Chapter 3. Analysis
6 Future Direction and Recommendations
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6 Future Direction and Recommendations
Parents are putting a lot of effort in their children’s education. In traditional Taiwanese families, parents seem to make the children’s education on a first priority. A large chunk of income goes to the children’s tuition. Parents are willing to spend a lot of money on cram schools to help their children to become better in the academic field. That is why English cram schools represent a growth industry in Taiwan. However, since there is a big market for English cram schools in Taiwan, and it is known as a fact that these large chain schools have done a wonderful job on marketing the school, how should the schools keep the walk-in customers and keep their business? And at the same time, how should the smaller privately owned schools differentiate themselves from the larger schools and get the public’s attention? Perhaps the larger chain stores could focus more on the quality control. Larger chain stores could provide a survey or questionnaire for the parents periodically to write down their feedback or suggestions. This way the schools could see what they are doing well and at the same time to make themselves better.
Thus for the smaller privately owned schools, perhaps they could spend a little more on advertising and selling the school. A good suggestion would be to start focusing and showing parents that they only hire experienced and professional teachers from North America or Canada. This would be a great opportunity to show the public that they are different from the larger chain schools.
Since there are so many cram schools in Taiwan, the issues mentioned in this research should not be ignored. The problems mentioned in this research could become a serious issue. Only one focus group was conducted for this research. The participants were the mothers. In order to get a wider range of perspectives, more focus groups should be conducted and hopefully able to invite the fathers to participate. The investigator for the mystery shopper was not able to visit all the cram schools in Taiwan. Most of the schools visited were located in the same district in Taipei.
For future study, perhaps, the mystery shopper should not be restricted to one area, and should be done in different geographic locations to get more ideas. Lastly, there were not enough
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respondents for the survey that was given in this research. Overall, though the sample size used in this research was limited, the inconsistency in the large chain stores or franchised English cram schools was obvious. Recommendation for future study is that a deeper research on this matter should be conducted in order to help the children and the parents to get the best outcome in learning English and getting the services and quality they paid for,
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【1】 Fathman, A. (1975). The relationship between age and second language productive ability. Language Learning, 25, 245-253.
【2】 Hirsch, M. (2007). Feature: ‘Village’ shows strength of English. Taipei 17. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2000/06/04/38772
【5】 Jefferson, S. (2008). Cramming Knowledge in Taiwan. US-China Today.
http://www.uschina.usc.edu/w_usct/showarticle.aspx?articleID=11164&Aspx AutoDetectCookieSupport=1
【6】 Kastner, J. (2010). Westlake Village resident teaches English in Taiwan.
The Acorn.
http://www.theacorn.com/news/2010-01-21/Community/Westlake_Village_res ident_teaches_English_in_Taiwa.html
【7】 Morgan, D.L (1980). Focus group as qualitative research. Sage, London.
【8】 Morgan, D.L, & Spanish, M.T. (1984). Focus groups: A new tool for qualitative research. Qualitative Sociology, 7, 253-270.
【9】 Oladejo, J. (2006). Parent’s attitudes towards bilingual education policy in Taiwan. Bilingual Research Journal, 30(1), 147-170
【10】 Moriarty, T.M. (2002). Special Report: Internationalized Learning. The American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, Vol. 32-No. 7.
http://www.amcham.com.tw/content/view/468/287/
【11】 Wachob, P. (1995). Taiwan cram schools in the twenty-first century.
Selected Papers from the 4th International Symposium on English Teaching, 527-541.
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Appendix A – Invitation letter
Dear Weiwei’s 媽媽：
上次跟媽媽講電話的時後，有跟您提到需要媽媽的幫忙，媽媽馬上就答應了，真的很謝謝您。
真的很不好意思因為自己私人學校的事情耽誤您的時間，非常感激您願意撥空來幫我。我的 碩士畢業論文是在探討家長選擇英文補習班的主要考量因素，我的指導老師是 Prof. Glen H.
Brodowsky，目前在美國加州 Cal State University (San Marcos)任教，教授認為這個主題很有 趣也值得探討，因此每位媽媽的想法和建議對我來說都很重要，希望媽媽能盡量發表您的意 見。這個論文研究與聖馬特無關，希望媽媽不要覺得不好意思，可以盡量說出您真正的想法。
到時候會有其他幾位也是在聖馬特的媽媽來一起討論。希望能在這次的聚會中能夠放鬆心情 有很棒的討論過程，原則上不會耽誤媽媽太久的時間，頂多一個小時左右。另外，我也會提 供一些飲料和蛋糕。如果爸爸有空也歡迎一起參加喔！
時間：
8 月 15 日 星期六 下午 1:30 ~ 3:00
地點：
真鍋咖啡
民生東路 5 段 99 號 （過了金石堂 7-11 旁邊）
2767-0903
為了感謝媽媽們能來，我也會準備一個小小的禮物送給媽媽。如果媽媽臨時有急事不能過來，
麻煩媽媽打通電話給我，謝謝！
到時候見！
Sylvia Wu
PS ~ 附上我的名片，上面有我的聯絡電話。如果有任何問題，都可以隨時打給我！
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Appendix B – Demographic information sheet from focus group participants
Chinese
姓名
電話
媽媽職業
爸爸職業
家中幾個小孩
小孩年紀 / 幾年級
小朋友目前就讀學校
小朋有目前在哪裡學英文
小朋友目前還有在哪裡上些其它補習班
English
Name
Telephone
Mother's occupation
Father's occupation
How many children do you have?
Children's age / Children's school grade level Primary school children attending English cram school children attending What other cram schools children attending