Globalization and English Education in Taiwan

Curriculum, Perceptions, and Pedagogies

I-Chung Ke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000485394
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: English Language
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Ke's book examines and reflects on English education in Taiwan from a global English perspective, starting with a discussion on globalization and global Englishes. English education in Taiwan has gone through various major transformations since the intensification of globalization after the 1990s. On one hand, children start to learn English ever earlier while on the other hand, the curriculum and materials in the vocational schools and at the tertiary level become diversified to meet various specific needs of English use. Internationalization of education has brought increasing numbers of international students, and the roles of English in Taiwan are changing constantly with the dynamic environment, from a foreign language to a lingua franca, medium of instruction, and an international language.

In his book, the author documents the historical development of education and the roles of English in Taiwan before reviewing curriculum reforms and changes in the past half century. He then presents teachers' and students' perceptions on global Englishes. He proposes global Englishes' pedagogies and his views on what changes can be made to textbooks, learning materials, entrance exams, translation, and the linguistic environment. Practical suggestions to English education in Taiwan in the globalizing context serve as a tentative conclusion for the book.

Offering insights into English education and its relationship with globalization, Ke's book will be useful to researchers and students in the fields of global Englishes and English education as well as offering practical pedagogical suggestions for English educators around the world.

1 Globalization and English education in Taiwan An introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003199984-1

My personal journey

I started learning English in junior high school back in the 1980s. Though I did not receive a formal English education until my first English class in the seventh grade, I was exposed to English songs and movies as a child. American culture penetrated Taiwan via mass media, creating an imaginary for many Taiwanese teenagers in the 1980s. English symbolized development, progress, and fashionable trends. Even though I started learning the 26 letters late, at the age of 13, I had no problem picking up the new language. A lot had to do with a radio station: International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT), the only English radio in Taiwan.

As a gloomy, shy boy beginning a new life in a private junior high school, I was puzzled by my internal physical transformation and the external new environment, which included strict discipline in class due to a class size of nearly 60 students and an emphasis on memorizing the school subjects and tests. Physical punishment was common, and students were not expected to speak much in school. I still remember the shock when I was called out in a class by the math teacher, an elderly mainlander who struck my palm with a wooden board just because I was talking to a classmate in class. I needed a vent or something to latch onto in order to escape from the stressful school life. And it was ICRT that rescued me from the growing pains.

I listened to the English songs, though I did not understand the lyrics of most songs. The pop songs of the 1980s accompanied me through the six years of secondary schooling. By the eighth grade, I was able to pick up the song titles, and each Sunday afternoon, in my diary, I wrote down the top 20 songs in the Bulletin Board chart from ICRT. I commented on the ranking as if I were a spectator in horse racing taking notes on competing horses. The fact that English pop songs occupied a large space in my diary showed that they played an important part in my life at that time. Compared to the ancient Chinese texts that we had to memorize and understand, English to me was much easier and fun.

Thanks to ICRT, my English improved much faster than my peers. In the ninth grade, I started to study an English learning magazine, Studio Classroom, which was founded by an American missionary. While the magazine was (and still is) designed as daily lessons that students were supposed to study along with its radio program, I used it at my own pace, because I listened to ICRT when studying (all subjects). The extra input led to my outstanding English level in the first year of high school compared to my peers. This had a great impact on my life.

I was a shy and diffident teenager in junior high school, but in high school, the English teacher noticed my unusual English level and often asked me to answer questions in class. I was “famous” in class and the heightened status among my peers helped me build confidence in myself. At that time, I was not aware of English as a linguistic capital. For me, it was just another school subject. My time spent on ICRT and Studio Classroom allowed me to achieve a proficiency level that other classmates could not from the school textbooks.

My story embodies the process of the spread of English in Taiwan from the 1970s and into the 1990s. After the end of World War II, in the Cold War era, the US poured resources into the countries within the capitalist camp. American media, businesses, as well as educational and religious institutions, often with connections to the military, penetrated the free world and facilitated the spread of English (Crystal, 2003). American culture was promoted internationally with the aid of technological developments in mass media (radio and TV) and communication (computer, the internet, and most recently, cell phones).

It is my belief that my story was not uncommon in many parts of the world. I have met so many people whose stories about their relationship with English resonate with mine. It might not be American pop music, but Hollywood movies. Not Studio Classroom, but Time. The aspiration to a “New World” where individuals pursue their self-actualization was cultivated via these cultural agents. I did not perceive this as an example of linguistic imperialism (Phillipson, 1992), and I was not aware of the hidden discursive power associated with English until attending graduate school. Not surprisingly, when I faced the decision of choosing a graduate school, I never considered any countries besides the US.

Another reason that I only considered the US was because my uncles lived there. One also studied there and stayed afterward, while the other immigrated as a businessman. These were the two main types of Taiwanese immigration to the US. It is hard to estimate the number of Taiwanese Americans given that many mainland Chinese fled to Taiwan first before continuing to the US in the decades after World War II. The Cold War reinforced the political and economic ties between Taiwan and America, as English together with American culture gradually established its significant role in Taiwan.

Motivation and rationale behind this book

This book intends to examine Taiwan’s English education from the perspective of globalization and global English. English has played an important role in my life, though I refused to face that reality until I started to teach in an applied English department after I obtained a PhD in the US. As my dissertation examined the effects of globalization on Taiwan’s education, I realized the power the macro-level discourses have on the lives of individuals, particularly via education. What has happened in Taiwan has great implications for the world, particularly in East Asia. Caught in between the East (China) and the West (USA), Taiwan, as one of the four Asian Tigers which enjoyed exceptional economic growth after World War II, could serve as a model for other developing countries. Important global contextual changes provide the background for a new orientation in English education. I conceive globalization as the source and cause of the changes in English education. The historical trajectories and trends highlight the penetration process, as English has increasingly been utilized as a converging means serving diverging ends.

In the following chapters, I will start from theoretical discussions on globalization and global English in the second chapter. Educational changes in general and English education in particular will be presented in the third chapter. Chapter 4 provides more details on the latest curriculum reforms in the last two decades. Two longitudinal studies on the cultural content in Taiwanese high school English textbooks and English tests in the college entrance exams illustrate the changing roles of English in Taiwan’s education. English has been gradually taught and tested as an international language rather than a foreign/American language. The focus shifts to the perceptions of teachers and students in the fifth chapter. The most important and perhaps practical discussions on teaching global English are presented in Chapter 6. In the final chapter, I conclude with recommendations and suggestions. Below are more details on each chapter.

In Chapter 2, I present my conceptualization of globalization and global English. My view of globalization as converging means and diverging ends is articulated by discussing examples in the flows of people and cultures. I draw on the neo-institutionalists in sociology to emphasize the critical roles of international organizations and implicit social and cultural norms in shaping a “world culture”. The world culture theory proposed by the neo-institutionalists, led by John Meyer at Stanford University, greatly influences my conceptualization of globalization. The section on globalization is a revision from an earlier publication of mine (Ke & Wu, 2007).

The section on global English is a revision of another of my earlier publications (Ke, 2010a), which discusses the global spread of English and its consequences, such as World Englishes (WE), English as a lingua franca (ELF), and English as an international language (EIL) to show how they exemplify globalization. The debate on the merits and problems of global English is discussed, as well as its potential implications for English education around the world. My position is that we should perceive English as an instrument to connect with the world and promote local cultures and values.

Chapter 3 focuses on English education in Taiwan. I first describe the brief history of social and educational changes in Taiwan since World War II to provide general background. Then the focus shifts to the changing roles of English in Taiwan in the most recent two decades. Drawing on studies by leading scholars in Taiwan, I attempt to uncover the use of English and perceptions of Taiwanese in recent years. I then tackle the current issues in Taiwan’s English education, including curriculum reforms, shadow education, the twin-peak phenomenon (unequal learning outcomes), the push for English as an official language, and the recent policy initiative for a bilingual nation.

Curriculum is the topic in Chapter 4 as I introduce the most important curriculum reforms in the last two decades, the nine-year integrated curriculum 九年一貫 in 2001 and 12-year basic education curriculum 十二年國教新課綱 in 2018 in the first section of this chapter. The analysis will be based on policy documents and media coverage. Then I present an earlier publication of mine (Ke, 2012) that investigates the cultures in Taiwanese high school English textbooks from after World War II to 2009. Findings from leading English learning magazines (including Studio Classroom mentioned above) that were not included in my 2012 article are presented in this section. The last section of this chapter turns to assessment and gatekeeping. Since English is a key subject in high-stake exams, the cultural content in these exams from the 1950s to the 2010s is the focus of this study. The section is a reprint from a recent publication of mine (Ke, 2019).

Chapter 5 discusses the perceptions and beliefs of teachers and students. I start with studies on English teachers’ and students’ beliefs and perceptions of global English. Drawing on studies from around the world, including my own (Ke & Cahyani, 2014), I highlight the key issues that keep teachers in Taiwan from embracing global English. In the second section of the chapter, I present a condensed version of my publication (Ke, 2014) that investigated homeroom teachers’ perspectives on the global spread of English. Most studies have focused on English teachers, and very few have paid attention to homeroom teachers, who actually play a critical role in elementary education. The last section is my study on college students’ perceptions of English, condensed from my earlier publication (Ke, 2010b). This qualitative study explores Taiwanese students’ views to further complement the findings from the questionnaire studies reviewed in the first section.

Chapter 6 proposes a framework for a global English curriculum. On the top of the framework are English texts in different varieties drawn from diverse cultural and linguistic contexts around the world. The global English paradigm marks a distinction from the traditional EFL paradigm; it involves challenging the model based on native-speaker (NS)-norms and recognizing the legitimacy of English varieties used in the real world. The global English curriculum needs to focus on global English use and intercultural communication by highlighting communication strategies and awareness-raising reflections. I use the examples from my textbook (Ke, 2017) to show some possible ways to incorporate global English pedagogies into English courses in the second section. In the next section I propose eight models for English teachers that show how culture can be incorporated into English courses. Cross-cultural models lean toward the traditional EFL paradigm, while the models of cultural and intercultural awareness fit the global English paradigm.

Another crucial element in the framework is global citizen education and the content of world studies. Global English(es) experiences do not automatically lead to the development of global citizenships. Teachers have to guide their students to reflect on and discuss relevant issues based on their experience to facilitate the process of awareness and perspective formation. In order to be conscious of our ethnocentric tendency, discussions on issues of cultural identities and language ideologies are necessary. These five elements of (1) diverse Englishes, (2) communication strategies, (3) incorporation of culture, (4) global citizen education, and (5) cultural identities and language ideologies constitute the framework of the global English curriculum.

The conclusion chapter restates the main argument and provides suggestions in the realm of language policy and planning. I offer four main directions: (1) creative languaging that utilizes global (English), national (Chinese), and local languages, (2) translanguaging in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and English medium instruction (EMI), (3) multi-competence and digital literacy, and (4) development of glocal teaching and assessment materials.

In this book, I use “global English” to refer to the overall concept and paradigm while the term “global Englishes” refers to the specific linguistic varieties and the diverse cultural content embedded in these Englishes. Global English is sometimes considered as an umbrella term that includes all aspects related to the global English use in various contexts.

References

1. Crystal, D. (2003). English as a global language (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Ke, I. (2010a). Globalization and global English: Panacea or poison for ELT in Taiwan? Taiwan Journal of TESOL, 7(1), 1–28.
3. Ke, I. (2010b). Global English and world culture: A study of Taiwanese university students’ worldviews and conceptions of English. Journal of English as an International Langu...