Teacher Discussion Forums

Some people had strong but significant views about the English teaching situation in the Republic of China (Taiwan). One of them said that” Definitely, there is a need for a complete change in the teaching style here in Taiwan.” The present results of that particular foreign language here is obviously negative. For example, the Chinese student learning English cannot or will not think directly. Most of them, with six or more years of public school education were embarrassed when they spoken English in public, holding incorrect language knowledge and cannot apply what they have been taught. They want the use of a foreign language, but they are totally thousands of miles away from any command of it.
According to my experience in my high school days:” I could memorize fifty English idioms in a day; I managed to do so by reading them over and over again, but as soon as I passed the test on the idioms, I forgot almost of them. The next I enter-countered them, they would be still new to me, so I had to learn them by heart again. I certainly realized that this was not the useful way to learn English, but with me it was just the way to enter a good university.
These obersavations bring to mind some aged problems in our secondary education. Our education policy designers seem to ignore, or do not know, that the incorrect methods of learning English is to whet the students’ desire to pursue knowledge and to develop the students’ ability to think. What a terrible phenomenon.

We feel the more upset about this situation when it occurs to us that many foreigners in Taiwan, who have had only a few years of learning Chinese can speak Chinese with near-native fluency. This should not be too surprising if we shift the attention on Chinese-teaching style. Almost without exception, what happens in a typical English class is a one way conversaton-- active, talking teacher and passive,silent students, just the opposite to the way it woulgt to be.