual policy must be clarified.
Lin Po-kuan is a junior-high school teacher.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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