English conversation course needed for elementary schools

Chang Wu-chang, a professor of English at Taiwan Normal University, said that the future English program at elementary schools must stress the students' ability to understand spoken English as well as to speak the language because this will make learning English easier.

Elementary school authorities in Taipei pointed out that teachers with only the “higher-middle” level in English proficiency are not sufficiently qualified to teach. They asserted that “high-level English qualifying tests” are needed.

However, elementary school principles in remote areas in the countryside complained about the difficulty of getting any kind of English teachers, let alone instructors of “higher-middle” or “high” levels. Several primary schools around Mt. Ali, for example, share only one English teacher who passed the qualifying examination at the higher-middle level. Therefore, they suggested that different areas adopt different plans.

A few vital issues are involved in English teaching in Taiwan. First, it has long been known that one of the weakest points of local English programs is its lack of resources required to develop students' listening and speaking abilities.

While impartation of grammar and vocabulary can be achieved through the utilization of ordinary tools such as textbooks and dictionaries, the training of speech and listening needs a special environment in which the instructor, preferably a native speaker or a professionally trained person specializing in teaching English as a second language, must master the pronunciation and intonation and the usage of American-English as it is spoken everyday by ordinary Americans.

Thus, students need the opportunity to get in touch personally with English-speaking people or to have access to an audio-visual lab. Not many of them are so lucky and privileged.

A noted scholar and columnist, recently writing in a major local newspaper, recalled his own experience learning English in school. He said while studying in Taiwan he used “stupid” methods to memorize vocabulary and grammar, and through vigorous self-study and extensive readings he began to see a “very big, big world,” which in turn prompted him to study English harder in order to go overseas to see the “big world” in person.

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