Taiwan: Working together to learn English

[Francis Hult]

Taipei Times

 

Working together to learn English

 

If you've ever been in an English classroom in Taiwan, you may find the following scene familiar. As you walk in, you find the desks lined up in columns facing the teacher, platform and blackboard. 

The teacher is explaining lots of words, phrases, grammar and sentence structures by lecturing, while the students are busy filling their books or notebooks with many English and Chinese words. 

The class looks awfully neat and disciplined, doesn't it? However, the teaching effectiveness is really questionable because it is not very student-centered and students depend on the teacher all the time, waiting for instructions such as repeating, reading aloud, translating sentences, answering perfunctory questions and so on. 

If we agree that English is best learnt through communication and interaction, making students work together in pairs or groups is one of the best interpersonal approaches in the classroom. Group work usually means groups of six students or less, with the optimal number being three or four. 

 

Full story:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/11/20/2003388742

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