國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Chapter 1: PROLOGUE
An Autobiographical Moment
This narrative inquiry is not only about Marcel, the main character of the story, but also about me as a researcher, an English teacher, a friend, and a social being. As Clandinin and Connelly (2000) state, “narrative inquiry characteristically begins with the researcher’s autobiographically oriented narrative associated with the research puzzle” (italics in original) (p.41). The researcher’s worldview, the knowledge he/she brings to the research, is embedded in the process of narrative inquiry in which he/she operates. The contextual factors surrounding the researcher inevitably bring his/her values, backgrounds, and beliefs to the research. I, as a living being, need to be aware of my own stories as I enter the inquiry.
This understanding calls for an obligation that I present some of my autobiographical details that may hopefully enable readers who are reading this dissertation to know more about me, about the knowledge I bring to the research. I am aware that these short
autobiographical moments are not comprehensive enough to capture who I was, who I am, and who I will become. Nor do I intend to do so, since what is captured and expressed in these short accounts, as Clandinin and Connelly suggest, is myself always in transition, constantly incorporating and referencing to the past and the future.
The following section is organized under The Personal Context of the Research, and is interwoven, though not chronologically1, with four of my autobiographical moments and one that I shared with Marcel. Together, they set the stage for the research.
1 The date indicated within the parentheses represents the time when the narrative was written rather than the time when the story happened.
‧
The Personal Context of the Research
“Research, like almost everything in life has autobiographical roots.”
— (Seidman, 1991, p.24)
My Narrative 1-
First Few Years about Teaching English
I have always wanted to be an English teacher. I started to teach English to children when I was a sophomore as an English major in 1991. I taught at a small, private after-school care center run by a married couple. It was really small because there were only 20 students. The kids were small, too; they were around 8~10 years old. I did not know how to teach at the time, and all I did with the children was simply about having fun by doing lots of games and activities, getting them to like English. Both of us did not know what to expect in the classroom, but that does not mean I did not prepare. I did prepare before going to class. I felt like I wasn’t teaching at the time; I felt more like a babysitter. One year later, I found a teaching position at a cram school2teaching junior high school students. Unlike the experience with children, teaching here was more systematic and organized
because I had to teach based on what they learned in school. I felt I was actually teaching English at the time. Grammar, sentence structure and vocabulary were the focus since the students had a monthly English test at school. Coincidentally, my English department was offering an undergraduate elective course, TESOL Methodology, and I thought it was about time that I sharpened my teaching skills.
We did a lot of reading from books such as “Teaching By Principles,” “Principles of Language Learning and Teaching,” both of which were written by H. Douglas Brown, “Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching” by Diane
Larsen-Freeman, and “Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching” by Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers. Yes! They were all about methods and approaches. Not only did we read, we also needed to actually teach by applying these approaches and methods. When I say “applying”, I do mean following the
2 Cram schools in Taiwan are called buxiban (Liu, 2012); literally they mean “supplementary learning class.” Most exist commonly to help students pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. “Cramming” refers studying hard or studying a large amount of material in a short period of time.
‧
procedure and steps outlined in different methods/approaches. I even designed a matrix diagram to check whether I followed the sprit of each method. I was excited because I learned lots of knowledge about how to teach, and I was eager to
demonstrate what I had learned to those junior high school students. But I did not care about how they felt about my use of these approaches, probably because I did not know why I should, and perhaps how. Besides, they did not react well to my new way of teaching. I eventually fell back to the original purpose and style of teaching by aiming for the test they had in school.
In 2007, in order to gain professional credential, which at the time I thought would be crucial to receive recognition in language teaching, I attended a co-coordinated certificated program initiated by a world-renowned University X3 and Language Institute Y4. It was a three-day session in which we were introduced to lots of teaching approaches, methods, and SLA theories, and specific attention was devoted to the teaching of four skills, as well as the teaching of vocabulary, pronunciation, and material design. I felt inspired even though what was introduced had mostly been covered in the course of TESOL Methodology that I attended earlier. And I thought I was credentialed by one of the most world-renowned educational institutes. Hooray! I not only gained knowledge about how to teach, but most importantly, I thought, I would earn myself a place, a position, in this
competitive teaching profession (Journal Entry 22nd August 2011).
These years of my learning about language teaching centered around the subject matter or disciplinary knowledge (Johnson & Golombek, 2011). I was deeply enlightened by those courses and was convinced that it was in part these knowledge that set language education apart from other disciplines. However, I also wondered whether this knowledge was sufficient enough for teachers to act upon their teaching. This question seemed to be answered after I enrolled in a master TESOL program, where I learned that teaching was not always about robotically and routinely imparting knowledge, but also about
understanding the many people involved (e.g., the learner), the connotation conveyed with language (e.g., culture), and reflecting on our teaching practice. Such awakening is
delineated in my next narrative.
3 University X is located in the U.S. and is famous for its programs on education and business management.
4 Language Institute Y is a commercialized, franchised language-learning center in Taiwan.
‧
Exploring More about Language Teaching
To fine-tune and sharpen my teaching, as well as to fulfill my dream to become a teacher and satiate my intrinsic thirst for knowledge about language teaching, I need more than a certificate. I need something more powerful, something that can elevate my professional development, at least, something that is the first step to my professional development. I need a master degree. In 2010, I was admitted to a nationally well-recognized TESOL program in Taiwan. I took courses such as
“TESOL Method,” “Qualitative Research Methods,” “TESOL Practicum,”
“Culture in TESOL,” “Issues and Studies in Computer-Enhanced EFL
Instruction,” “Sociolinguistics in TESOL,” “Self, Identity, and Agency: Focusing on the Language Learner,” and “Studies on Course Design and Materials
Evaluation.” These courses were enlightening because they opened my eyes by offering me other perspectives from which language teaching could be approached.
Rather than and unlike focusing on the teaching of four skills and delivering the technical knowledge about learning and teaching, I begin to be cognizant of the multifaceted phenomena associated with language teaching and learning. For example, the reflective practice emphasized in the “TESOL Practicum” made me aware the ways in which I was influencing learners, and the kinds of beliefs and values I was imposing on them. In “Self, Identity, and Agency: Focusing on the Language Learner,” my thoughts on language teaching were transformed not because I learned new skills of teaching but rather I realized that each learner had a life story to tell, which both directly and indirectly impacted their trajectory of learning English. This understanding prompted me to listen, to appreciate and to understand their experiences, and more importantly, it made me realize that I was no longer a robotic knowledge transmitter, but an organic social being that was capable of feeling and empathizing (Journal Entry, 20th Jun 2012).
Just when I thought I was fully equipped and prepared to finally enter the teaching profession, I encountered some difficulties in my teaching context, especially the ones that involved what language teaching meant to this particular social space, and most importantly, how language teachers were perceived by those gatekeepers. My narrative 3 is one of such concerns.
‧
In May 2007, I started to teach adults at one of the biggest commercialized language centers in Northern Taiwan. In retrospect, I was indeed excited and enthusiastic in the first place. I figured I got the whole package and all I needed was to gain real experiences of teaching adults and learn from these experiences.
During my second year in this private language center, I was once approached by an academic chair, who asked me if I would take over a TOEIC preparation course. “I have not yet taken TOEIC test, and I don’t quite understand what TOEIC is about. I don’t think I am qualified enough to teach the course,” I responded. “If you do not want to take over this class, we have hundreds of teachers who want to do this. If you want to take this course, you can just use this book for your own reference and preparation,” he went on. I was left speechless and astounded. “I can just go to the classroom and tell my students this is what it is like in the real TOEIC test, so you need to do this and do that before taking the test,” I thought, but I did not, because this ran counter to my conscience and it would not be right (Journal Entry, 9th Jul 2012).
My journey in the TESOL program went on, so did my teaching in the
commercialized language center. But this experience was characterized by lots of episodes that were beyond my comprehension and therefore prompted me to explore more about my personal experiences as a teacher in this particular social space. A casual talk
presented in my narrative 4 between a student of mine and I was one of these episodes that fuelled this research journey. The student’s response reveals how language teachers are conceptualized and treated in Taiwanese society, especially how the view is saturated in the private sector of education.
My Narrative 4-
Who Am I as an English Teacher?
One student expressed willingness to be an English teacher in a cram school5.
5 Cram schools and commercialized profit-oriented language centers/schools are used interchangeably.
‧
“Do you have any teaching experiences? Or have you received any professional training in language teaching, like a formal degree?” I asked. “No, I majored in social work, but I am interested in teaching English.” I then asked if she would want to pursue a professional degree, but “I know that many teachers here don’t have a professional degree or qualification. I mean they studied other subjects in college. It’s written on the faculty page. So I think if I can improve my English, I can be a teacher. And they all seem to memorize a lot of vocabulary. When I am taking their courses, I feel like I am reading a dictionary,” she responded. “What about being an English teacher in school, I mean in the context of formal
schooling?” I continued. “No, it’s too challenging and lots of teachers who want to teach there cannot have a position because of the fierce competition.” The student’s words were kind of a slap in the face for me. It seemed that she was saying the threshold for being an English teacher outside formal schooling was low. The feeling that I was not only competing with teachers sharing the same disciplinary background but also with those without proper training appears to be distressing, because I do believe language teaching requires not only content knowledge but also pedagogical knowledge, and it is these knowledge that fundamentally differentiates language teaching from other professions. It has gradually become obvious to me that I am in a place that presents conflicting values to my own. The talk with the student reminded me of my experience with the academic chair (My Narrative – 3). These two stories in some way reflect the broader sociocultural discourse(s) surrounding the profession of language teaching in Taiwan, where English teaching is carried out substantially outside formal schooling. Am I the only one experiencing this? In the eyes of my students, am I only a person, not a teacher, who happens to know a sizable amount of vocabulary? In other words, can my professionalism be defined only by the linguistic knowledge I know? (Journal Entry, 11th January 2012)
My Narrative 5-
A Casual Talk between Marcel and I
One day we were chatting in the teachers’ lounge of the language center while Marcel was talking to me about the feedback from an academic chair after he brought up students’ opinions of him to her. The academic chair told Marcel that he was being too serious and earnest about teaching and sometimes he had to loosen up and wanted Marcel to treat this like an ordinary job that paid, as Marcel quoted, “You just think and do like other teachers in this center and perhaps you would be more content and happier.” To recollect, I was surprised that I did not entirely disagree with what the academic chair said to Marcel. In fact, I found part of her words true, especially “You just think and do like other teachers in this center.” My reaction at the moment was “yah, I never thought I could be content and happier by just acting like others in this center, and maybe I should so that I
‧
would feel less frustrated and get rid of the feeling that I have a moral and professional obligation to do what I am doing.” Marcel sarcastically recounted,
“Next time I walk into the class, I will just write as much vocabulary as I could on the board, read along the textbook, and make students do a lot of grammar drills.
And class dismissed! How wonderful is that! It saves me time!”(Journal Entry, 15th June 2012).
My personal narratives situate this research on the missing piece reflected in my narrative 2, the teacher. Placing the inquiry within a broader sociocultural context in which my emotions, values, concerns, and motivations emerge, this study hopes to understand the experiences of teachers. To begin, I present you the sociocultural context in which the current research is located.
The Sociocultural Context of the Research Tutoring/Cramming Industry in Taiwan
Both Marcel’s and my story cannot develop without a reference to the phenomenon of private tutoring/cramming in Taiwan. The phenomenon of private tutoring, also known as cram schooling (Liu, 2012) and shadow education (Bray, 1999) has been prominent in Asia.
As out-of-school educational and supplementary activities aimed at supplementing formal schooling (Baker et al., 2001; Bray, 1999), private tutoring has been observed to have existed in as early as the mid-1900s among at least 41 nations (Baker et al., 2001) to help students reach educational requirements and take advantages of educational opportunities.
According to Davies and Aurini (2006), and among others, by closely following, mimicking, or shadowing the curricula of the formal school system, lessons are usually provided through both one-on-one and one-to-many formats, aiming to assist learners to master academic subjects in school. Buxiban (Liu, 2012) in Taiwan, Juku (Harnisch, 1994;
Dawson, 2010) in Japan, tutorial schools (Kwok, 2004) in Hong Kong, and Hagwon (Park, 2009; Dawson, 2010) in South Korea are examples of such widespread tutoring/cramming schools.
In Taiwan, cram schooling emerged since the enactment of Supplementary Education Act in 1944 (Ministry of Education, 2013) and has proliferated after the 9 Year National
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Compulsory Education Act was approved in 1968 (Liu, 2012). Although at the time Taiwan society felt displeasure and anxiety about the fact that regular education at school would be disrupted and distorted, “this centralization of educational resources had indirectly created the current large-scale emphasis on schools” (p. 47).
The diversification of cram schooling is noted in the Amendment Of Supplementary Education Act in 2009, namely, supplementary compulsory education, supplementary advanced education, and short-term tutorial education. The Amendment states:
Supplementary compulsory education shall be carried out by supplementary compulsory schools affiliated with an elementary or junior high school…Citizens past the school age who have not yet received nine years of compulsory education shall receive supplementary compulsory education. Supplementary advanced education is offered as necessary by supplementary schools affiliated with schools at the level of senior secondary school or higher… Citizens who have already received nine years of compulsory education may receive supplementary advanced education.
Unlike supplementary compulsory education and supplementary advanced education, which are affiliated with formal schooling and therefore take place usually in formal schooling, short-term tutorial education position itself outside formal schooling. This form of supplementary education, the most ubiquitous type among the three (Ho, 2008), is suitable for citizens seeking to acquire general knowledge and skills (Article 3, Amendment Of Supplementary Education Act, 2009). Liu (2012) characterizes cram schooling into two kinds. The primary objective of academic cram schools is for educational advancement, such as English, mathematics, and science, helping learners to improve their test scores at school and preparing them for higher grades on entrance to senior high schools and universities. For people to accumulate cultural capital such as music, art, or sports other than test preparations, they go to non-academic cram schools (Wu, 1993). According to Ministry of Education (2013), learners flock to the cram schools, and the number of cramming centers has gone from 1,248 in 1997 to nearly 2,500 in 2000 and recently to
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
10600 in 2013 (Ministry of Education, 2013). Among them, more than 5,000, regardless of scale and purposes (Liu’s characterizations earlier), are catering to English (foreign) language learning. This number is 2.38 times larger than 10 years ago.
The development of tutoring/cramming centers in Taiwan echoes the transformation of traditional ones observed by Davies and Aurini (2006), who state that traditional private tutoring has gradually developed in response to investment, infrastructure, standardization, and securing and expanding revenue sources by providing appropriate customer service.
In documenting this new breed of tutoring, Aurini (2004) outlines three differences on this transformation from the traditional shadow education to self-proclaimed learning centers.
First, the learning centers are not only helping learners with test preparation but also lifelong learning and skills building. Second, unlike traditional shadow education that adopts school subjects as the guideline, learning centers develop their own curriculum and design their own teaching materials (e.g., course books, and audio-visual aids). Finally, learning centers are now catering to a wide variety of age groups, going beyond its original primary and secondary school learners and aiming for adult education and life-long learning in general.
The proliferation of tutoring/cramming industry in Taiwan, though continues to grow, has evoked criticism. Among the concerns, the most noted, as Liu (2012) points out, is whether teachers in private tutoring institutions hold adequate credentials to qualify their teaching. As an English teacher who has received professional training in TESOL and working in this industry, I relate strongly to Liu’s concern. In where I work, only 20 percent of the teachers hold a master degree in relevant areas such as TESOL,
Bilingualism, and Applied Linguistics. I thought this only happened in my workplace, but when the media in Taiwan in May 2013 reported that lots of teenaged learners went to
Bilingualism, and Applied Linguistics. I thought this only happened in my workplace, but when the media in Taiwan in May 2013 reported that lots of teenaged learners went to