Researchers say that nearly 30 percent of pre-school age children are afraid to speak because they are getting bad grades in their private English lessons, according to the Child Welfare League Foundation (兒童福利聯盟).
The CWLF held a press conference yesterday and publicized research on private English education of pre-school age children.
The group's research was based on questionnaires. The researchers said there were two different questionnaires for the parents and the children. The statistics were based on 344 questionnaires from the parents and 267 from the children.
According to the research, 85.4 percent of the parents think that it is necessary for their children to learn English. About 65.9 percents of the parents claim that they are, or they had been, giving their pre-school aged children private English education. Only 12 percent of the parents believe that their children do not need private English education.
The research shows that parents in Taiwan are anxious because they fear that their children won't be able to keep up with their classmates in English class when they are old enough to go to school.
Of the respondents, 37.4 percent of the parents say that it is the trend to start English education in pre-school years, 30 percent believe that "the early the better," and 8 percent say that they fear that their children cannot keep up with their school work.
It is alarming that 37 percent of the parents admit that they do not know what kind of private English classes their children are taking. Twenty-six percent say that they only know that there are foreigners in the school they attend.
What do the children think? According to the research, 31 percent of the children say that they are confused because they do not know when to speak English and when to speak Chinese.
Thirty-one percent of the children say that their failure to speak proper English had impeded their social life because their classmates mocked them. Twenty-seven percent became less talkative because they are not successful in learning English.
According to Taiwanese law, it is illegal to hire foreigners as teachers in kindergartens, but many childcare centers that provide English education have foreign teachers. The CWLF says that the government should recognize the phenomenon of pre-school age English education and make laws to regulate the kindergartens that provide them.
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