2.2 Teaching Schemes in Asia
2.2.1 Japan
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is an almost perfect match between the teachers’ and the learners’ perceptions (Benke
& Medgyes, 2005).
Sammy and Brutt-Griffler (1999) applied the Reves and Medgyes (1994) approach to survey seventeen non-native-English-speaking MA or Ph.D. students in TESOL in the US. Nearly 90% of the subjects perceived differences between the two cohorts. However, they attributed the different teaching practices to cross-cultural differences between Western and Asian societies. It is not the language the teacher speaks that accounts for better teacher. The two cohorts of teachers have their respective strengths and weakness. NESTs can provide authentic pronunciation and language use for learners. Students can practice listening and speaking skills with the NESTs (Liu, 2004; Medgyes, 2000; Ting, 2000). Though with great English
competency, most NESTs have difficulties explaining grammatical questions. On the other hand, NNESTs can provide more structural approach to teach grammar, comparing to their counterparts. Moreover, the NNESTs are good learning models;
they can help students avoid language difficulties. If the teachers speak the students’
language, they know their students’ difficulties and how to overcome them (Larsen-Freeman, 2011). Neither group is superior and learners appreciate both groups of teachers for what they do best in the classroom.
2.2 Team teaching schemes in Asia
Following the trend of globalization, many governments in Asia started to hire native speaking English teachers (Carless, 2006). The following will illustrate the policy and the implementation of practices in Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong.
2.2.1 Japan
Under the pressure of globalization, Japan started the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program in 1987. The JET program recruited native English speakers from ten participating countries, such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica,
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New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The recruited teachers were placed in junior and senior high school to work with local English teachers as Assistant English Teachers (AETs) (Crooks, 2001). The goals of JET program are not only to provide students with authentic input and build English communicative skills, but also help Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) to change their grammar translation approach to a more communicative-based pedagogy.
A qualified candidate for JET program should be under the age of forty and have a Bachelor’s degree. The salary is approximately 300,000 yen a month and the NEST should pay for the rent and health insurance on their own. They are expected to work for thirty-five hours per week from Monday to Friday, and sometimes do some extra work depending on school’s schedule (Lee, 2006).
Despite of the good initiative, the presence of the AETs in the classroom has caused a lot of problems. The JTEs need to change their teaching methods and improve language skills. The changes made the JTEs concern about their roles and competence as teachers. The school administrative staff was also unaware of how to utilize the AETs and just made them read out a list of words.
As the JET program developed in the past years, more assistance and support has been available to both cohorts by way of workshops or seminars. Through presenting and discussing classroom practices and experiences, JTEs and AETs develop a better understanding of team teaching (Crooks, 2001).
2.2.2 South Korea
Another similar scheme in South Korea is English Program in Korea (EPIK) which launched in 1995. The goal of EPIK is to improve students and teachers’
English proficiency and cultural understanding. The NESTs are hired from Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the USA. They are assigned to teach English at public schools, train Korean English teachers, and assist the Board
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of education. The government will provide free accommodation and pay addition 300,000 won to subsidize the rent (Lee, 2006).
Research of EPIK scheme has found cultural conflicts between NESTs and Korean teachers. Han (2005) suggested that NESTs’ lack of understanding of Korean culture, educational context and students’ need may lead to the failure of EPIK program. If the NESTs can be open-minded in learning to respect the local culture, it may help the NEST develop a relationship of effective team teaching with local teachers(Carless, 2006).
2.2.3 Hong Kong
English became the official language in Hong Kong in 1858 when it was part of the British’s colony. After Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, the importance of English was reinforced because Hong Kong serves the important role of
international financial center. English is considered an access to success.
Consequently, Hong Kong launched the Native-speaking English teacher (NET) program.
Under the NET program, every secondary school has been provided with one NEST since 1997, and every two primary schools shared one NEST in 2002. The salary scale ranges from HK$16,165 to HK$43,940 (US$2,077 to 5,700) per month.
The NETs need to teach sixteen to eighteen hours a week. By contrast with Japan and South Korea, the NET program only hires trained and experienced teachers (Carless, 2006). The qualified NESTs should be native speakers of English with teaching certificates. Since the NESTs are experienced teachers, they are often arranged to teach alone in secondary schools.
However, the NESTs found difficulties adapting to the examination-oriented education culture in Hong Kong, which emphasizes vocabulary and grammar memorization. On the contrary, the NESTs tended to focus on communicative skills.
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Students felt that NESTs can help improve their oral and listening skills; however, some were questioning their less emphasis on exam preparation (Florence Ma, 2012), which may also hamper the relationship between NESTs and NNESTs.
2.3 Current situations of NEST and NNEST’s team teaching in Taiwan
In order to enhance competitiveness, the MOE in Taiwan introduced English to elementary school curriculum in grade five and six in 2001 and extended to grade three and four in 2005 (Jeon & Lee, 2006). The new policy led to a shortage of qualified English teachers in elementary school. In need to solve the shortage of English teachers and improve students’ communicative ability, the MOE decided to hire NESTs to teach English in public elementary and junior schools in 2004.
2.3.1 The background of NESTs in Taiwan
The NESTs who are recruited from native-English-speaking countries like the USA and the UK are required to have a bachelor’s degree and a qualified teacher certificate. The salary scale ranges from NT$50,000 (US$1,540) for those with a bachelor degree to NT$70,000 (US$1,870) for those with a bachelor degree and a qualified teacher certificate (Jeon & Lee, 2006).
However, most of the NESTs are not majored in English or TESOL before coming to Taiwan (Lin, 2003; Ting, 2000). Ting (2000) Found out 80% of the NESTs in Kaohsiung did not major in English or TESOL. Two thirds of Lin’s (2003)
interviewees in Hsinchu city were not English majors. Without related educational background, most of the NESTs do not have English teaching experience before coming to Taiwan and they are unwilling to participate in-service training. For some NESTs, coming to Taiwan is just for experiencing culture or making money. Most of them will leave Taiwan soon after the contract is due without considering teaching English as a life-long career.
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2.3.2 The studies on NESTs’ teaching in Taiwan
There are three large-scale English language programs known for team teaching between NESTs and NNESTs in Taiwan, which are Hsinchu City English Program, Fulbright Program, and English Schweitzer Program. Hsinchu city was the first to launch the NEST and non-NEST team teaching program in Taiwan in 2001. The city government hired a private language institution to recruit, manage and train the NESTs. Though the NESTs are required to be college graduates with a teacher’s certificate, most of them do not major in related areas and do not have any teaching experience before coming to Taiwan (Chou, 2005; Lin, 2002; Luo, 2005). They took this job for the purposes of making money and experiencing living in a different culture (Lin, 2002). Thus it leads to a high turnover rate. Students need to get accustomed to new teachers every new school year. Like Hsinchu city, the Yilan government cooperated with private language institution to hire NESTs to teach English in all the elementary schools in 2002. But it turned out to be a failed
experiment because of the NESTs’ limited time in each school. The government then worked with the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange Fulbright program and invited young Fulbright scholars to team teach with local teachers in the following year.
The NESTs taught twenty periods a week, and used another fifteen hours to work on teaching-related duties (Tsai, 2005). On the other hand, the English Schweitzer Program was initiated by Kingcar Education Foundation to recruit volunteers from America in 2002. Since then, several teams of the volunteer youths from the USA have assisted teaching English in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Hualien County and Kinmen County (Hsu, 2006).
Though there are different backgrounds of these programs, most research in Taiwan has been focused on NESTs’ teaching in several aspects, which could be categorized as below: (1) NESTs’ classroom practices, and (2) NESTs’ teaching
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problems.
2.3.2.1 NESTs’ classroom practices
As native English speakers, NESTs serve as perfect models for students, and students are more willing to speak English in NESTs’ classes. Most NESTs use games or activities to motivate students to learn and create a lively atmosphere (Lin, 2002). Students enjoy the NESTs’ classes because they think it’s more fun and with less pressure (Liu, 2004).
Though NESTs and NNESTs should work together in the team teaching sessions, it turned out that NESTs tended to dominate the whole teaching process while the NNESTs helped translate and manage the classroom (Lin, 2002; Jiang, 2006). The team teaching program aims to provide students with authentic input, but students may rely on the translation of NNESTs.
2.3.2.2 NESTs’ teaching problems
Team teaching programs between NESTs and NNESTs are supposed to bring the best out of two teachers; however, domestic studies have revealed some problems in NESTs’ classroom management and working attitude.
In terms of NESTs’ classroom management, numerous studies reveal that
classroom management is the most challenging for NESTs (Ting, 2000). Most NESTs rely on the NNESTs’ translation to communicate with the low achievers and discipline the mis-behaviors. NESTs appreciated NNEST in dealing with the students in general, though they thought the punishments were meaningless (Herbart, 2009). Some NESTs account their classroom management challenges for their lack of students’ language.
Low achievers cannot follow what the NEST said and feel bored in class (Wang, 2007).
As for NESTs’ working attitude, a lot of NESTs come to Taiwan to experience exotic culture while making money. Most of them will leave Taiwan soon after they
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finish their one-year contract and thus it led to high turnover rate of NESTs in Taiwan.
However, the turnover rate of the NESTs in Kinmen is comparatively lower than other cities. Despite the fact that Kinmen is an isolated island apart from Taiwan. Many NESTs in Kinmen are willing to stay or renew their contract and come back the next year. Little research has been done to investigate the NESTs in Kinmen. The present study, therefore, is aimed to explore the team teaching relationship between the NEST and the NNEST in Kinmen, an outlying island of Taiwan.
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CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH METHODS
This study is a case study which aims to investigate the challenges and
difficulties the NNEST and the NEST encountered in the team teaching program in Kinmen. The study examined three aspects: (a) the participants’ classroom practices and teaching effectiveness; (b) the difficulties the participants encountered in the process, and (c) the participants’ solutions to the problems. The study adopted a qualitative approach to obtain an in-depth understanding of the co-teaching relationship between the NEST and the NNEST. The setting, the participants, the instrument, procedures and data analysis of the study are introduced below.
3.1 The setting
The school presented in this study is located in Kinmen, an outlying island located in the west of the Taiwan Strait and closer to China than Taiwan. The Ministry of Education (MOE) in Kinmen started the NEST-NNEST team teaching program (also known as English Schweitzer Program) with Kingcar Education
Foundation in 2004. Every class from the third grade to the sixth grade has a period of class per week taught by an NEST who would go to different schools for a morning or an afternoon, so students would be used to being taught by American teachers in Kinmen.
In addition to the Kingcar Education Foundation, the Ministry of Education in Kinmen also started to cooperate with the Fulbright Foundation to assist the English village program1, for which six Fulbright English teaching assistants (NESTs) stayed in Kinmen for eleven months from August, 2012. After a one-month training with the Fulbright employees, these NESTs were placed in the English village or other
1 The English village in Kinmen provides a two-day program to help enhance students’ English learning by using English in six simulated-scenario classrooms.
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elementary schools.
To minimize the polarization of English learning in Kinmen, the MOE strives to enhance students’ English proficiency by assigning foreign teachers to every
elementary school. Currently, both foundations are operating across the island, NEST Teachers from the Kingcar foundation and the Fulbright foundation were placed in every elementary school in Kinmen at the start of the new school year. In addition to regular classes taught by NNESTs, every class has one or two more periods taught by NESTs
The school in the present study consists of twenty teachers and six classes totaling 186 students. Each class has thirteen to twenty-three students. Most of the students are so-called new Taiwanese children whose mothers come from China or the South-east Asia. Few of them have English classes after school. This school year when the data was collected was the first time for the school to have a regular American teacher on campus. Students would have one regular class taught by the NNEST, one to two additional classes taught by NEST, and one to two team teaching classes per week.
3.2 The participants
3.2.1 Criteria of Choosing the Participants
The research aimed to investigate how the NEST and the NNEST cooperated in the team teaching program, problems and difficulties they encountered in the team teaching process, how they solved the problems and how they became accustomed the team teaching program in Kinmen. In order to answer the research questions, the researcher looked for the participants who were qualified under the following criteria:
(a) a NEST and a NNEST who never taught English in Kinmen, (b) a NEST and a NNEST who did not have any team teaching experiences, and (c) a NEST and a NNEST who were willing to participate in the research.
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First of all, the reason why the first and second criteria were set up was to select the participants who were unfamiliar with the teaching contexts in Kinmen and therefore the difficulties they encountered would be various. Secondly, since the classroom observations and the interviews would take up a lot of teachers’ time, the willingness of the participants was important. It was crucial to find the participants who were willing to spare their time to cooperate with the researcher. With all the criteria taken into consideration, Mei2, the NNEST and Lisa, the NEST, who never had English team teaching experience, were selected as the participants for the present study.
To depict a picture of the NEST and the NNEST who participated in the present study, information of their backgrounds and working experiences are described below.
3.2.2 NEST’s background
Lisa, the NEST in the present study, comes from Hawaii in the United States and went to Rhode Island for college. She studied religious studies there and took some Chinese courses. She can speak Chinese well and likes to learn Chinese. Lisa chose to come to Taiwan because one of her Mandarin Chinese teachers encouraged her to apply for the Fulbright English Teaching program. Before she came to Taiwan, she also taught beginning Chinese in the US with elementary school students, introducing them to basic Chinese language and culture. Though she does not have any English teaching background and experience, she is very passionate about English teaching.
3.2.3 NNEST’s background
Mei, the NNEST in the present study, is from Kaohsiung. She holds a BA degree in English. She has been teaching for four years in other elementary schools, in Kinmen and New Taipei city, and this is her first year teaching in the school under research. She did not work with Lisa, the Fulbright teacher or any other NEST before.
2 These are pseudonyms used to protect the identities of the participants.
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She did not have any co-teaching experience prior to this semester when the data was collected.
3.3 Instruments
This study adapted a qualitative approach to examine the cooperative
relationship between the NEST and the NNEST. The present study, like many other qualitative studies, involved detailed description and analysis of the participants, and employed observations, interviews and related documents to collect data. Details concerning the three instruments are listed below.
3.3.1 Interviews
Two types of interviews, formal and informal, were conducted in the present study. The formal interviews were semi-structured interviews. There were eight formal interviews, including two pre-observation and six post-observation interviews.
Before the classroom observations, the researcher interviewed the participants to get information about their background and teaching experience. The interview questions were adapted from the past literature that the researcher had reviewed.
The researcher conducted the post-observation interviews after observing the teaching sessions. These interviews aimed to investigate the problems the
participants encountered and how they solved the problems during the teaching process.
Other than formal interviews, informal conversations with the participants, the participants’ students, and colleagues were also made to further investigate the participants’ teaching.
3.3.2 Classroom observations
Classroom observations were aimed to find out how the classes were conducted, and what difficulties and problems the NEST and the NNEST encountered in the teaching process. Observation is a common tool used in qualitative research as it
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helps examine the phenomenon in-depth (Yin, 2003). The observed classes were video recorded to document the teaching process in the classroom. Video recording comprises more detailed information, including verbal and non-verbal aspects and enables the researcher and the participants to review the footage at any time. In addition to video recording, all classroom observations were also supplemented by field notes to compensate for any weaknesses of video-taping classroom observations, such as not capturing the students’ reactions.
3.3.3 Document collections
Besides collecting data through interviews and observation, the researcher also collected materials such as Fulbright training handbooks, textbooks, handouts and test sheets, in hope of gaining a holistic understanding of the participants’ teaching.
Besides collecting data through interviews and observation, the researcher also collected materials such as Fulbright training handbooks, textbooks, handouts and test sheets, in hope of gaining a holistic understanding of the participants’ teaching.