Why Taiwan students' English skills are embarrassingly poor

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Why Taiwan students' English skills are embarrassingly poor

2006/12/23 The China Post

The feeling is widespread among English teachers in Taiwan that, despite
efforts made by the government and educational authorities, the English
skills of Taiwanese students have been declining from year to year.  This
feeling has been substantiated by the students' scores on the Test of
English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Statistics from the Educational
Testing Service (ETS), which administers the test, have repeatedly shown
that Taiwanese test takers' scores are inferior to those achieved by those
from most other Asian countries. Even the candidates from third-world
countries like Vietnam and Afghanistan have done better. The same is true
with regard to Taiwan residents' performance on the Test of English for
International Communication (TOEIC), which is administered by the ETS to
measure the ability of non-native English-speaking people to use English
in everyday work activities. Taiwanese candidates' TOEIC scores were
inferior to those made by their Thai, Columbian, and Libyan counterparts.
This situation is not only embarrassing but also disgraceful, given the
emphasis that the government has placed on improving English education in
local schools and the huge amounts of resources devoted to carrying out
the government policy.

A person's TOEFL or TOEIC score, admittedly, is not necessarily an
accurate measure of his or her ability to use English effectively.
However, it is unanimously believed here on this island that our young
people do not possess the English proficiency that measures up to the
effort and funds that have been invested in the teaching of this foreign
language. Once, when we published an editorial pointing out this problem,
some readers sent letters expressing a different view. "So what?" one
reader wrote in his letter, arguing that good English skills are not all
that important. The English abilities of people in countries such as the
Philippines and Malaysia are superior to that of the Taiwanese, the reader
said, but those countries are behind Taiwan economically. That argument is
not entirely wrong. In our opinion, however, Taiwan's economy would fare
even better if its people were more fluent in English. For example, if the
Taiwanese were better at English, the island would not have to import so
many English learning materials, resulting in a considerable saving on
foreign exchange.

Also, if Taiwan wants to have a more prosperous tourist industry, better
abilities to communicate with foreign visitors are definitely a necessity.
A study sponsored by the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission
under the Executive Yuan (Cabinet) found that most foreign visitors to
Taiwan feel that the locals' ability to communicate in English is
inadequate. The reasons for this inadequacy seem allusive but are really
not hard to find. One of the chief factors behind our students' failure to
achieve proficiency in English is the backward teaching methods used in
the island's schools. Another is the shortage of qualified teachers, a
problem that's especially acute in the island's rural areas. In most of
the island's school classrooms, English is taught as an academic
discipline rather than a communicative skill. Students are required to
memorize words and grammatical rules but are given few opportunities to
practice using the language in real-life situations.

Another factor is the government's policy that elementary school children
must learn local dialects as school subjects. In our view, the time the
kids spend learning the dialects can be more profitably used to learn
English. As for the dialects, they can be taught as optional subjects for
students whose parents believe their children need the ability to use the
vernaculars.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/archives/editorial/20061223/98269.htm

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