CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.2 Teaching methods and English language in Taiwan
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The global market has indeed brought more competitive mind-sets shifting from cost efficiency and mass production to fostering human resources and creativity for a stronger and workable foundation of 21st-century youth (White paper on International Education for Primary and Secondary Schools, 2012).
According to the “White Paper for Cultivating Active Young People” published in 2012 by the MOE, there are concrete development strategies regarding the legal foundation, curricula, and instruction, physical fitness and regular exercise, leisure-time activities, healthier lifestyle, sports facilities, and the selection of training of talented activities.
According to Chen & Fan (2014), after the Taiwan’s Ministry of Education suggested a White paper in a 12-year curriculum for Basic Education to resolve slow birth rate, social changes, overextended colleges or universities, in Taiwanese elementary and junior high schools, they examined the necessity of “empowering the learners to learn”
based on the ideas of a “Learner-centred Education”. This way of teaching has been described as being a source of larger changes and challenges in the teaching class environment. The new curriculum and challenges are titled “Facilitate Self–
actualization, adaptive learning to individual fulfillment, and life long learning”, the general guidelines should be implemented at the beginning of 2018 (Chen & Fan, 2016). Also, there is a considerable effort from the Taiwan Ministry of Education to enforce new ways of improving Taiwanese education, but until this day a “learner-centred education” or “adaptive learning for individual fulfillment” in Taiwan can only be described as a slogan which hasn’t yet been implemented effectively in schools.
2.2 Teaching methods and English language in Taiwan 2.2.1 Emerging trends and teaching methods
There has been a huge increase in English immersion learning environment for the younger generation in Taiwan with the due so-called “English-learning fever” (Chen, 2004: 8). In 2002 in a bid to increase Taiwan’s competitiveness, the former premier DPP Yu Shyi-kun announced the Six-Year National Development Plan to form
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Taiwan into an English-friendly environment. Taiwan government encouraged English learning by launching a variety of programs and by extending the education age group to both younger and older citizens. According to the Minister of Education Huang Jung-tsuen, who is highly dedicated to making English the second official language, he clearly stated that as a secondary goal (after encouraging the whole nation to learn English as a second language) there would be a “push for online English learning” as well (Taipei Times, English to be Made official). The Ministry affirmed that kindergarten curriculums should contain English as a small part of the instruction and emphasized that English learning should be an auxiliary subject and not part of the main objective of the children’s education.
The MOE policy was then criticized as “inappropriate” for children in the first grade as their knowledge acquisition is only limited at that age. Though, the policy ensured that Chinese language education would not be undermined. Also, it was argued to be overwhelming, and shown reluctance among certain pre-schools which did not provide English instruction in their kindergarten. The schools failing to adapt rapidly to offer English in their curriculum were forced to close down as the English learning trend expanded among preschools in the country (Peng, 2004). Preschool educational experts have strongly advised that young children should not? be sent to cram schools in order to learn English as the environments have so often been criticized as not equally suitable compared with the ones in regulated kindergartens. According to the Ministry of Education in 2004, the English Language Industry in Taiwan is estimated between 20-25 billion New Taiwan Dollars (US$590-738 million). According to the Ministry of Education in collaboration with Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, and Executive Yuan agencies, a Plan for Enhancing National English Proficiency was implemented from 2010 to 2016. The total funding required for this plan is estimated to be around NT$600 million revealing the considerable importance for Taiwan to cultivate specialists with strong English language capabilities to
“enhance market competitiveness and support the process of internationalization”
(MOE, 2012).
As Stephen Karshen (2003) argues on approaches to English fever, they often “offer English to very young children if not require it and provide a lot of it.” He then quotes Liu (2002) that said studying English in Taiwan was an “national obsession” and the
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demand for students to begin English as early as possible, are high. He finally argued that English is a “popular subject in cram schools, where in 2000, about 29% of all primary school students were studying at cram schools.”
This study is bringing into discussion the cram school teaching methods as they may largely affect the students’ learning experience, and as Liu mentioned: “Cram school does matter in students’ learning achievement” (Liu, 2011). It cannot be assumed that private tutoring always results in learning gains; both Bray & Lykins (2012) said much depends on the motivation, attitudes, and teaching styles of the tutors.
When discussing about teaching methods used, two main opposed features prevail;
teacher-centred and student-centred teaching methods. In order to better understand the teaching methods in cram schools, the study will concisely describe both of them.
Debeor argued about those features in a quest to find a sensible balance between both.
The first one is an emphasis on “rigor and accountability through high stakes testing, benchmarks, and national and state-developed performance standards”. And for the other is “the effort to develop student-centred approaches to teaching and learning, what some would call constructive pedagogy” (Debeor, 2002, p. 2). According to Concordia Online Education’s (2016) article discussing on both teaching methods, the teacher-centred teaching method tends to focus on the teacher in which students mainly listen to the teacher’s lecture. The advantages of such practice are diverse, it is said to help classrooms to be kept in order, and teachers retains full control of students in the classroom and during activities. As students learn by themselves, they become more independent as they make their own decisions, and there is a guarantee that students will not miss out important facts. As for conversation wise, they might suffer from a lack of practice in communicating. Also it does not allow students to express themselves fully or take the initiative to ask questions or direct their own learning. The instructions can be boring and lead students to wonder off and miss out on important facts (Concordia Online Education, 2016; Teacher-centred vs. learner-centred paradigms, 2000).
Concerning student-centred teaching methods, the main difference compared with the previous method is the sharing of the focus; group work is often encouraged to allow students to learn how to collaborate with one another. They learn to communicate
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complete tasks independently. Students will be more interested in learning through activities and by participating actively. However, the inconveniences of such methods as needing to remain in the environment, which can often be busy, noisy and sometimes chaotic. The teacher may then be challenged to manage all students working on different stages of the project, which can be difficult. Sometimes, the teacher might forget to deliver information to all students, and some may miss important facts. For the students that prefer to work alone, group work can be challenging for them (Concordia Online Education, 2016; Teacher-centred vs.learner-centred paradigms, 2000).
The Taiwanese Education system’s teaching method has been discussed as being teacher-centred for the most part (Goh & Khine, 2002). Teachers, who have tried the student-centred method, argued that lecturing students are the most efficient way to teach students; because of the current test-driven education system in Taiwan, using the teacher-centred method is more suitable for students to get better scores in the examination. Like many of Taiwan’s Asian counterparts, students spend a large amount of time in schools and sometimes studying from early childhood to their early twenties (Chou, 2014). According to a BBC news report on Education, Chinese students spend in average 12 hours in a school environment (Chinese schools
‘robbing young of individuality, October 2015). In Taiwan, students similarly attend cram school classes around three to four hours per day in average (The China Post, 2016). Students’ schedule is tight, and they work very hard at school, so teachers have to adapt their teaching methods according to fit the needs of the students. As mentioned in Creating positive environments in Taiwan, enhancing students’ to discussions during class is said to bring too much noise and adds difficulties for the teacher to control the class. Taiwan Education has been for decades an adept of the teacher-centred Education because argued as “the most practical way to cover the content in the given time frame” (p.225, Goh & Khine).
2.2.2 Expanding the cram school teaching methods
Cram school teachers have used note taking and repetition as the main teaching method for decades. Despite the persistence of using such methods, the arrival of new
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material, ways of teaching (online teaching) so as an acknowledgment towards the necessity of enhancing creative citizens, cram schools have experienced major developments.
While some popular cram school institutions are constantly trying out new ways of attracting students’ attention, the Taiwanese online tutoring market is expanding.
Indeed, the Internet gathers many and various teaching/learning platforms designed for students who need tutoring, cram schools looking for teachers or teachers looking for an opportunity to teach. Nowadays, English tutors in Taiwan can be pitched through the different platforms available online.
Since the arrival of the Internet and new technology, cram schools have taken advantage of the influence of the Internet, and the strong demand for tutoring to create what we call “e-learning” businesses. This new way of tutoring has not only improved the options for students who desire to improve their abilities in a subject but has also allowed them to access custom-designed material for students who request special classes. To illustrate our argument, we found that the publication company, American Magazine Center (AMC) was established in 1979, and started from a single magazine but has now expanded to include English and online material for younger students and adults. The AMC e-learning classes are designed to be an after-class support for the student with a 45-minute online conversation. All material is edited from the company’s monthly magazines and textbooks, which provides new content on a regular basis. In the Language school, the students’ age group is expanding to include more adults than in the past. Now the language center offers different curriculum because the majority of their students are working class or students preparing for English-ability exams such as TOEFL, IELTS, etc. Cram schools have increasingly embraced online tutoring, and the students enrolled in distance programs are rapidly rising. There is a clear fact that online teaching/learning is getting more and more popular nationwide.
According to Kao (2010), E-learning platforms have indeed become an increasing trend. His research has shown that online tutoring is beneficial for the students’
language learning ability but also that it “helped students have more interaction with
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teachers, can make them feel safe to ask questions and can help them understand the parts that they didn’t understand.”
If online teaching is an efficient support to students’ motivation to learn, and it helps improve their English learning skills, the higher chances that cram schools continue to expand their afterschool learning classes providing online tutoring.
2.2.3 Under-regulated aspects and quality teaching in debate
In Taiwanese cram schools, we often encounter different staff members working together or individually on certain tasks. In order to clarify the working positions in Cram schools, by explaining the different positions: teachers, teacher assistants, and tutors; will allow the study to look deeper into the quality teaching and teaching methods in Cram school.
Firstly, a teacher holds the position of the lecturer, gives recitation sessions and is the one in charge of lecturing the lesson. A teacher assistant then helps the lecturer with tasks such as handing out papers, grading homework but doesn’t imply a significant lecturing responsibility. However, tutors have a slightly different role than that of teachers. A tutor is, in fact, a private instructor who will provide additional or special instruction for students and is often outside of the classroom environment. Mark Bray (2014) said that some of the tutors are students and teachers taking on additional work, which requires no specific teaching certificate or even experience to complete the task, but preferably a strong knowledge on the subject of tutoring. Having no specific teaching certificate while teaching can be seen as illegal in certain countries or
“accepted” in others. In Taiwan, one of the reasons cram schools employ uncertified English teachers is because of the high demand from parents and students to learn the English language.
It is a matter of fact that cram schools are the result of the mainstream education particularities as Bray argued, almost all societies put greater attention on the mainstream education rather than on its shadow. Much tutoring is provided one-to-one, but other forms of tutoring include lessons with small groups, and tutoring in larger classes. For instance, Internet tutoring through recorded lessons are common in
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some countries in Asia such as Hong Kong, however, from a regulation perspective, it is a challenge to control as it is received in the privacy of the participant.
On the other hand, it is interesting to note that from the perspective of cram schools providing quality education, much more could be regulated to provide a better teaching and learning environments. It is in fact, still problematic and unrealistic to talk about cram schools as providing quality teaching or quality learning environment.
Bray stated that the governments have the obligation to ensure that their citizens receive good education from whatever source it is provided, the author meant by ensuring that “teaching staff, facilities, equipment, and materials are the best quality that can be provided with available funds” and some forms of regulations should be needed at least in terms of providing good-quality providers (p. 25, Bray).
From this studies’ field research, the author has encountered a few local and foreign cram school teachers and tutors in Taiwan who have never received any form of training prior teaching, nor have an official teaching certificate in hand. The fact that some cram schools may not require teachers with such a degree of certification may reveal under regulated aspects of the institutions not only because they are teachers offering their knowledge but also because the individuals may not be reliable and may cause security issues for the families. In each country or state, becoming a teacher requires a certain number of requirements which are gained by completing a teacher preparation program or alternative program. Even though the preparation for becoming a teacher is different, obtaining a teaching certificate or license is a way to justify the teacher’s ability to teach students professionally on the teacher’s subject of expertise.
While the public sector is still failing and no solutions have been found, students are still largely attending these private institutions around 94,339 according to the China Post (July, 2016). It is a certainty that more careful attention to improving the education system is necessary before looking at the private sector would allow fewer students to look for private tutoring in the first place. The current situation makes cram schools more than often the student’s best and only option to gain the required knowledge to pass the examination. The quality teaching and learning in cram school
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cannot be guaranteed, and it reveals that seeking for quality is not to become a priority. Even though cram schools may not assert to offer quality education, there is a real need to look deeper at how these institutions can impact students in terms of experience and learning outcomes to understand the impact of such a phenomenon.
2.3 The impacts of cram schools and their teaching methods