Shih-ying: Background of my learners and English teaching in Taiwan

In Taiwan, junior high school students are forced to study English as a subject. They have to study it hard in order to get good grades on the national exam so that they can enter a better senior high school. The public junior high school where I have been teaching for the past four years is a middle-scale school located in a small town in the north of Taiwan and called Hsinpu. My learners’ age is from 13-15 (7^th grade to 9^th grade) and there are around 30-35 people in one class. Although most of my learners have studied English for 4 years, their English proficiency is between beginner and elementary. Some of them even can’t recognize English alphabet when they enter junior high school. With less cultural stimulation and slower information, many students at my school do not think it is very important to learn English. Besides, students have few opportunities to practice speaking English outside the classroom. They speak Chinese at school and speak dialects (Hakka and Taiwanese) at home.

In 2001, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan decided to abolish the official textbooks. Meanwhile, teachers have the responsibility to choose the most suitable textbook depending on learners’ needs, teachers’ objectives and school’s goals. The original purpose of this decision is to decrease students’ pressure from studying and help students to learn happily. However, most parents do not trust this policy and become so worried that if their children only study the textbook used at school, they might not get good grades on the national exam. Thus, they send children to cram schools to learn all versions of the textbooks. Because of this, most students gain more pressure in learning English and they are demotivated as well.