Taipei Times: Taiwan's government is planning to make English a semi-official language. Do you have any suggestions as to how the government should prepare to do this?
Seok Moi Ng: Singapore started working on making English its main official language way back in the 1970s. Taiwan's government should be patient in making English its second official language because language learning takes time, especially when you are talking about everybody, the whole country, using a new language.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE HSIN YI FOUNDATION
Taiwan should first look for what resources it has for English, what it can afford, because I don't think the government can afford to import a lot of overseas teachers. Taiwan already has some excellent teachers, so what it needs now is a very good teacher-training program. In fact, the government will have to spend a lot of time training local teachers because they are the ones who teach children.
The government should spend time on trials of English-language teaching programs before making the language your second official language. It will cause a lot of pain if you do it in a rush. Better to start small and go in stages.
TT: Do you think Taiwan should hire any teachers from overseas?
Ng: The government has to think very carefully about how any overseas teachers would be used. Are you going to use them as teachers or as trainers to train teachers? If they are hired as trainers, they must know how to train people. It is no use just taking anybody off the street who speaks English. They must know how to blend into the local culture and to work with local people.
Be very careful in considering hiring overseas teachers. There are countries which have imported a lot of overseas people, but encountered many problems because they failed to plan properly before doing so.
TT: How important are texts in English-language teaching? You have strongly recommended the use of story books in the teaching of children. In what ways are stories useful?
Ng: Stories are very important in teaching young children English, because children like listening to them. As a result they are more easily motivated when listening to stories.
As the children grow older, they should have other texts besides stories. Stories should always serve as the starter.
I believe, however, that teacher training is the most important thing in English teaching, much more important than the use of textbooks.
In teaching English, what we look for is the opportunity for children to be able to use it among themselves and with teachers. If teachers are well trained, they will be able to motivate the children in learning English.
TT: What if the children do not have the same English-speaking environment when they go home after school? Will their learning be less effective if their parents do not speak English to them at home?
Ng: In my previous projects in Hong Kong and Singapore, the children loved what they learned in school so much that they took the books home. At home, they sang English songs, read English stories and even asked their parents to join them when doing so. In many cases, parents learnt English from their children in this way.
What I mean is that children could create the environment for themselves and their parents to learn together.
When there is this two-way traffic occurring in which parents teach children Chinese and children help their parents in English, I regard this as the best situation that could happen.
The most effective way to learn a new language is to make sure that you are not afraid and that you have a very good learning environment.
TT: There are many children's English-language schools or kindergartens stressing an ``all-English environment.'' Do you think stopping children from speaking their mother tongue to create this English-speaking environment is an effective way to teach English?
Ng: The "all-English situation" is very bad because once you stop using your own language, you are losing your tradition and your pride in being Taiwanese.
Losing one's mother tongue is like losing one's mother. If you stop using your own language, the continuity, the richness that you and your country share, will be gone.
The other thing is that research into bilingual learning has shown that if a person's first language is strong, he or she will be better at learning a second language. This is because many linguistic concepts such as sentence structure and logic are applicable to both Chinese and English. Once the children have learned them in Chinese, the concepts will automatically transfer when they encounter English texts.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
RSS