A university professor said that while regulations prohibiting English-language teaching at preschools are “laughable,” formal introduction of it into earlier levels of the curriculum must be done cautiously.
Shih Chien University professor of English language Chen Chao-ming (陳超明) said that introducing English into grade one or preschool curricula would require amendments to the 12-year national education program.
However, doing so might cause panic among parents and many might feel compelled to send their children to English cram schools, he said.
Chen, who said he has always been a proponent of an English-language curriculum, said that ensuring long-term study of a language is more important than introducing it earlier.
The crucial age for a child’s development in their native language is from six to seven, and as English is not a mother language in Taiwan, children must study for longer to understand more than the fundamentals of pronunciation, he said.
One of the problems with the curriculum is that elementary-school students have English classes only once per week, and after class is over, they forget what they covered, Chen said, adding that there are few opportunities for students to use English in their daily lives.
“This makes it a waste of everyone’s time to teach English,” he said.
Using picture books, cartoons and children’s songs are good ways to get children interested in the material, he said, adding that this way they would “accidentally” learn how to use English.
Requiring children to study English through rote memorization will make them give up, he said.
Most private preschools teach English, despite the regulations, while at public preschools, parents often contact teachers privately to request English lessons for their children, he said, citing an owner of a private preschool who told him that if English lessons are not provided, it is difficult to find students.
“The right to decide a child’s education should be given back to parents, not restricted by legislation,” he said.
If English is to become an official language, as Premier William Lai (賴清德) has advocated, students must have at least one English class per day, starting in grade five or six, Chen said.
National Sun Yat-sen University professor Yen Ching-hsiang (顏慶祥) said he supports easing restrictions on English-language teaching, but the quality of teaching must be the same in urban and rural areas.
“How deep a child’s knowledge is should not be decided by how deep their parents’ pockets are,” Yen said.
The government must also ensure that teachers are well-qualified, which will be of even greater importance if English-language learning is extended to preschools, he said.
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