1.1 Research background
There was a trend of transnational marriage which happens in Taiwan since 1990s (Chen, 2013). During the last decades there has been enormous number of foreign brides who came to Taiwan (Wang, 2010). The rapid economic and social development in Taiwan offered Taiwanese women more opportunities and freedom. Therefore, it has been hard for Taiwanese men to find a wife locally. Hsia (2007) indicated, in the late 1980s, thousands of Taiwanese peasants and working-class men left the countryside in search of brides. Moreover, Chin & Yu (2009) described, bride immigrants who are from Southeastern Asia such as Mainland China, Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia, and so on, mostly coming from poorer inner rural areas. These brides would like to be out of poverty and have better life when they get married with a Taiwanese man.
According to Ministry of education data, there were 600 new Taiwanese children joining elementary schools in 2000. And the number had increased to 3600 after 2 years. New Taiwanese children are defined as children from transnational marriage families in which they have mothers or fathers from other countries. In 2014 the total number of New Taiwanese Children who are studying at elementary and secondary school in Taiwan is 209,784. There are 83,574 pupils who have a Vietnamese mother or father. There have been many educational concerns such as children’s language issues, family education, and communication problems between mothers and teachers when the number of intercultural and inter-lingual marriages increasing. Che (2004) suggested that new Taiwanese children lacked language proficiency when entering elementary school. Many had difficulty with Mandarin pronunciation and vocabulary, lacking sufficient words and phrases to express their feeling and needs; they were also less able to comprehend sentence structure as compared to those students with two Taiwanese parents. In addition, Hsang’s (2004) study showed the new Taiwanese children’s classmates teased them because of their language and family backgrounds.
Ministry of Education of Taiwan (2005) reported about the investigation of New Taiwanese Children’s afterschool assignment supports, the results of study showed that 33.8% of NTC do
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not get support in their family for their school assignments because 69.1% of NTC’s fathers are busy working, and 33.7% of the bride mothers have language limitation (as cited in Chung, 2009). According to the Department of Statistics, the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (2012) reported that the nationalities of New Taiwanese Children’s fathers or mothers are mostly Mainland Chinese and then Vietnamese (as cited in Fang, 2012). Therefore, it is important to examine the influences of Vietnamese mothers on their Taiwanese children in term of language.
However, there are a few studies only focus on effects of Vietnamese brides on their Taiwanese children.
1.2 Research objectives
The main purpose of the study is to examine and analyze the Chinese performance and competence of Vietnamese brides to see how these factors affect their Taiwanese children’s language development and ability. Most Vietnamese brides don’t speak Chinese before they get married with Taiwanese men and come to Taiwan. In Vietnam, the Chinese language is not an official language and it is not popular is taken as second language in most schools in Vietnam.
Therefore, Chinese is not mother-tongue or second language of Vietnamese people except for Han people who are living in Vietnam. Vietnamese brides started to learn Chinese after they get married with Taiwanese men. Thus, they are over their critical period in order to obtain the native speakers’ level. By recording and analyzing conversations given by Vietnamese brides in their daily life, the study is expected to provide an idea or overview about to what extent Vietnamese brides’ Chinese language ability is proficient. This level of proficiency will directly affect their offspring’s education and social acceptance.
Furthermore, the study also examines whether Vietnamese mothers’ lack of comprehension negatively influence their Children’s language development. It is well-understood that parents play an important role in a child’s language acquisition during particular periods and parents are main language input providers to their children before and after a child is able to speak. In transnational marriage families, Vietnamese mothers spend more time with their children when they are little while the husbands are busy working. Therefore, if a child receives incorrect input, he or she might produce incorrect output which will be difficult to correct when it becomes a bad habit.
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Finally, the study would like to determine how these children might feel about their mothers’
language ability such as they will face difficulties in terms of language or not when they go to school from the first day. Chinese language itself is a difficult one to learn for non-natives, even local ones. And it is a fact that many Vietnamese brides are unable to read and write Chinese words. Therefore, by interviewing children from the transnational marriage couples it may be possible to reveal whether a child faces difficulty in learning how to write and understand Chinese words.
1.3 Research questions
The main purpose of this study is to examine whether Vietnamese mother’s Chinese language ability has a direct influence on their Taiwanese children (New Taiwanese Children) in terms of language development and education support before and after school. Therefore, the following research questions will help to provide the answers.
What are the influences of Vietnamese mothers’ Chinese ability on their Taiwanese children’s Chinese language proficiency?
What is the children’s perception of their mother’s Chinese language proficiency?
What is Vietnamese mothers’ perception of their own overall Chinese language skills?
1.4 Significance of the research
This study is expected to give an overview about the general developmental effects of Vietnamese mother’s Chinese language ability on their Taiwanese children’s language and educational development. Language plays a very important role in communication and education;
thus, it is crucial to find out whether mothers’ language ability will have influences on their children or not. Moreover, bride immigrants from Vietnam prefer to be housewives, to do housework and to spend time with their children. The researcher perceived that the language barrier of not knowing Chinese pushed Vietnamese bride mothers to prefer to stay at home, and to not get closer to the community (Chen, 2013).
It is obvious that Vietnamese mothers spend more time with their children than with their Taiwanese husbands. The children get a lot of language input from their mothers. The study is
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also expected to find out how proficient Vietnamese mother’s Chinese is. More deeply, the study also examines the feeling of the New Taiwan children about their mother’s language ability and support when they go to school in terms of helping them with academic homework or with class assignments.
The Taiwan government has been providing many Chinese classes for foreign brides in order to improve their Chinese. However, the success of these programs is still limited. Many Vietnamese brides are busy at work to support both their families in Vietnam and Taiwan.
Moreover, many of Vietnamese mothers who finished the programs at elementary schools cannot go to secondary school due to the distance. Thus, the results from this study might help the government to recognize the importance of Vietnamese brides’ roles in their children language and education development. It is becoming a big concern when the population of Vietnamese mothers in Taiwan increases.
1.5 Scope of the research
According to statistics from Taiwan Minister of the Interior, Taiwan has a variety of foreign brides who come from various nations. The study only focuses on effects of Vietnamese brides on their children regarding language development and ability such as process of acquiring and developing Chinese, Vietnamese and Taiwanese languages, children’s language proficiency.
And there are a small number of Vietnamese brides and their children in Taiwan to do interviews for data analysis.
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