***

Jeffrey Gil and Minglei Wang

***

Taiwan is promoting its linguistic and cultural diversity (Image source: Taiwan Today)

Taiwan faces a dire international environment manifested in a lack of formal diplomatic recognition and a serious threat to its existence from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Under these circumstances, Taiwan must communicate narratives and project images about itself to the international community in order to “increase Taiwan’s visibility and gather moral support”, especially from other democratic societies.

Taiwan has used language policy as one means of doing this, in particular by emphasising its democratic values and cultural heritage to highlight the differences between itself and the PRC. Examples can be seen in the Indigenous Language Development Act of 2017, which recognised indigenous languages as national languages and contained provisions to support and expand their development, teaching and use. The National Languages Development Act, passed in 2018, extended national language status to Holo (Southern Min variety of Chinese), Hakka (Kejia variety of Chinese) and Taiwanese Sign Language. It also aims to provide greater support for the use of these languages in education and society. According to Vickers and Lin (2022), an important purpose of such language policies is to portray Taiwan as “something more or other than simply a ‘Chinese’ society—that is, as a diverse, multicultural Asian democracy”.

In September 2021, Taiwan created the Taiwan Centre for Mandarin Learning (TCML) to teach and promote Mandarin abroad. We argue that the TCML initiative is also intended to enhance Taiwan’s international profile by distinguishing it from the PRC. Following a brief overview of the origins of the TCML, we focus on how Taiwan has attempted to contrast the TCML with the PRC’s Confucius Institutes (CIs), which have dominated the global promotion of Mandarin for the past two decades.

Establishment of the TCML

TCML promotional video

The TCML initiative is overseen by the Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC), a cabinet-level agency under the Executive Yuan, that is responsible for facilitating exchanges and interactions between Taiwan and communities of ethnic Taiwanese and Chinese in foreign countries. There are currently 66 TCMLs in the world, with 54 in the US and 12 in Europe.  Taiwan aims to increase the number of TCMLs to 100 by 2025, with a concurrent goal to establish what it describes as an “international status of Taiwanese Chinese language teaching”.

The origins of the TCML lie in the launch of the Taiwan-US Education Initiative in December 2020. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on international education cooperation was signed between the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office and American Institute in Taiwan (AIT),^[1] specifying that this partnership:

is expected to enhance and expand existing Mandarin and English language opportunities in the United States and on Taiwan. The MOU also encourages the exploration of opportunities for Mandarin and English language teachers and resources to be deployed to language programs at U.S. universities and Taiwan educational institutions, and facilitates greater exchange between U.S. and Taiwan institutions on best practices.

To the Taiwanese government, this signalled US support in “emphasizing and consolidating Taiwan’s important role in providing Mandarin learning opportunities for students from the US and other countries”, hence motivating the TCML project.

The establishment of the TCML was also facilitated by the US and Europe’s change of stance on the PRC’s dominating role in spreading Mandarin, as manifested in the shutdown of CIs. The CI project has caused concerns about its influence on teaching and research on China, the propagation of the Chinese government’s views, censorship on sensitive issues, and potential spying activities due to their links to the Chinese government and physical location on university campuses. Compounded by worsening relations between the PRC and the US and Europe, which generally hold an unfavourable image of China due to the country’s domestic and international behaviour, these concerns triggered the termination of CIs. The US, for example, has so far terminated 89 out of 122 CIs, while 19 CIs have been shut down across France, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.

TCML promotional poster

This subsequently leads to opportunities for Taiwan to fill the demand gap for Mandarin learning in the US and Europe, where TCMLs have thus far been established. It is in this sense that the inauguration of the TCML project is situated in a geopolitically competitive environment.

Framing the TCML: Mandarin with Taiwanese Characteristics

The TCML’s website highlights Taiwan’s intention to use the TCML to champion such values as “freedom, diversity, academic freedom, and freedom of speech”, which, in the eyes of the Taiwanese government, “form Taiwan’s key competitiveness” in the world. They have constructed a contrast between the TCML and CIs, although Taiwanese officials and directors of TCMLs have been reluctant to directly admit such a strategic orientation.

When commenting on the purpose of launching the TCML project, Tong Zhenyuan, former Chairman of OCAC, explained that:

we are not competing with Confucius Institutes, which are restricted by the American government and even driven out of the US. We, Taiwan, are collaborating with the US government to promote Mandarin teaching and learning on a different level, and we are confident in this situation to gain more support from America’s mainstream society, as we share the same values with the US.

Despite this, Tong emphasised at the inauguration of a TCML in Irvine, California that the aim of the centre was to provide a language learning environment that values “freedom and democracy while respecting cultural diversity” and this was “something that Confucius Institutes can simply not compete with”.

In a similar vein, Li Wenxiong, member of the OCAC, further elaborated that:

it is obvious that Confucius Institutes are basically used by the Chinese government to spread its communist ideology. I think Taiwan, most importantly, conducts teaching activities in a more open, democratic, and free manner, hence facilitating its educational approach into mainstream society as much as possible.

Kou Huifeng, director of the TCML in Silicon Valley, also held that the distinction between the TCML and CI was that “we have a free and open learning environment”. As Kou further noted, “we don’t compete [with CIs], what we do is to hope to let overseas non-Chinese have free choices [when learning Mandarin]”.

Another facet of diversity: Taiwan was the 1st country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage (Image source: 360info)

This image of Taiwan as a provider of Mandarin language education is also displayed in the TCML’s promotional videos. One such video features several students expressing positive views of studying Mandarin in Taiwan. For instance, an American student said that “when you’re in a free country, which you’re able to express your own feelings and ideas, the Internet is not restricted, which makes studying easier”. Another student from the US shared that “in Taiwan, I’ve never run into any freedom of speech problems”. Likewise, an Israeli interviewee pointed out that there were “so-called sensitive issues” associated with her previous experience learning Mandarin which she had not experienced Taiwan. A Swiss/German learner even argued that Taiwan “is pretty much the only choice you have right now to study Chinese”, as “there is not much choice if you want to study Chinese in a free environment without having to be afraid for being arrested”.

This is not to say that the TCML is free of political constraints. The OCAC’s requirement that teachers employed by TCMLs “must not hold passports from Mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau” is similar to the PRC’s request that language instructors hired at CIs are not allowed to practice certain religious beliefs, such as Falun Gong. Furthermore, there appears to be political intervention from the Taiwanese government in some of the TCML’s media engagement. As reported by Nikkei Asia, a previously arranged interview with staff at a TCML in Heidelberg “was cancelled on short notice after a senior official in Taiwan intervened”.

Conclusion

The TCML has been conceived and portrayed as an alternative to the CIs. From the Taiwanese government’s perspective, emphasising values of democracy and freedom as the foundation for the TCML is a means through which Taiwan can compete with the PRC for the hearts and minds of Mandarin learners. The activities and reception of the TCML need to be further explored to determine whether this initiative will be successful in improving Taiwan’s international environment.

Acknowledgement

Our research project on the TCML is supported by the Flinders University College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) Research Grant Scheme.

Jeffrey Gil

Jeffrey Gil is a Senior Lecturer in TESOL at Flinders University. He has also taught English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and Applied Linguistics courses at universities in China. His main research interests are English as a global language, English language education policy and planning in Asian contexts and the use and status of Chinese in the world. He has published widely on these topics. He is also the author of two books, Soft power and the worldwide promotion of Chinese language learning: The Confucius Institute project (Multilingual Matters, 2017) and The rise of Chinese as a global language: Prospects and obstacles (Palgrave, 2021), and co-editor of Exploring language in global contexts (Routledge, 2022).

Minglei Wang

Minglei Wang is a Ph.D. candidate and research assistant at Flinders University. His research topic is related to Chinese cultural diplomacy, with a specific focus on the China Cultural Centre. Minglei also holds an M.A. in Culture, Communication and Globalization from Aalborg University, Denmark.

[1] The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office is a de facto embassy or consulate of the Republic of China (Taiwan), established in certain countries that have formal diplomatic relations with the PRC. The US does not formally recognise Taiwan as a sovereign country but conducts unofficial relations with it through the AIT, which effectively functions as its de facto embassy in Taiwan.

Native and non-native English teachers in Taiwan (Source: williamschool.com.tw)

The Applied Linguistics seminars at Macquarie University are back. The next one will be held on Tuesday, August 13:

Native and non-native English teachers in Taiwan

When: Tue 13/08, 1:00-2:00pm; Where: W5C 221
Presenter: Jackie Chang, National Pingtung University of Education and Macquarie University

Abstract: This study explores Taiwanese university students’ perceptions of NESTs (Native English-speaking Teachers) and NNESTs (Non-native English-speaking Teachers). The dichotomy of NESTs and NNESTs has been well documented in English language teaching and learning around the world. However, there exists little published work regarding Taiwanese university students’ perceptions of NESTs and NNESTs in the context of English as the international language. The subjects were 609 first year students at a national university in the southern part of Taiwan.

The purpose of this study is twofold: one is to explore students’ perceptions of NESTs and NNESTs regarding the ideal English teacher in the context of English as the international language; the other purpose is related to the need for Taiwanese university students to re-examine and re-evaluate their perceptions and beliefs concerning the native speaker model. Major findings demonstrate the majority accepts the concept of English as the international language for intercultural communication. Both NESTs and NNESTs can be ideal English teachers, but based upon different types of strengths. Moreover, issues raised in this study such as Standard English, native accent and status of English teachers are much more complex than a simplistic dichotomy between being an NEST or NNEST.

About the presenter

Jackie Chang (PhD, 2004, University of Sydney) is an assistant professor in the English Department at National Pingtung University of Education in Pingtung, Taiwan. Before becoming an academic, Jackie gained extensive experience in the English language teaching industry in Taiwan. Currently, she is a visiting scholar in the Linguistics Department of Macquarie University. Jackie is a regular contributor on Language on the Move.

Who profits from an early start in English language learning?

不要讓你的孩子輸在起跑點上 (Don’t let your children lose out at the starting point.) is one of the most popular slogans whenever English education in Taiwan is discussed. The notion that, when it comes to English language learning, younger is better, is widely accepted by Taiwanese people.

As a result, Taiwanese children are compelled to learn English as early as possible. In 2004 Taiwan’s Ministry of Education mandated all public elementary schools should start English courses from Grade 3 but the majority of schools actually begin to teach English in the first grade. Some private language schools even offer all-English programs for toddlers as young as one-year-old. Thus, there can be no doubt that both the public and private sectors subscribe to the argument that English should be taught at an early age.

The belief in the importance of an early start in English is widely promoted by private language schools, as in this video clip, which likens young children to the earth in which English is planted like a seed. The short text in Mandarin Chinese introducing the video explains the principle as follows:

埋下一顆種籽

教育，在孩子的心裡埋下一顆種籽

在往後的人生中發芽、抽枝，

終至成為綠葉成蔭的大樹。

自然而然的讓語言活起來！

 

Plant a seed

Education (English) – plant a seed in children’s minds.

It will germinate and eventually it will grow into a big tree with large green leaves.

Let language grow naturally! (My translation.)

This text implies that age is the critical factor in successful English language learning  as an early start will enable “natural mastery” of English. One of the central themes of the commercial is the repeated assertion that children have an extraordinary ability to learn English and that they will acquire English naturally through English-Only immersion methods taught by native English-speaking teachers. The video also suggests that English can be learned in a “joyful” way at an early age in the school’s playful learning environment and that this “natural method” will achieve extremely positive outcomes.

The commercial drives this point home with testimonials by parents interspersed throughout the video: they claim that their children became “more confident”, “more active” and “more opened-minded” through learning English. Reaffirming points made by the parents are native English-speaking teachers basically promising that Taiwanese children will see the whole world differently as English will give them a global perspective. The overarching concepts of the text and video are that English should be learned at an early age and in doing so English learning will transform Taiwanese children into “global” individuals.

As mentioned earlier, although public schools officially start teaching English from 3^rd grade, the language school market pressures Taiwanese parents to send their pre-school children to language schools to get a head start. Language schools market English language learning to mirror first language acquisition. In other words, age is considered the primary determinant in successful English language learning. This directly links to the widespread belief that there is a critical period in language learning and that children are better second language learners.

However, there are many studies that contradict the premise of “the earlier, the better.” There is ample evidence to suggest that language learners who have a firm foundation in their native language, in this case Chinese, will fare better in second language learning. Nonetheless, in Taiwan there is no shortage of over-eager parents sending their children to language schools or bilingual kindergartens to obtain an English education at a very young age. Given the English learning hype they are prepared to ignore the possibility that their children might be disadvantaged eventually for being deprived of basic knowledge in their first language.

Furthermore, even when Taiwanese English learners begin at an early age, they rarely exhibit perfect mastery of English. In reality, age is only one of the many factors that contribute to an individual’s language learning. Second language or foreign language acquisition involves a number of complex learner variables, such as student motivation, attitudes towards learning, learning styles, aptitude, conditions for English teaching and learning and the goals of English education. Furthermore, these are all embedded in the broader political, social, economic and teaching contexts.

The aim of an earlier start for English is assumed to lead to modernization and internationalization in Taiwan but before achieving this lofty ideal English creates an unequal relationship among the people in contemporary Taiwanese society.

In light of the evidence that an early start in English is not necessarily beneficial and may have negative consequences even for the individual and in light of the heavy social cost of Taiwan’s English craze, Taiwan may need to re-evaluate its current beliefs and think about restructuring its failing English learning system. Just because children start early, does not mean they will reach the finish line faster. In fact, when it comes to English language learning, there is no absolute finish line …

In English language teaching ads English seems always fun, easy and accessible to everyone

Taiwanese people’s motivation for learning English is a desire to communicate and a major obstacle to the mastery of spoken English has been the lack of opportunities to speak. As noted in my previous post, the purpose of buxiban is to assist students to pass standardized tests rather than to speak proficiently. Although effective for test-taking, these traditional grammar-translation and teacher-centered methods do not produce fluent speakers. This is a common complaint from teachers and students alike. Students are continually frustrated by the fact that they have been studying English for many years, but can’t carry a basic conversation or communicate with a foreigner.

This realization has popularized teaching methods such as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and English-Only immersion methods. As a result, there is a huge English language teaching market in Taiwan comprised of literally thousands of language schools geared towards teaching English for communication. The methods employed in private language schools emphasize active participation in the learning process and include a variety of teaching aids and materials, handouts, activities, and games to assist learners in increasing their English speaking proficiency. Moreover, the use of native English-speaking teachers and small class sizes are other factors in the success of private language schools. Learners learn to use the language as a tool of communication rather than viewing it as one more subject to be memorized and regurgitated.

Although there is often a notable improvement in a student’s speaking ability there are socio-economic aspects of language learning that render these innovative communicative and English-immersion methodologies problematic, such as the linguistic environment outside the school and the almighty TaiBi (Taiwan Dollar).

In order to illustrate my point, I will use a TV commercial by Jordan Language School. The dynamic commercial presents Jordan Language School as an English language learner’s utopia: Taiwanese students are taught by Caucasian foreigners, multi-media computer programs are utilized, and parents participate with their children in the learning process. The main theme of the commercial is that Jordan’s English Language School uses a scientific teaching method that integrates classroom lessons with multimedia and Internet English teaching. The commercial ends with their slogan, 喬登數位美語，輕鬆快樂無比 ‘Jordan’s Digital American English, absolutely relaxing and fun.’

Slogans such as this one come to define the ideal English language teaching method independent of context.

This commercial promotes English teaching as a practical skill and it suggests that English can be learned easily if the ideal teaching method is used: interactive immersion classroom teaching with an enagaging Caucasian teacher combined with computer technology. After school, children can learn English with their parents at home via online English learning or with language-learning devices such as smartphones.

Commercials such as this one suggest that English teaching and learning is always autonomous and never affected by social, cultural and economic conditions outside the classroom. Nothing could be further from the truth – in Taiwan as elsewhere.

The reality is that disadvantaged children often have limited access to the Internet and cannot afford to study in private language schools.

Private language schools are also privileged as regards method because students tend to be grouped by ability levels in private schools. By contrast, teachers in public schools are usually faced with students of varying levels of English ability. Dealing with a diversity of needs is an elementary school is an English teacher’s greatest challenge in Taiwan.

Methods used in private language schools encourage parents to spend money for additional English study, so their children will not fall behind in their regular elementary school English classes. This creates an injustice whereby wealthy families are able to allocate significant amounts of money to their children’s English education, while poor families are unable to do the same for their children. In other words, it is only wealthy families who can afford to send their children to English language schools and/or send them abroad to immerse themselves in real life communication situations in an English-speaking country. The end result is that English language learning to high levels of proficiency has become the exclusive privilege of the wealthy.

English is often touted as a way to lift poor people out of poverty but the exact opposite is true: English is an important instrument of social stratification in contemporary Taiwanese society (as elsewhere?) where the rich get richer because they can afford to learn the kind of English that opens doors while the poor get poorer because they can’t.

TADIT – Teachers Against Discrimination in Taiwan

Imagine yourself on the shores of your ancestral homeland, where your parents and grandparents grew up, where the stories you heard as a child took place. Imagine that you’ve returned to find new opportunities and old connections. Imagine the soaring hopes such a rare and wonderful chance might give a young person in search of their place in the world. Now imagine being turned down for every job simply because of the color of your skin.

Unfortunately, this is not just an imagined story – it is one of many real stories. There is an all too common phenomenon in Taiwan, and across much of Asia, whereby English teachers are chosen more for their looks than their abilities. “Caucasians Only,” read job adverts online. “No ABCs (American-born Chinese).” These explicitly discriminatory practices result in many skilled, willing and able foreigners being passed over for teaching jobs in favour of their white counterparts. Teachers of Asian, Latin or African heritage find themselves at a disadvantage even when English is their first language.  But there is another set of people that are losing out terribly when we stand back and watch as unapologetic discrimination twists our classrooms into a narrow shape: our students.

I could describe to you the problems that inevitably occur when inexperienced teachers hired more for their skin color than their qualifications take the lectern across Taiwan, but there’s something much worse to worry about. What bothers me the most about the racism in private education is the message this sends to our younger generation.

Anyone who has worked in the educational field can tell you all about modelling, about how children learn most of their life lessons through simple observation. Teachers, parents, older siblings, and all adults across the community hand down thousands of lessons to children each day and they aren’t even aware of it! “Do as I say, not as I do,” is an instructional strategy long abandoned, and for good reason. Students need role models. And it’s up to us—all of us—to provide the best example we can.

Giving students of Asian heritage the false impression that teachers of Asian heritage are unable to teach them English is not an inspiring way to begin the day, every day. It only serves to reinforce a notion that appears to be buried deep in the psyche of many Taiwanese: that white skin is somehow ‘better,’ a mark of a success that can be emulated but never quite attained. At Teachers Against Discrimination in Taiwan (TADIT), we have a different vision: a vision of a world and of a Taiwan that is inclusive, welcoming, supportive, and uplifting for all members of the community. We believe that children know and understand the essential values of fairness and equitability—but we also know that they need our guidance to learn how to put these values into practice.

Each of us who is a part of Teachers Against Discrimination in Taiwan has a personal story that has brought us towards working together. Some of us faced rejection after rejection, despite our high hopes in embracing the land of our parents. Some of us left difficult job markets back home in order to find new opportunities in a dynamic and growing region, only to discover that the old civil rights struggles haven’t ended—or seemingly even begun—in our host country. Some of us have simply grown tired of working in environments that do not sit comfortably with our most deeply held beliefs. We know that things can change, and that Taiwan can be stronger and better and more inclusive. That’s why we have set out to share our positive message. We’re not here to cast stones. We’re here to build a new house, with room for all of us.

At the end of the day, a teacher’s mission is to empower their learners to succeed. If the adults in the Taiwanese community are denied access to success despite possessing the exact same tools—the English language—we are giving our students, what sense does it make to teach these skills in the first place? Further, it is very damaging to teach our children to take on an “us vs. them” mentality. The world is full of all kinds of people, and English is a language that has the potential to unite us across our differences.  Eliminating those differences at a child’s first exposure to the language is not an effective preparation for experience in the world. Instead, we have an invaluable opportunity to open doors for our children as they take their first big steps from the classroom door to the massive and diverse international community waiting for them. I know that no matter what happens, teachers of all backgrounds in Taiwan will continue to work their hardest to elevate their students, and I hope all of us can reach back and do the same for our teachers.

Carrie Chen’s successful chalk-and-talk method

In my previous post, I discussed the celebrity status of star teachers in Taiwan. Although their good looks and personality do play a key role in a star teacher’s popularity, this is only part of the story. These star teachers also possess the knowledge, skills and abilities to teach students in a way that helps them reach their goals. Interestingly, they usually do not employ the much-lauded Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach when they teach nor do they follow the monolingual English-Only Immersion Method. These teachers prefer to use more traditional and local approaches, such as grammar-translation and/or teacher-centered methods. This is due to the fact that the purpose of language teaching in cram schools is different.

In the case of star teachers, they are teaching in buxiban that are focused on assisting students with standardized exam preparation. The star teachers know that more traditional approaches to teaching are the best methods for helping students to pass standardized tests. Clearly, good teaching is context-dependent. It is impossible to separate English teaching methodology from the contexts in which it operates.

I will use the example of a highly successful star teacher, Carrie Chen, to demonstrate how a star teacher teaches their students. Let’s take for example Carrie’s approach to teaching English vocabulary.  Armed with only a blackboard and chalk, Carrie relies on her confidence, enthusiasm and teaching skills to motivate her students.

She begins her class (in the video 05:20) by saying the supposedly longest word in the dictionary, ‘pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.’ She then writes it down quickly on the board to demonstrate her vocabulary expertise. This way she contends that English becomes fun and easy if students study with her saying and they won’t forget the content she teaches them.

Carrie employs a highly traditional and nowadays unconventional method of English teaching, i.e. no teaching aids and teacher centered. She uses Mandarin Chinese as the medium of instruction and the main focus of teaching is employing techniques (association, cognates, comparison …) to help students memorize English vocabulary. Using a combination of her witty humor, off-color jokes and personal anecdotes to make English vocabulary memorable rather than just being a bunch of syllables and sounds strung together.

For example, she makes fun of foreigners who do not know how to pronounce ‘謝謝 – xie xie (thank you)’ and ‘不謝 – bu xie (you are welcome)” in Mandarin Chinese correctly, instead they might say ‘shit shit (xie xie)’ and ‘bullshit (bu xie)’ to Taiwanese people. An off-color joke she used in the video described above is her strategy to memorize the word ‘phenomenon:’ she explains that ‘phe’ means a female elephant or a fat girl. If a girl is fat, ‘no’ ‘men’ are interested in being ‘on’ her. Hence an easy way to memorize the spelling of ‘phenomeon’ as ‘phe no men on.’

During a speech at a National Taiwan University, Carrie listed some keys to being a successful buxiban English teacher including: a smart and neat appearance, good command of English, and devotion and enthusiasm. She continues by emphasizing the need for encouraging students and remaining positive at all the times and incorporating humor and active learning techniques to motivate and sustain students interest.

The test-oriented method used in buxiban is not exotic or fancy. The secret lies in the way the star teachers conducts the class. The celebrity status of star teachers and their popularity does seem to be skin deep. Without their looks these teachers would not be able to pull in the students into the buxiban. Still, it is interesting to note, that although a lot of their popularity is premised on their good looks and charisma, many of these teachers do in fact know how to teach English very well. If they don’t teach well, their looks will not be enough to keep them their job and star status.

The quality of their teaching methods is reflected in the high scores their students achieve on the standardized tests given for admission into high schools or universities.

Star teacher Ruby Hsu (Source: ruby.com.tw)

The global English language learning boom has resulted not only in a huge number of English learners but also created a tremendous demand for English teachers. Here on Language on the Move the preference for white native speakers as English teachers in Asia has often been featured (e.g., in Japan or Thailand). This is true in Taiwan, too, as I showed here and here, but it is only one part of the story of the global spread of English. The other side of the coin are Taiwan’s hot star teachers.

Star teachers are native Chinese-speaking teachers of English working in Taiwan’s buxiban. Buxiban are cram schools catering to the market for teaching grammar, reading and other exam-oriented English subjects. Buxiban invest heavily in promoting their teachers and, in the process, have created media super stars.

Star teachers are, of course, able to teach English well. Additionally, they are young, attractive, charming and vivacious, and both male and female star teachers are good looking. Star teachers are well-known and extremely popular and, this may be surprising to some readers, are paid considerably more than their native-speaker English teaching counterparts.

Both print and electronic media are used by buxiban to advertise their star teachers. For example, buxiban leverage their star teachers in marketing collateral such as fliers, posters, banners, websites, bus adverts and/or promote them in front of the buxiban. Star teachers even appear in TV talk shows and they gain additional fame (and income) through their endorsement of products.

In some cases, star teachers have achieved superstar status in Taiwan and they are treated like pop stars. The most famous star teacher is Ruby Hsu; she has been able to capitalize on her prominence as a superstar teacher to become a popular TV host of a weekday program called 上班這檔事 “Work.”

Star teachers like Ruby are actually perceived as a part of the entertainment industry and as a result the news media covers them like they would any other celebrity, always searching for gossip and stories of intrigue centered around these star teachers. One of the most prominent examples of this sort of coverage was back in August 2010 when two English star teachers, Kao Kuo-hua and Carrie Chen had an extramarital affair, which created a  media frenzy. The saucy affair was considered important enough that the television and print media closely followed this ongoing real-life soap opera every day from the moment the  story first broke for several months. Interestingly, not only did the scandal not damage their English teaching careers; on the contrary, it further enhanced their star teacher status and resulted in higher student enrollments for their classes. In Carrie Chen’s first day back to class after the scandal story hit the news headlines, she was bombarded with students asking her English questions, such as how to say 劈腿  (having an affair) or 喇舌 (French kiss), as this video shows.

Buxiban are an inevitable part of life for Taiwanese students. The main purpose of the buxiban is to sell their commodity, English, to their customers. Just like big brands use famous celebrities to endorse and promote their products, buxiban are leveraging the power of star teachers and have them play a lead role in selling English. Just like an actor can determine the success or failure of a film, these star teachers can often determine the prosperity or demise of a buxiban.

The box office power of star teachers in Taiwan’s English language teaching industry cannot be overestimated.

“美語是通往世界最近的路” (American English, for children, is the royal road to the world): An English educator promises the world

Taiwan is enthralled with learning American English. One of the reasons for this love affair lies in the fact that English is the global lingua franca. In Taiwan, as elsewhere, English is associated with status and modernity: an essential instrument to access the world of finance, economy, technology and science; in short, English is regarded as a tool to achieve social modernization, economic growth and internationalization. To individuals, too, English language mastery promises globalization: it is viewed as the key to achieving a better life and future in a world which is imagined as borderless.

In this post, I would like to show that advertising for private language schools is critical to creating the association between English and globalization and to keeping that discourse in circulation. As in my recent post about Taiwan’s love affair with American English, I draw on my PhD thesis (Chang, 2004), where I employed Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze data drawn from private English language school and buxian promotional materials.

Consider the following example from a TV commercial for the famous Giraffe Language Schools. In this commercial (1:10-1:25), two figures, a little Taiwanese girl and Father Jerry Martinson walk along a beach. Father Jerry Martinson is an American Jesuit priest who, as a Christian missionary and English educator, is one of the most recognizable public figures in Taiwan. In addition to being an influential broadcaster with Kuangchi TV, he is also the founder of the Giraffe Language Schools. The little girl is looking out at the sea and observes that the world is very, very big. She then asks “Uncle Jerry” how to get to the other side of the world. “Uncle Jerry” responds:

美語是孩子通往世界最近的路  ‘American English, for children, is the royal road to the world.’ (My translation).

As in the examples I discussed last week, this commercial reinforces perceptions of the close relationship between native speaker teacher (“Uncle Jerry”), American English (美語), and, particularly, globalization (indicated by the reference to 世界 ‘the world’).

“For children” in this slogan does not refer only to the featured little Taiwanese girl but, by extension, to the television audience and all Taiwanese English language learners. Indeed, the question “How to get to the world?” is a vexing question for all Taiwanese.

Metaphorically, the commercial places all Taiwanese in a child position vis-à-vis an omniscient Western father figure. While viewers are left to fill “the world” with their own hopes and dreams, the commercial ultimately also suggests that the Taiwanese will only ever be able to enter the world, which is assumed to be Western, as child-like junior partners.

In sum, English language teaching schools in Taiwan respond to a need: the need to learn English for globalization and modernization. However, at the same time, that need does not necessarily pre-exist English language teaching schools. In their advertising they continuously discursively construct and re-construct that link between English and globalization.

Reference

Chang, J. (2004). Ideologies of English Teaching and Learning in Taiwan, Ph.D. thesis.University of Sydney.

Ad for a private English language school in Taiwan: the normalization of American English is obvious in the name and imagery

There is no denying the fact that English has become the global lingua franca. However, as far as English teaching and learning are concerned, there is a prevailing belief that the world should be learning  not some “English as a lingua franca” variety but “Standard English.” In this post, I want to explore what this kind of “Standard English” that is implicit in English language teaching and learning looks like in Taiwan.

Taiwanese are dedicated English language learners and Taiwan invests a lot in English language learning. Even so, there are often media debates that decry the poor quality of English in Taiwan. So what is the yardstick against which Taiwanese English is measured? It’s American English!

Despite the fact that English is now supposed to be learned for global communication, British English and American English have long been the two models underlying English instruction in English-as-a-Foreign-Language countries such as Taiwan. In Taiwan, it is American English that is regarded as  ‘good English’ because of the close historical and political relationship between the USA and Taiwan. ‘English’ for Taiwanese means ‘American English.’ This is a strictly perceptual and ideological issue and means that Taiwan is different from most other Asian countries, where British English is regarded as the ‘good’ or ‘correct’ model to emulate in learning English.

In examining the language ideologies that undergird English learning and teaching in Taiwan, I employed Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze data drawn from private English language schools and buxiban (Mandarin for ‘cram school’) promotional materials. In my PhD thesis (Chang, 2004), which is accessible here, I specifically analyzed school fliers, websites, television commercials, television English teaching programs and English teaching job ads.

Private English language schools refer to schools that offer general English courses for different groups (elementary, secondary and tertiary students, adults) and whose purposes are not geared towards academic tests. Buxiban refers to language schools that offer arduous supplementary English courses for test purposes, such as junior high, high school English, TOEFL, IELTS, GRE and so on.

The following are two short excerpts from private language school fliers in my corpus that demonstrate how American English is promoted and normalized by English language schools in Taiwan.

Example A:

無國界的世界來臨了， 從小提供小孩子世界通用語言(美語)的環境, 培養最有競爭能力的下一代，是現在父母的期望。

(The time of the world without boundaries has come. To provide little children a learning environment in an international language (American English) and to provide the next generation with competitive ability is every parent’s hope in the contemporary society.) [my translation]

Example B:

您知道美國小孩子如何開始學美語嗎? 您希望您的孩子有同樣的出發點開始學美語嗎? 100% 純美語環境。

(Do you know how American children start learning their American English? Do you want your children to start learning English as American children do? 100% pure American learning environment.) [my translation]

Text A makes a number of unstated assumptions including the one that American English is the global language. In fact, Text A illustrates three pertinent language ideologies of English language learning in Taiwan: in addition to the fact that American English is normalized as THE English, English is also presented as the global language and it is implied that an early start to learning English is imperative. Text B explicitly tells readers that American English is the Standard English and Taiwanese children need to learn it through an English-only immersion teaching method, and, again, suggests that the earlier a child starts to learn English, the better.

Other evidence for the predominance of American English in my data include lexical collocations involving USA, America or American such as USA degree, American English teacher, North American accent, American curriculum, American teaching method, American English learning environment, and American teaching materials. These all reinforce the notion that only one variety of English – American English – is standard, appropriate, correct and prestigious. As far as English language teaching in Taiwan is concerned, anything associated with the term USA or America or American is viewed as the best. Indeed, no other varieties of English were even mentioned in my data.

The language ideology of ‘American English is best’ constitutes the context in which English language teaching policies are formed and in which English is taught and learned. As a result, English language teaching and learning in Taiwan has become a one-language (American English) and one-culture (American culture) teaching and learning environment and has resulted in widespread lack of  familiarity with the existence of any other varieties of English. This, in turn, has resulted in linguistic and racial inequalities between varieties of English and their speakers. It is not uncommon for English teachers speaking other varieties or having been educated in other English-speaking countries (including English-Center countries such as Australia or the UK) to hide their backgrounds and pretend to be American-English-speaking and/or to be US-trained.

The belief that American English is the best English is interlinked with a set of further pervasive language ideologies such as “English is the global language,” “there is an ideal English teacher,” “there is an ideal English teaching methodology” and “the earlier English learning starts, the better.” I will discuss these language ideologies in future posts.

Chang, J. (2004). Ideologies of English Teaching and Learning in Taiwan. Ph.D. thesis. University of Sydney.

Postnatal depression (Source: rcpsych.ac.uk)

Last week I was interviewed for a publication intended to showcase the achievements of women in research. When the interviewer, Meryl Hancock, asked me about the biggest challenge I had faced in my career, I answered “motherhood’ without any hesitation. In a career where you need to work 150% to succeed, having a child is always going to be a challenge. Facing that challenge as a migrant mother without access to a support network of extended family is twice as hard. Indeed, the only time I’ve ever been seriously homesick was right after my daughter was born. Sleep-deprived and pained by a stitched-up perineum I wanted nothing more than to be holed up in my parents’ house for a while and to be pampered by my mother. Instead, I was marking essays while breastfeeding baby …

Even so, I was lucky: I had a healthy child, a secure job with flexible hours, a supportive partner, and a good network. Not everyone is so lucky and the combination of two deep human experiences, migration and motherhood, poses a major settlement and mental health challenge. In Western countries, the majority of new mothers experience some form of ‘baby blues’ and around 20% are estimated to be affected by post-natal depression (PND). It is widely assumed that these numbers are higher in migrant mothers.

Does being of non-English-speaking background really affect your mental health in a migration context? A 2005 study by Cordia Chu was designed to examine exactly that question with reference to Chinese mothers in Brisbane, Queensland.

To begin with, cross-cultural comparative studies have shown that PND is virtually unknown in China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan. New mothers get tso yueh-tzu (special treatment during the postpartum month) and are typically expected to stay in bed for a month, they are given special strengthening foods to eat, and they are relieved of all household chores during that period. The idea is for them to regain their health but also to be rewarded for the effort of producing a child.

However, while PND is virtually non-existent in Chinese mothers in China, its incidence in Chinese migrant mothers in Australia is higher than in the general population.

Chu (2005) argues that the occurrence of PND in Chinese migrant mothers is an outcome of the intersection of the quality of their support network, employment issues and financial problems, and feelings of isolation. She demonstrates this in an interview study with three different groups of Chinese migrants, who had had babies in the past three years in Brisbane, Queensland. The key variable was their country of origin (PRC, Hong Kong, Taiwan).

That country-of-origin variable translates into a number of additional differences as the migration circumstances of each group differ. As a group, the Chinese in Australia are highly educated (see also ‘Human Capital on the Move’) and have mostly been admitted as skilled or business migrants. However, while most PRC migrants came initially as tertiary students or skilled migrants, most migrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan were admitted as professionals and business owners. In addition to their human capital they thus usually also brought financial capital to Australia.

At the time of the study in the late 1990s, all three groups were more likely to be unemployed or underemployed than the general population, as is still the case today. Despite the fact that PRC migrants were the most highly educated group of the three, they were most likely to work in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs and thus experienced the greatest downward occupational mobility.

Another difference between the three groups was that Hong Kong- and Taiwan-related community organizations were abundant in Brisbane: of 21 Chinese religious and voluntary associations operating at the time of the study, nine serviced Taiwanese only, five Hong Kong-born only, five were open to all Chinese (including those from South-East Asia) and only one catered exclusively to migrants from the PRC.

This lack of voluntary associations combined with our network analysis showed that there was far less availability of social support, access to information and services, recreational and networking activities for the PRC migrants than for those from Taiwan and Hong Kong (Chu 2005, p. 44).

Eleven out of 30 interviewees (10 in each group) reported experiencing symptoms of PND. Six of these originated from the PRC. Ten of these cited lack of social support as their main problem – a problem that the women who did not experience symptoms of PND were able to circumvent by bringing their mothers out to Australia during the postpartum period or by going back home to give birth. Both these options of securing family support were costly and thus open only to the financially secure participants, mostly from Hong Kong and Taiwan in the study.

Financial concerns also were the base of whether women could choose to become housewives after the birth of their child or not. Six each of the women from Hong Kong and Taiwan chose to become stay-at-home mums and not return to paid work. None of these reported symptoms of PND. By contrast, becoming a housewife was not an option for any of the women from the PRC, who said they needed to accept paid employment to survive. Unsurprisingly, all of them reported various degrees of stress and fatigue as a result of being in paid employment while also caring for a young baby.

Despite the fact that they were in paid employment (often assumed to be closely linked to higher levels of English proficiency in the literature), the PRC-born women, and also those from Taiwan, reported that they were not confident enough in their English to use it in health communication. Consequently, they had to seek out Chinese-speaking (Western-style; i.e. not traditional Chinese health practitioners) to obtain care for themselves and their babies. Given the limited availability of Chinese-speaking surgeries, this meant long travel and waiting times and was thus another source of stress.

Finally, the women who reported symptoms of PND were also less likely to be aware of support services available to them and thus failed to access mainstream services such as antenatal classes or mother-and-baby groups.

So, is there a link between English language proficiency and PND in migrant women? As is usually the case, the link is not direct but mediated by other – and usually less conspicuous – factors such as financial security and community networks in this case. For financially secure women from Taiwan who could bring their mothers to Queensland to help them, who had the choice to become stay-at-home moms and who had access to Taiwanese networks for support and information, English did not matter. By contrast, for PRC-born women who were struggling financially and did not have a wide community network, their lack of English proficiency (or their lack of confidence in their English proficiency) became another source of stress and anxiety (e.g., having to accept work they were overqualified for; having to spend long hours attending a Chinese-speaking surgery). At the same time, lack of English made finding solutions to these problems even more difficult for them.

Chu, Cordia M. Y. (2005). Postnatal Experience and Health Needs of Chinese Migrant Women in Brisbane, Australia Ethnicity and health, 10 (1), 33-56 DOI: 10.1080/1355785052000323029

Asia’s Chronic English Disease

The promotion of English in Asia is a frequent topic here on Language on the Move. Striving for global competitiveness and internationalization, states across Asia strongly promote English. Additionally, on the personal level, English is supposed to broaden an individual’s perspective and to enable upward mobility. Across Asia, English has come to assume the mantle of magic!

The converse of all this hype is that lack of English has come to be equated with deficiency. So much so, that lack of English is now a chronic disease endemic in Taiwan, as I’ve recently discovered when watching this TV commercial for a private English language school. Here, English is presented as a disease that needs to be cured. The ad features a white male doctor with an Asian female patient. The white doctor, the only character in the ad to speak, delivers his lines in Taiwanese and says:

Tutor ABC cares about your chronic English illness. Chronic English illness causes you tears of sorrow when reading English, and canker sores, sore throat, and cold feet when speaking English. If you suffer from these symptoms, please call our toll-free number 0800-66-66-80, 0800-66-66-80 [my translation]

For Taiwanese, the ad is hilarious. Not because of the content of the language doctor’s message but because it imitates another famous Taiwanese commercial advertising for sciatica treatment, which started to run more than a decade ago. In that commercial, the main character, a doctor, seriously delivered a message about sciatica treatment. Unexpectedly, the commercial caused a sensation through its unintended comic effect arising from the amusing contrast between the serious message delivered by the doctor with his earnest facial expression and attitude, and the childish, catchy rhymes and rhythm, particularly in the case of the phone number with its repetition. Despite its status as a budget ad, the clinic became famous overnight and the commercial continues to run on Taiwanese TV, recently with the addition of another character, a foreign blond female model. The doctor’s message has remained unchanged in more than a decade:

Jian-sheng Chinese medicine clinic cares about your sciatica. Sciatica is a lumbar disc displacement or lumbar intervertebral disc disorder, resulting in low back pain or limb pain. If you suffer from these symptoms, please call our toll-free number 0800-092-000, 0800-092-000. [my translation]

The intertextuality between the two ads serves to reinforce the notion in the language ad that English is a disease: a disease in need of a doctor and a cure. In the process, the majority of Taiwanese who don’t use English comfortably are constructed as patients. The doctor they can turn to is, of course, white but, at the same time, an approachable speaker of Taiwanese.

Constructing lack of English as an illness and language learners as patients seems an extremely manipulative way of promoting English. Presenting English as a cure to all kinds of social and personal problems and lack of English as a disease suggests that English is inscribed in the body and ties in with language ideologies that make the acquisition of the right linguistic capital a personal responsibility.

There really is a chronic English disease raging in Asia but it’s not the lack of English that is the disease; it’s the ravages caused by the blind faith in the miracle powers of English.

What is “Competent English”?

“PR” is probably one of the abbreviations I have heard most since coming to Australia. Despite the fact that PR – “permanent residence” for the non-initiated – is the much-coveted subject of many conversations, I found out that it is extremely difficult to obtain. Recently, I received an email invitation to a Permanent Residency Information Session for international students at my university. Out of curiosity, I decided to join. The speaker was a lawyer working primarily in Australian immigration and citizenship law. He opened his speech by seriously reminding us, all international students obviously, not to believe any prediction on which academic major would enhance our chances of success when applying for PR. The rules keep changing, as he went on to say, and a major change came into effect this month.

I am particularly intrigued by the fact that the required IETLS test scores have been raised. A band score 6 average, “Competent English,” earns a hopeful applicant 0 points towards PR; at band score 7, “Proficient English,” is worth 10 points, and band score 8, “Superior English,” is valued at 20 points. When the audience collectively gasped at these high scores, the lawyer blithely informed us that some Australians would not be able to obtain a band score 6.

Right now I am happy with my student visa but if I ever were to wish to stay in Australia after my studies, I would have to apply for a general skilled migration visa and take another IELTS test. However, what does doing well on IELTS actually say about my English competence? Coming from Taiwan, I’ve obviously passed the language requirement to study here and obtained an IELTS score of 7.5 prior to admission. Even so, I am finding it hard to claim that I have “competent” English, let alone “Superior English,” of which I’m officially only 0.5 IELTS points short.

Does my tested and certified English enable me to confidently deal with every aspect of daily life here in Sydney? No. For example, I have to endeavor to improve my academic English for my study by reading, conjecturing, memorizing, and practicing the formal academic English genre and fighting with numerous elusive vocabulary items along the way. In three years, I will be expected to produce a PhD thesis which reads as if it had been written by a native speaker of English.

In addition to higher degree research, I, as every other overseas student, need to deal with daily life involving interactions with many different people who speak with various accents and with different levels of proficiency. I regularly read rental ads with grammatical errors; I rented a room from an immigrant landlord who spoke hardly any English, and now I share a unit with other overseas students. I make phone calls to ask information about things like health insurance, medical treatment, or driver’s license and each time I have to deal with different operators who speak too fast with all kinds of different accents and sometimes mysterious ways of explaining things. I have also been trying hard to make local friends by learning some Australianisms (in Taiwan we are expected to learn American English) and by trying to figure out interesting topics for young people (from Cricket to MasterChef). Of course, I am trying to figure all this out without asking too many questions so as not to bore or scare away potential friends.

In sum, there seems a large gap between the English I learned from textbooks and teaching materials and which enabled me to score relatively highly on the IELTS tests, and the English I am encountering in real life in this multicultural and multilingual country, which is supposed to be English-speaking.

However, after having worked hard to study, to overcome everyday problems, and to learn a lot about Australian English as well as all kinds of other Englishes, overseas students who would like to stay in Australia after graduation are being sent back to Square One. To apply for PR they will once again face the official view of their language competence. Once again they will have to sit an IELTS test, a test that is very much about the so-called Standard English that is found in textbooks and teaching materials. From a language perspective, it’s hard not to wonder what the point of studying in Australia is then? What does this Australian experience bring us in terms of English competence if everything I am learning here is not valued should I ever want to settle in this country? Because I could just as easily learn what IS valued – standard English as expressed in an IELTS score – back home in Taiwan.

Behind a name

One’s name is one of the most salient features for one’s identity. Some parents suffer from extraordinary indecisiveness when giving their newborn a wonderfully auspicious and proper name, all with utmost good intentions and expectations. English language learners often have the same experience later in life: how did you get your English name, especially if your mother tongue is not an alphabetic language?

If you ask overseas students how they named themselves in English, you probably will get some surprising and amusing answers. For instance, a young man from Taiwan shared this experience with me: He was given a name by his English teacher when he was a kid. “You are George,” said the teacher to him with a book of names in her hand. After he went home and told his mother about it, he started to hate the name. It was because the way his mother, whose first language is Taiwanese and who doesn’t speak any English, pronounced the name. The way she pronounced “George” made it sound like the Taiwanese word for “toad”. This made him feel upset and humiliated. After a few years, he was given another English name by another teacher. This time, he was called Wilson. He liked it and has kept using it until now for two reasons. Firstly, it is not so common in English textbooks. Secondly, the 28th President of the United States was called Wilson, although that was a surname.

As for me, I decided to name myself in preparation for the educational setting just before I entered college. It was not an easy choice for me, because I didn’t feel any English name sounded like myself and could express my identity. Finally, I named myself Grace after the wife of the US president in the movie, Air Force One. It sounded very elegant to me and surely I could not go wrong with the name of a fictional US first lady. However, in the first semester of college, a teacher played some TV episodes to us in which an “old lady” who was always telling tales had the same name as mine! I felt very embarrassed sitting in class. However, somehow I have just kept on using it. In addition to the English name that I use for English speakers, I have my Chinese name transliterated into the Latin alphabet on my passport as the official name on my documents. Nevertheless, I always feel distant from it because the spelling, which merely presents the sounds, misses out all the great meanings my parents bestowed upon my birth name, which is unique and unlike any other. Never mind all that talk about the Chinese being collectivist, we are very individualistic when it comes to names!

In addition to the many stories you can hear about choosing an English name, I found something interesting in interactions among overseas students introducing themselves to others in Australia. When meeting with non-Mandarin Chinese speakers, some prefer using their English name to make it easier for the audience. Some prefer using the spelling or homonym of their Chinese name, so it feels more like themselves in a sense. There are also some, but very few, using more unusual names to impress people, trying to stand out in this individualist culture.

When we meet other people from Taiwan, things become even more interesting and sophisticated. While meeting for the first time, one may start with one’s English name since the setting is in Australia. However, once the interlocutors realize they come from the same country, become familiar with each other, and maybe begin to converse in Mandarin or Taiwanese, at some point they start to exchange their Chinese names. This action implies that “now I know you in person,” no matter which name they would prefer calling each other afterwards. Asking and giving our birth given names symbolises a further level of the personal relationship. It is as if one’s real identity has been revealed and is suggestive of the potential for longer and deeper relationships. On the other hand, if a person purposefully refuses to mention their birth given name, the subtle underlying implication is “I am not revealing myself to you” or “I do not want you to know me.” By implication, the English name becomes a mask behind which we can hide.

Have you changed your name in another language environment? I’d love to hear your story!

One of the main reasons why international students pursue higher education in an English-speaking country is to gain high levels of proficiency in English, but after a few weeks in Sydney I’m not so sure how it works. For one thing, most of the new people I meet seem to be from mainland China. Another student from Taiwan I met told me she is concerned about the slow improvement of her English. First and foremost, she had expected to acquire English quickly and easily, but she is not. “I don’t feel like my English is any better than it was before I came,” she confided. English in Taiwan is a foreign language and interactional opportunities can be fairly limited. However, she came all the way to Australia and surprisingly found herself being in classes where most of her peers are from Mainland China, and she speaks Chinese every day. Instead of English, she finds that she’s been learning various dialects of Chinese to build up friendships.

Furthermore, she finds it hard to make local Australian friends at school, despite the fact that she has a very lively, active, and easy-going personality. Interestingly, she is not the first person I’ve met here, telling me that they wish they had local Australian friends and could experience more of Australian culture. I found myself having the same wish.

Then she told me about another girl from Taiwan, who had been here for only 8 months and had already achieved the magical goal of sounding like a native! “How come?” I asked. The “miracle cure” turned out to be the fact that that girl had a native boyfriend. This anecdote inspired my interlocutor: it gave her romantic hope with the dual purpose of achieving English language proficiency and finding romance. I hope it works better for her than it did for the Japanese overseas students described in Ingrid’s and Kimie’s research here and here.

Travelling from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere and struggling with language constraints, I think the pursuit of language in a way reflects some basic needs of humans: being connected to people and place, and being recognized and supported holistically.

References