Taiwan's Low Quality and Elitist Education System

In previous posts, I have written about Finland’s successful language immersion education programs (in Vaasa). Forty years ago, this country was completely dependent on Russia with its only main industry wood-working. Just over 30 years ago, Finland started investing heavily in upgrading the quality of their education. Now, it is widely envied for having the most successful and effective education system in the world.

I will use Finland’s education as backdrop to contrast with Taiwan’s education. Some will deny it, while efforts to change the situation have been made - and have achieved the opposite: Taiwan’s education is elitist.

WHY FINLAND?

Finland’s – and most education systems in EU-states – are opposite of elitist and see to it that every child has an equal opportunity to receive equal-quality education.

Most important in Finnish education is the policy of raising the abilities of slower learners. Taiwan education tries to achieve the same by allowing slower learners to join mainstream education, often turning them into slow learners compared to their class-peers. Finland’s teachers offer remedial plans (one-on-one) for about 20% of its total high school students, paid for as overtime work by the government. Taiwan’s solution to the problem is sought in cram school education.

Primary and junior high schools in Finland have an average of 150 students per school with no more than 20 students per class. In Taiwan, schools use advertising slogans such as “Excellence, Vitality, and Soul Education” (a school’s slogan in Kaohsiung City). In Finland, one doesn’t find anything similar; the Finns think that when (e)quality is served, excellence and vitality will take care of itself.

Rather than Taiwan’s practice of increasing the number of schools and throwing money at education, Finland has put considerable efforts into improving its junior high school education. The Finns judged correctly that children at this stage are developing their own methods of learning, so that they need the most resources.

Taiwan’s junior high school children are, instead, cramming (as in "memorizing content") the five core subjects: Chinese, English, math, science and social studies. Moreover, a significant number of students is doing so in a language different from their home (first) language, Taiwanese.

With al its disadvantages, one might argue that Taiwan’s elitist system gives quick learners what they deserve. Finnish education logic is different: faster learners can study on their own or have more free time for other activities; slow learners need more help - and Finland does not have cram schools. Taiwan’s logic is that quick learners need to be rewarded by getting into the best schools, while slow learners must join schools with lesser prestige.

Taiwan’s education system is tuned at only investing in its best students. It forces schools to invest limited financial resources in the top students who scored highest in the near-repulsive Basic Competency Test (Taiwan’s standardized high school entrance test), which leads to vital lack of fairness in education.

Finland (and other EU-states) persistently opposes any form of divisions or ranking. “Elite” divisions are major taboos. In Belgium, to take another EU state, entrance exams for high schools and universities are non-existent, except for art education and medical studies. Finnish primary and junior high schools are furthermore free to determine class size, course content, curriculum, and even the number of semesters in a school year. Teachers are free to decide what to teach, how it is taught, and what texts to use. Belgium has a similar system in primary education, with mornings set aside for the study of core subjects and afternoons for extra-curricular activities encouraging the pupil to express himself creatively.

TAIWAN’S EDUCATION DEFORMATION

Taiwan has partly deregulated textbook use in 2005. This has left many students no choice but to attend profit-making cram schools to prepare for entrance exams. After all, students often complain that not a single text from their schoolbooks is used in the exams. So they refuse to memorize anything and are not aware of other techniques to master subject content. Since Taiwan’s system demands memorization to pass entrance tests, the situation after 2005 is worse than before.

Taiwan has implemented a comprehensive curriculum from 1st to 9th grades. But the MOE conveniently forgot to demand that teachers be trained to teach students certain things beyond the core subjects. This, of course, would have involved investing even more in primary and high school education.

Cram schools have moved in to fill this gap: their number has increased fourfold to almost 17.500 in less than a decade. The government has quietly given its consent: it is, after all, better to collectively confine Taiwan’s youth to cram schools than to loose face by admitting that educational reform has been a failure.

Hence, high school students spend 8 hours a day at school, with many students sacrificing their entire summer vacation and most weekends in cram schools “filling the gap” left by Taiwan’s appalling education strategies. A faulty educational system and 17.500 “Robin Hoods” eager to “save” Taiwan’s youth from a substandard education system (getting rich while doing so). Spare a thought for the pupils caught up in this system!

UNIVERSITIES

Taiwan’s tertiary educational system is a copy from a country much richer in resources: the US. The latter spends an average of NT$ 1.7 million per year on each university student. The EU-average is much lower: NT$ 418.000. Taiwan: NT$ 130.000, that is per university student per year, for a system favoring the best students only.

The unemployment rate among university graduates in Taiwan is peaking. For graduates aged 20 – 24, it stands at almost 13%, three times the national average. Taiwan counts 162 universities and technical colleges. Finland, for example, while having four times less people (5.3 million) than Taiwan, has seven times less similar institutions (22).

In one decade, the number of university students in Taiwan (not including those in technical schools) has risen from 380.000 to 1.12 million (2006), with 90% of all high school graduates going on to undergraduate studies at a university. Simplistic and thoughtless educational reforms led by Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tse then led to an excessive growth in the number of universities. This eventually led to a decline in the quality of university students and the quality of university education, in particular for those schools with declining student numbers.

Some university programs in Taiwan do not reject a single student. If only 20 students apply for a program able to take in 50 students, why turn them away? One might argue that European Universities also admit all students (without admission test). In those cases, however, students are far from guaranteed to pass all subjects, as is the case in Taiwan. If a student at a Taiwan university is failed, parents increasingly demand to talk to university authorities, ultimately putting pressure on the teachers to choose the least hassle-free option: to pass students. Profit is increasingly the new name of the university game, with student recruitment having become a war between schools and departments.

The MOE adopts their trademark approach: hands-off. They allow free competition among universities that have increasingly become diploma-manufacturers rather than institutions of teaching excellence. Teachers retreat into their offices concentrating on research – which keeps authorities content. This rather than facing the increasingly ugly reality of entering the teaching battlefield. Hence, a university with poor teaching records can survive merely by improving the research output of its academic staff. Where does all this leave the university students?

The MOE has tried to react, in part, by starting a system to assess university departments as of 2006. But seeing their extremely poor record in effectively implementing its own policies, I (and others, I suspect) strongly doubt they will have the guts to ask a university to close down in case it fails the final evaluation. Also, a new (KMT) administration will eventually come up with different measures to achieve similar goals, possibly putting further pressure on already de-motivated teachers.

WHY THIS MESS?

The fundamental cause, I believe, is that parents in Taiwan judge a university’s ranking to guarantee academic achievement. Although Europe and the US have similar educational branding for selected schools, it is by far not as intense as is the case in Taiwan – especially not in Europe.

As many other things in Taiwan, higher education and good universities are status models. In most (if not all!) other countries, a good income and academic background is not as important as it is here, on Isla Formosa.

Much like teachers are struggling to uphold academic standards, students (and their parents) are involved in a battle of their own: gain admission to Taiwan’s top-ranked universities. To achieve this, a student first had to gain access to one of the island’s top high schools. And for this to happen, that same student had to spend many evenings, weekends and summer holidays cramming away during his or her junior high school years.

Are we surprised that Taiwan’s kids excel in math but are weak in coming up with new hypotheses and creative ways to, for example, write a simple essay? And do Taiwan authorities really care?

Instead of acknowledging all problems in education, education officials hold up Taiwan children’s scores at international competitions to prove (to themselves?) that we are indeed producing competitive students. Few things are further from the truth. If they don’t know, they are incompetent. If they do know, they are hypocrites. The ultimate truth is that, because of the pressure of their daily examination battle, Taiwan’s youth is gravely lacking chances for exploration, adventure, and creativity.

A TEACHER (NOT EXAM)-DRIVEN NON-ELITIST EDUCATION

Only by upgrading the quality of Taiwan’s schools can the pressure on students be relieved. This then would be the beginning of a more humane education system for Taiwan’s youth, providing that a future MOE will not shy away from a thorough overhaul of, in particular, the primary and junior high school education system.

Encourage and convince parents in poorer rural areas that they don’t have to send their kids to “quality” high schools elsewhere. Do so by upgrading rural schools. And start doing this by building a system to further educate teachers. Give incentives – financial or by providing paid leave - to teachers wiling to continue education.

Finland, the country with the world’s best education system, also has the world’s strictest teaching standards. Primary and junior high school teachers must have research-oriented backgrounds (MA-degree combined with relevant research publications), which explains the almost complete freedom teachers have, as explained above.

Taiwan’s education reforms did not make any attempt to train teachers. Whatever changes the MOE was hoping for were destined to fail. In 2005, the MOE allocated NT$ 50 billion for a five-year plan to bring Taiwanese universities up to the highest world standards. It should not come as a surprise that in an anonymous survey, 67% of professors believed this plan would not succeed.

Taiwan’s public and policy makers might want to look beyond the economy to uplift its people. In 30 years, Finland grew from a relatively poor wood-working nation to one of the world’s foremost electronics exporter.

The Finns did not do this by making their children cram textbooks or by emphasizing sciences. They did so by improving the overall quality of their education system - a non-elitist education putting, the slow learner first. And although the Finns’ household wealth is ‘only’ at the average level for member states of the European Union, a Cambridge University survey shows them to be the “happiest” people in Europe, after the Danes.

Taiwan should take note, since its mal-functional education is contributing to widening the gap between the poor and the rich and producing increasingly worthless diplomas.

What can our education system offer poorer or slower students, except for force-feeding them and stealing a substantial part of their youth and creativity?

REFERENCES

CommonWealth Magazine: http://english.cw.com.tw : edition no. 360, articles by Hsu Kuei-ying and Sherry Lee; no. 384, article by Hsiao Fuyuan; no. 395, articles by Sherry Lee.

Finland Ministry of Education Website: http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/?lang=en

Cambridge University Website, “Happy Danes are here again”,
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/press/dpp/2007041601

Reshaping Taiwan's Linguistic Landscape

In this post, I propose a language education system for Taiwan's primary schools regulated by a so-called “Taiwan Language Law”. Such law would be modeled on the language law (1986) in the Basque region of Navarre in northern Spain. The education system here has been a model for multilingual regions throughout Europe and has recently been awarded the most innovative and successful education in Europe (see later in this post).

A similar Taiwan language law would divide Taiwan into five different education zones:

• A-Zones: the Taiwanese-only zones, 
• B-Zones: the mixed Taiwanese/Mandarin zones,
• C-Zones: the Mandarin-only zones,
• D-Zones: the mixed Hakka/Mandarin zones,
• E-Zones: the mixed Aboriginal/Mandarin zones 

These education zones (areas within Taiwan) will have different population densities, different urban and rural characteristics, as well as different percentages of people who are bilingual or monolingual in Taiwanese (Hakka or Aboriginal) and Mandarin.

I will limit this post to consider the status of Taiwanese language education in the proposed educational setup: the A-, B-, and C-Zones.

A QUICK LOOK AT THE EDUCATION ZONES

The Taiwanese language will first have to be recognized as an official language, but only in the A-Zones. In these zones, a mostly rural population lives in smaller villages who are Taiwanese / Mandarin bilingual – predominantly on the southern part of the island.

Over half of Taiwan’s population will have access to the mixed Taiwanese / Mandarin B-Zones. These areas include the major cities on the western part of the island, including Taipei and its neighboring areas. The remainder of Taiwan’s inhabitants, living in either the A- or C-Zones but not having Taiwanese as home language will equally have access to the Mandarin-only education zones. If people’s home language does not correspond with the education zone in which they live, they will have two options:

• Have their children follow education close to home but accepting them to be bilingually educated, or
• Send their children to a school further from home in the education zone they choose.

In public life, the Taiwan language law will recognize that the inhabitants of the Taiwanese A-Zones have the right to use the Taiwanese language in their dealings with the administration in those zones. In the mixed Taiwanese / Mandarin B-Zones and in the Mandarin-only C-Zones, this right is also recognized, although the measures prescribed by the language law will be limited and most probably not always implemented in practice. This, however, has not proven problematic in similar zones in the Basque Country (Euskara).

As far as teaching is concerned, the language law would only fully recognize the right to receive education through Taiwanese in the A-Zones. In the mixed B-Zones, this right will be subject to choice. Those who express a wish to study in Taiwanese can do so, but only if there is sufficient demand for to start such classes within that education zone. In the Mandarin-only C-Zones, this right will be more restricted and will also depend on social demand.

Not surprisingly, the Taiwan Language Law will be harshly criticized by different groups within Taiwan because of the “separation” of the community into language-education areas. They will also object to the “legal” obstacles the law will impose on the teaching of Taiwanese in the mixed and Mandarin-only zones. At first, such criticism might originate within rightist elements from the KMT. It might then spread to other groups (parents, teachers, public opinion) not familiar with the benefits of the system elsewhere and only susceptible to political (nationalist) “centralizing” policies.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE EDUCATION ZONES

In the Taiwanese-only A-Zones, most of the population will be bilingual, a minority passive bilinguals (i.e. able to understand but not speak Mandarin proficiently) and a yet smaller minority Mandarin-speaking monolinguals.

In the mixed B-Zones, the estimated percentage of bilinguals will amount to 30 – 50%, passive bilinguals to less than 20%.

In the Mandarin-only C-Zones, the bilinguals will represent an estimated percentage of less than 10% (including passive bilinguals), and 90% or more Mandarin-speaking monolinguals.

Parents choosing A-Zones education for their children are the ones showing attitudes in favor of Taiwanese. The reasons for preserving the language and giving it greater value are generally of the historical, affective type, born out of a sense of attachment to one’s Taiwanese language and culture. Taiwanese first language speaker opting for Zones-A education will tend to attribute a great value to their mother tongue. But they will also keenly feel that Taiwanese has not been valued enough in Taiwan’s social and working environment.

Unfavorable attitudes on behalf of monolingual Mandarin speakers will also be linked to criteria based on usefulness. Those who are above 50 years old, who are monolingual Mandarin speakers, who have not completed their education, and who are living in the mixed B-Zones or Mandarin-only C-Zones are the ones who will be most indifferent to a possible increase in the use of the Taiwanese language.

By implementing the zoning education system, Taiwan society will opt for the recognition of the Taiwanese language as an integral part of Taiwan’s culture. Recognition would be much greater among Taiwanese first language speakers and in the Taiwanese-only A-Zones. In the Mandarin-only C-Zones, Taiwanese might not be greatly valued because of low levels of competence, fewer opportunities to use it, and the lack of support Taiwanese has enjoyed so far.

PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES

In the distinct zones established by the Taiwan Language Law, different language education models will be applied which will regulate the use of Taiwanese and Mandarin in the education system. Through the application of these models, the teaching of the Taiwanese language will be obligatory in the A-Zones, but optional in the B- and C-Zones.

In the mixed B-Zones, the teaching of the Taiwanese language is guaranteed as long as two conditions will be met:

(i) That there are sufficient requests made by parents to allow the formation of a bilingual class or even school, large enough to set up B-Zones type education
(ii) That there is availability of trained bilingual teachers for this group. In the Mandarin-only zones, the only possibility that is considered is the teaching of Taiwanese as a subject, which will also depend on the condition in specified in (i).

The most direct consequence of the education zones is that parents in the Mandarin-only education zones will not be able to choose education through the medium of Taiwanese. To some extent, this situation is mitigated by the fact that private schools, which can offer Taiwanese-medium education, could be set up with financial assistance from interest and business groups.

So although some Taiwanese-medium schools can exist in the Mandarin-only C-Zones, they will be considered as officially unregulated, and will therefore not receive government funding. Such schools are exactly those which are flourishing in Spain’s autonomous regions (called “Ikastolas”). I will talk about them later to criticize those in Taiwan claiming that a pupil cannot handle learning in three languages.

The A-Zones will use Taiwanese as a medium for teaching, offering Mandarin as subject at all levels of compulsory education. The A-Zones will use Taiwanese-only as a vehicle for teaching all subjects (courses) in the first five years of primary education. Beyond those five years, Taiwanese will be used as medium to teach two subjects. This education model is aimed at those pupils coming from a totally Taiwanese-speaking background. This model will become a maintenance program for the Taiwanese speaking pupils and an early total immersion program for those Mandarin-speaking pupils opting for this kind of education.

For those who are confused by the term “immersion”: this kind of program is an education model which uses the child’s second language as a teaching medium for a very significant part of the primary school’s curriculum. These programs are based on the principle that knowledge of the contents and the second language gradually develop throughout the curriculum, thereby generating a special educational situations in which the Mandarin-only pupils will have to learn Taiwanese and the curricular contents at the same time. Such models are successfully implemented in multilingual countries in Europe, as well as in Canada.

English as foreign language will be introduced in all the education zones. This would equal so-called trilingual education from the second or third grades of primary school onwards. Such has been the traditional learning method of most European states since the early 1970s. Claims made by some academics and politicians in Taiwan that this would be too much to handle for Taiwan’s pupils are denigrating to Taiwan’s youngsters. Furthermore, in the light of ample research into multilingual primary education elsewhere, these claims are unsupported, speculative and plainly wrong.

But let’s get back to Taiwan’s proposed education zones. It is important to understand that the criteria used in these zones would not be the pupil’s mother tongue per se, but the predominance of Taiwanese or Mandarin speakers in certain areas within Taiwan, as well as the parents choice of education model for their children. In other words, education through Taiwanese will take place subject to three different sets of conditions:

1. The majority language in the different language zones
2. The parental choice of education zone
3. The resources made available by the Ministry of Education to support the long-term development of education through languages other than Mandarin

ZONE-EDUCATION MODELS IN EUROPE

The A-Zones education model (mostly in smaller villages in Taiwan’s rural south) would be the only model guaranteeing a greater competence in Taiwanese and a level of Mandarin similar to the B- and C-models. This fact is supported by research done into Basque- and Catalan-only education models by comparing primary school exit results of their respective A-, B- and D-models.

Based on such exit results of implementing zone-education elsewhere, Taiwanese students from the A-Zones would not lag behind in acquiring Mandarin skills, provided that fully bilingual teachers will be available. In European countries, this is often the responsibility of “Language Academies” as found in The Netherlands, Finland and Spain.

Recent research data from similar education zones in Spain shows a growing social demand for instruction in the mother tongue – next to Spanish. Such growing education through the medium of the pupils’ first language suggests an important movement for the revival and normalization of local and native languages in countries like Spain, Ireland, Finland, and the United Kingdom.

For Taiwan, a similar feat is overdue for Taiwanese, as well as Hakka and Aboriginal languages. From the establishment of the Basque law in 1986 until the school year 2005/2006, the Basque-only education model (similar to the A-Zones above) has increased five-fold in the Navarre area, going from 5.48% to 27.19%.

On the other hand, enrolment in Spanish-only medium schools (similar to the C-Zones) has declined sharply during the same period, falling from 81.18% to 46.53%. Parents have increasingly witnessed the benefits of local / mother tongue education in areas where most of the public still uses the mother tongue. More importantly even, they have witnessed for themselves that teaching courses through the child’s home language has positively influenced the child’s performance in school.

Beyond Navarre, enrolment Basque-only schools for the whole of the Basque Country in Spain has doubled in 18 years, from 43.37% to 88.12%, with also a considerable increase in the mixed Basque/Spanish education model from 13.36% to 30.13%. In 1992, a mere six years after the establishment of the Basque language law, the demand for the Spanish-only model was practically non-existent.

Quite contrary to public perceptions in Taiwan, parents in Europe’s multilingual regions are showing more and more interest in teaching (at primary school level) through the mother tongue (A-Zone education), or in those programs in which the curriculum is taught through the country's official language, but with inclusion of teaching the local mother tongue as a subject.

What, then, seems to convince parents in Taiwan to stick with an outdated Mandarin-only primary language education for their Taiwanese, Hakka and Aboriginal children?

DEBUNKING THE ‘THREE LANGUAGES IS TOO MUCH’ CLAIM

Since I feel quite strongly about this, let me repeat an earlier statement:

Claims made by academics in Taiwan that three languages throughout primary school is too much for pupils to handle are denigrating to Taiwan’s youth. In the light of ample trilingual research data available, such claims are unsupported, speculative and plainly wrong.

And prompted by political considerations?

The teaching of English as first foreign language in Taiwan has seen a dramatic increase. The advance in the introduction of English has already become widespread in the final years of infant education (in Kindergartens) and in the first stage of primary education. This early introduction is the sole and most striking feature of Taiwan’s recent language education.

The proposed bilingual A- and B-Zones will have the potential to become centers of innovation in Southeastern Asia by implementing multilingual teaching, based on the mother tongue and with the early introduction of English as a third language. New teaching methodologies based on fully bilingual (read: mother tongue & Mandarin, not Mandarin & English!) teaching models will, if similar efforts in Europe can repeat their success here, revitalize Taiwan’s current stagnant language education.

Imagine a newspaper heading “Taiwanese schools’ English teaching program awarded in London”!

Wishful thinking?
Still, this happened to the Basque-only education on which the proposed education zones are based. In 2006 they received a Royal award for their “innovative development of English and Spanish teaching materials” – for use in Basque-only mother tongue education! It was the first time a non-British entity was awarded the prize; universities such as Cambridge and Oxford had previously also been awarded the prize.

The mechanisms applied by the Basque Autonomous region for use in their Zones-A type education fall beyond the scope of this post, as well as the author’s field of expertise (i.e. CLIL or Content and Language Integrated Learning). But the fact that no academic ‘expert’ in Taiwan seems willing to even look into this pedagogic mechanism (because it would involve giving Taiwanese prominence in primary education?) does not bode well for Taiwan’s language education. At least a comparison of “our” outdated language education with the results obtained in these kind of schools could be informative – if not highly enlightening.

Above all, one should make this comparison: the importance most multilingual European countries give to bilingual (mother tongue + official language) education against Taiwan’s current monolingual + English submersion education (unanimously agreed to be ineffective). Currently, the Taiwan public is mislead by academics and poorly informed by the government into believing that a bilingual or trilingual education are overly burdensome to Taiwan’s pupils.

The public tendency in Europe to a heightened interest in bilingual and trilingual education is reflected in the considerable interest and acceptance that such education arouses in parents. I propose the following reasons:

• The advantages that bilingualism entails. These are largely unknown or frowned upon by Taiwan’s academic elite. The public, preoccupied with their children’s English language education, meekly concurs.

• The benefits of bilingual education in the areas of more effective and creative communication within Taiwan.

• Its importance in the development of thought, personality, and creativity. Could it be, I cannot help but wonder, that Taiwan’s academic community is purposefully shunning this kind of development in its students – ‘docile students, less problems for the teacher’?

• Cultural enrichment and identity-building. Yes, that politically-loaded “ID” word, often abused to promote or discredit purely political agendas.

• The ease of entry into, I dare imagine, an officially multilingual Taiwan job market

• The much-needed respect and tolerance towards other cultures Taiwanese / Mandarin bilingual education would foster within Taiwan (or Hakka and Aboriginal bilingual education)

IMPACT OF EDUCATION ZONES ON THE FUTURE OF TAIWANESE

Implementing an education system similar to that of multilingual societies in Europe will influence the image of the Taiwanese language in Taiwan. While maintaining and revitalizing the language in the A-Zones education models, the Mandarin-only zones might increasingly perceive Taiwanese as an alien element.

The mixed Taiwanese / Mandarin B-Zones, where the greatest number of Taiwan’s pupils would live, will know an increase in the number of Taiwanese speakers. This will be a consequence of the language being introduced into school education, starting with first and primary school grades, as well as a consequence of teaching the complete primary school curriculum through the medium of Taiwanese for the first four or five years.

However, the proposed Taiwan language law would not include regulating the possibility of Taiwanese being used in dealings with government, media, and in further education (high schools and universities). The language rights of the inhabitants of the Taiwanese-only A-Zones going to visit the B- or C-Zones (like Taipei, for instance) would, in other words, still be restricted. This, however, would not necessarily be a negative consequence.

While it might be considered politically disadvantageous to people in the A-Zones, it might also appease those opposed to Taiwanese being used as a political tool. The issue, one should not forget, should be the maintenance of the Taiwanese language, not the bestowment of more political power upon Taiwanese mother tongue speakers.

In the Taiwanese-only A-Zones, the Taiwanese language would continue to have great ethno-linguistic vitality, although only a minority of the population of Taiwan will live in these zones. They will be mainly rural areas, as is the case in Spain and Ireland’s educational systems, areas with small villages and a lower birth rate.

Yet, by giving exactly these areas a proven bilingual or trilingual education system, people here stand to gain. They will enjoy a more effective and innovative language education, as well as their basic right to receive mother tongue education. Hence, the gap between the poorer Taiwan countryside and the richer urban areas will diminish by bringing education to the people, not be virtually exporting, for instance, Aboriginal students to urban settings – settings in which many can only succeed by receiving remedial courses to make them “catch up” with more privileged students.

CONCLUSION

Zones-A based education models in Europe have become those that revitalize mother tongue education. Also, mother tongue education has been given standing in communities that were previously indifferent or even hostile to the often much less used mother tongue.

The success of Zones-A models in Europe has not been limited to the field of language education; the total cultural and social education of its pupils has benefited. This education model has helped maintain the native language and culture of people in areas where the language rights of its inhabitants were severely restricted. In C-Zones, non-native speakers stand to gain a certain familiarity with the Taiwanese language, even if they consider it remote from their everyday lives, or are even hostile to it.

Finally, the early introduction of English offered through immersion courses (e.g. arts or other creativity-orientated) throughout primary school will break with the existing ineffective and extremely time-consuming submersion techniques used throughout the island’s primary schools.

The prevailing message in this post, besides concrete proposals to reinvigorate language education based on proven models, is identical to the idea of other posts on this blog: it is in schools that Taiwan’s linguistic reshaping must take place.

And it is only through education that Taiwan’s public will be willing to accept the mother tongue as something normal. What would Taiwan stand to lose from starting to experiment and implement

(a) comprehensive training for fully bilingual Taiwanese / Mandarin primary school teachers, and
(b) a new and proven language education system?

Not much, I believe.

REFERENCES

Basque Language Law (1986). 18/86 de 15 diciembre. Boletin Oficial de Navarra, n. 15.

Blake, W. D. (2004). Euskera as a defining feature of Euskadi. Ph. D. Dissertation. Interdepartmental program in Linguistics. Louisiana State University.

Iulen, U. (2005). Legislation and practice in the usage of the Basque language in the Foral community of Navarre. Mercator Working Papers. International Center for Ethnic Minorities and Nations. Barcelona.

Ruiz P. & Breton N. (2008). Bilingual Education in Navarre: Achievements and Challenges. Journal of Language, Culture and Curriculum. Vol. 21, No. 1.

The Unbearable Rigidness of Being an Academic in Taiwan

I’ve been down with a lingering flu lately, hence the delay in putting up a new post. For a change, I am presenting an academic “rant”. Not to be taken too seriously by the overly serious at heart.

Why do I enjoy being an academic? Anything less than a simple answer would be hypocritical: I enjoy teaching young people on something (I believe) will change their perspective, if not their lives.

The way I try to do so is two-fold: transmit my enthusiasm for linguistics into the classroom, and keeping myself pepped-up by indulging in research - which, in turn, might also encourage students to become academically engaged.

After having taught in Taiwan for thirteen years on university level, here’s a personal “Top 5” of phenomena that, I feel, work against academic goals even as modest as mine:

1. Some highly influential morons working at Taiwan’s Ministry of Education (MOE). For the past eight years, not ONE constructive or proven measure has come out of Taipei visibly improving language education at universities. Departmental meetings in many a language department have, for the past 4 years or so, been limited to damage control. Threatened by MOE punitive measures for ‘underachieving’ departments, some ambitious university authorities saw this as a justification to “push” lecturers into increasing their performance – even if only to increase their administrative services for the school itself, thus saving the schools money. Lecturers once hired without as much as a departmental interview during the KMT heydays of the 90s now find themselves under siege to increase their “performance”. Not that this so-called academic ‘quality control’ is negative per se. But it should have been accompanied by concrete and proven proposals to better Taiwan’s poor record in language education. The MOE limited its involvement to a “trace and punish” the weak lecturers-tactic. They thereby seemed to imply that Taiwan’s pedagogues, rather than the incompetence of the MOE itself, were responsible for language education’s woes. Doesn’t this amount to political cowardice?

2. The ambitious and self-centered academic aspiring to make a name for himself with the MOE, thereby placing the students’ interest a far second. I am not saying that there are no competent academics perfectly capable of combining personal ambition without neglecting their teaching duties. But most I know or have met are not up to this academic utopia and make a conscious choice for personal advancement, while alienating students in the process.

3. The academic for whom obtaining money for personal projects is more important than teaching or research contributions. The latest wasteful MOE “Teaching Excellence Award Projects” have given previously unpublished academics an outlet to become involved in pedagogically unproven schemes. The latter are more at place in commercial language schools rather than university language departments. Highly encouraged by university authorities (who appreciate the inflow of extra MOE money and exposure through a newspaper article or two), English Community Centers seem particularly popular as “Teaching Excellence” projects. Departments are given outrageous amounts of funds by the MOE to kick start schemes that strongly resemble the unproven “English villages” (in S. Korea and by the King Car Private Foundation in Taiwan). Departments’ main concern is on making sure to spend all of the money allotted to them, and on having enough community center participants and visitors, the two main MOE criteria according to which the project is ultimately judged. Where these participants come from and whether or not their participation results in effectively improving students’ English skills is not the issue.

4. Private universities that, although quite independent from the MOE’s influence in the mid- and late 90’s, now have as sole priority to please the government in order to get more funds - for often wasteful projects. Departmental and College meetings are often dominated by the main concern of proposing new projects and programs. The name of the MOE-sponsored exercise is: suck up to educational authorities, thereby putting additional pressure on lecturers to become involved in – for them – largely unknown ventures.

5. The fear and spirit of sheer self-preservation as shown by university authorities and academics alike vis-à-vis the MOE’s academic witch-hunt. This witch-hunt is officially known as ‘Departmental Assessments’ – done by selected academics appointed by the MOE. I am not, in principle, against such evaluations, provided they are not quietly manipulated: intensive rehearsals before the actual assessments, showing evaluators what you want them to see, and being able to hide what they should not see. The ways for doing so are ingenuous, to say the least, and I won’t be surprised that this type of ‘departmental assessment’ will prove undesirable in a new MOE administration.

What suffers most here, I believe, is a free and creative academic spirit at Taiwan’s language departments. Strong, stupid, or both – is the academic willing to resist Taiwan’s rigid academic climate. Blessed seem those academics with a blasé attitude toward it all. And may financial fortune be conferred upon Taiwan’s students – so that even more may go abroad to receive the education they deserve.

Taiwanese, the Most Dangerous of All Things?

After the defeat of the ruling party in Taiwan’s latest presidential elections, some pro-green opinions reflected the view of the nationalist press that, somehow, the elections were lost because of an overemphasis on the past and on the “Taiwan identity issue”. Also somehow, the use of Taiwanese-only at political meetings was, in part, to blame for disappointing election results for Taiwan’s incumbent party. As if a language should serve political agendas instead of the other way around…

The poet Friedrich Holderlin wrote: “Language, the most dangerous of all things, was given to man so that he could testify to having inherited what he is.” An ambiguous quote. It could mean that language itself, irrespective of the particular language one speaks, is a dangerous thing. Unlikely. Or, it intends to stress the importance played by the particular language a community speaks in the transmission of historical memories. Memories only transmitted by language, and meant to increase that community’s sense of identity.

What follows is a brief comparison between Belgium and Taiwan with the above issues of language and identity in mind. Language is unavoidably at the core of a multilingual and complex state like Belgium. Unless we don’t mind to see Taiwan become a monolingual and mono-cultural entity, we might want to observe relevant events in Belgium.

Belgium, a country with 13 political parties, and where politics often resembles sheer chaos. But a country with a thriving economy nevertheless, and a successful educational system fully respecting the linguistic rights of all its peoples. A country, also, where four million Flemish voters often consider the identity issue as their priority.

BELGIUM’S FRENCH-FLEMISH BILINGUALISM

Belgian speakers of Flemish and of French alike must abide by law to accept bilingualism as the institutional order of the day. This law came about after student revolts in 1968 against the dominance of French at the largest Flemish university.

Now imagine a situation in which the DPP would equally have institutionalized, successfully, Taiwanese as the institutional language of the day. True, efforts were made, but they were often insufficiently thought-through measures lacking respect for Taiwan’s non-Taiwanese speaking population.

In case successful measures for fully bilingual Mandarin/Taiwanese institutions had come about, would we still blame those exclusively using the Taiwanese language at political or other official meetings? Or would we consider blaming those who did not respect the official – stipulated by law - Taiwanese/Mandarin bilingual language policy?

Moreover, in the absence of such bilingual policy (due to eight years of completely lackluster DPP language policies), are people speaking Taiwanese-only to be blamed? What about those politicians who just “forgot” to give the language of over 15 million people on Taiwan what it deserves: full official status and a firm place in education?

The appropriate question should, therefore, not be how many votes the DPP has lost because of its Taiwanese-only language policy, but how many it might have gained if it had implemented a balanced bilingual language and education policy.

LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY ISSUE

Like the Taiwanese, Belgians do not have a single view of their history. Throughout the 19th century, French was the dominant language, with Flemish consigned to a back-seat role. In the 20th century, the assertion of Flemish in the public life of Flanders and Belgium became a primary feature of Belgian politics.

Yet, language is not the only variable of identity. Religion played a leading part in Belgian identity throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, like the past and current “status quo” with China which still dominates Taiwan politics. Territory has its own importance. This is no less true for the Taiwanese as it is for the Flemish within Belgium. Even though the Flemish now form a plurality, they have maintained – as have the Taiwanese from decades of linguistic and cultural repression - some of the complexes developed during their former marginalized status as the inferior Germanic culture vis-a-vis a superior Francophone one.

At the heart of the existential reality of multilingual entities like Belgium and Taiwan lurks the question: “One people or many peoples?” This is not the way most Americans or French look upon the topic of identity. Linguistic pluralism is a fact of life for most countries. As far as fluent speakers of Mandarin as the dominant language in Taiwan is concerned, Mandarin has been the long preferred option at the level of central government. In the name of accommodating perceived challenges from Taiwanese political (and thus linguistic) forces, by the end of the 80s, Mandarin speakers came to accept Taiwanese as the order of the day at the informal level in Taiwan.

But this kind of reluctant bilingualism has served the interests of the stronger language more than that of Taiwan’s weaker language communities. Similarly, in Belgium the power of attraction of Flemish for French is a good deal weaker than is that of French for members of the Flemish upper-middle and upper classes.

The Flemish have fought tenaciously to ensure that not one square centimeter of what is Flanders fell prey to French linguistic dominance. And there are ongoing battles about the degree of use of French as a semi-official language of instruction and public communication in some of the suburbs surrounding Brussels located in Flemish Brabant. Here, French speakers happen to be in the majority.

But don’t expect therefore that Flemish political parties would use French at political meetings to woe undecided voters of mixed French/Flemish descent. Or that Flemish politicians would code-switch from Flemish to French at meetings held in town and villages on or near Belgium's Flemish-French language border. The role of politics is seen as it should: it supports the cause of the Flemish language and Flemish identity, and is not a tool attempting to ‘sell’ identity to non-Flemish speakers. Neither is Flemish used by Walloons to sell francophone identity to a non-Walloon electorate. Likewise, language in Taiwan should never be used to promote the one or other political cause.

Conflicts that language and identity can bring are well-documented, in particular in monolingual or authoritarian states. So what, if anything, can tie Taiwan’s different language communities together? The most obvious tie would be that of a shared political citizenship (perceived as possible by some, unwanted by others). By citizenship, Flemish, Walloons, Bruxellois and the inhabitants of the autonomous German region in the east of Belgium are all Belgians. By citizenship, all Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese, Taiwanese, Hakka, and Aboriginal peoples are all ‘Taiwanese’, a notion advocated by Taiwan's president-elect.

However, ambiguity is bound to creep into such setup. Belgian-inclined Flemish speakers feel themselves to be Belgian in a way that is clearly not true for hard-line Flemish nationalists, or for autonomist-minded politicians like the ones who won the 2007 parliamentary elections. They argue that the role of the federal government in Belgium should evolve to that of a mere intermediary between the power of the Belgian communities and the powers vested in the European Union. These Flemish internal divisions reinforce the argument that there is a thicker sense of Belgian identity among Walloons and francophone Bruxellois than among Flemish speakers.

Similarly, there is a thinner sense of Taiwanese identity among pan-Chinese (in a linguistic, cultural and often political sense) people in Taiwan. And ambiguity might dictate that a shared citizenship for Taiwan’s peoples may not entail the same degree of commitment or loyalty by everyone to the underlying civic, political or symbolic values of what “a country” is perceived to have. Some might live their lives as citizens by merely floating like bubbles in a bucket, prone to any sudden albeit slight movement, fearfully looking down into deeper waters without which they would cease to exist. They seem incapable of understanding why the over 5 million molecules of water below them would choose to stir the surface, while just staying afloat well and thriving would suffice.

Citizenship speaks to the concept of the state. Identity speaks more to the concept of nationhood. The fact that the question of citizenship for Flemings or Taiwanese can be – and is - posed shows that secession is an option that minority-type nationalities within Belgium or Taiwan may choose to pursue if they feel their basic interests have not been addressed. And central to those basic interests are language and identity. Choose to ignore that mass opting to fight for their language or identity, and one might have – unwillingly – planted the seed for increased autonomy or even separatism.

NO MORE ‘DIVIDING’ IDENTITY ISSUES?

The president-elect of Taiwan has promised to ‘heal the wounds caused by the divisive rule' of the outgoing president and his party. But can there ever be closure to questions of language and identity in multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nations (or in Taiwan’s case, proto-nation, if you prefer)? Not in our lifetimes, I think.

As long as two or more major linguistic or cultural communities continue to co-exist – however peacefully – within the boundaries of a single (proto-) nation, various issues will continue to bubble to the bucket's surface, dividing majority-type language communities from minority-type language communities. Unless, of course, those minority language communities decide to throw all ethnic, linguistic and cultural identity out of the bucket for the sake of, for example, financial well-being. But in that case we might as well all become bubbles (and part of China?) right now to shorten that road to riches.

Montserrat Guiberneau of the University of London has rightly noted on Catalan nationalism:

“Globalization is dramatically transforming the context within which political action takes place (…) The post-traditional nation-state is faced with the need to accept the emergence of multiple identities expressing regional as well as supranational allegiances, which are closely connected with the rise of multi-layered forms of governance at a local, regional, national and supranational level.” In: Understanding Nationalism, Polity Press, 2001, p. 42.

Taiwan might, judging from nationalists' criticism of people’s ‘overemphasizing Taiwanese identity’, still be trapped in a traditional nationalist-state mindset, outdated and detrimental to the future of its multi-ethnic population.

They seem to ignore that the era of globalization that is marking the beginning of the 21st century does not spell an end to questions of linguistic or cultural identity of minority-type nationalities. Neither will the European Union erase the linguistic and ethnic boundaries that characterize countries like Belgium or Spain.

Over five million voters in Taiwan have voted like most of Flanders’ four million voters do: out of a sense of belonging, of culture, of language, of past sufferings, of shared memories, of common distrust or hate against perceived adversaries, or of whatever way one might want to define that phenomenon strongly nationalist or authoritarian countries fear most: identity.

Postscript:
I intend this to be the first and last post I refer to politics that often. Thin at times, alas, is the line between language and politics. For those judging now that, like most foreign bloggers in Taiwan, I belong to the ‘green’ camp, I have to disappoint you. My believe is in a multiparty coalition system. Belgium, for instance, counts 13 political parties; centralized Spain 16.

Such systems may often be compared to a “two steps forward, one backwards”-one, but its advantages for cultural and linguistic minorities in EU-states are for all to see. One could only dream what good it would do if Taiwan were not de facto strongly two-party polarized. Only then might Taiwanese be considered for what it is, really: not 'a dangerous language', but a language in danger.

Taiwan's Voluntary Language Shift

Latest survey results indicate that Taiwanese will gradually decline over a period of generations. The less often that speakers use the language, the more difficult it will seem to be to use it. More and more of it will be forgotten and it will be difficult to recall some old words for things. Complex syntactic constructions will be less frequently used or lost altogether. In Taiwan’s schooling system, children’s acquisition of Taiwanese is interrupted at the very age when grammatical complexity is being acquired and they are forced to shift to Mandarin. So, ...

WHY “VOLUNTARY” LANGUAGE SHIFT?

Taiwanese is gradually fading, but not because of the classic sociolinguistic scenario, i.e. Taiwanese people would slowly be ceasing to exist. Taiwanese is experiencing language loss without population loss. The Cornish have lost their language, but they are still very much alive and have increased in number. Today they speak English rather than Cornish. Likewise, Taiwanese is declining because of a shift from Taiwanese to Mandarin.

Sociolinguistically and according to attitude-research data, Taiwan’s language shift should be described as a voluntary shift. Many might say: “But what about the KMT’s past repression against Taiwanese. Isn’t the language recovering?” The answer is that forced language shift, as attempted by the KMT’s earlier policies, has not worked elsewhere in the world. Why would Taiwan be different? Trying to make a language (Mandarin) compulsory while stigmatizing Taiwanese and Taiwan’s indigenous languages has, for the past decades, made the latter even more valuable as a form of resistance against past KMT policies. Taiwanese might be dying, not because of past, but because of current language policies and attitudes.

Voluntary language shift from Taiwanese to Mandarin happens because Taiwanese first language speakers consider that they would be better of speaking Mandarin. Such shift is gradual, with Mandarin replacing Taiwanese over a period of decades. Older speakers of Taiwanese are the most fluent and are in some cases still monolinguals or Taiwanese/Japanese bilinguals. The younger ones, like their grandchildren, have not had the opportunity to use Taiwanese across the full range of functions their grandparents did. They have, in other words, never acquired full fluency in Taiwanese, being much more fluent in Mandarin.

THE EFFECT

Taiwan’s youngsters do not have as large a vocabulary in Taiwanese and they are constantly (though unknowingly) simplifying its grammar. They rely increasingly on the language to which all Taiwanese are shifting to in order to convey what they mean. Sociolinguistic research has clearly shown the next stage to be the fatal one - one in which Taiwanese will no longer be transmitted to the next generations.

Sociolinguistic research has also illustrated that the last stage of language shift is always abrupt: a language can be tipped over the brink in a decade or two. Language shift in itself takes much longer, making it quasi imperceptible in daily life. Yet, Taiwanese is still in its “shifting” stage (to Mandarin). But judging from current survey results, it might well tip over that brink within a generation or two.

Linguistic research is unanimous: people making a free choice to shift to another language will cause the death of a language. As Taiwanese people are rational beings who may reasonably be expected to know where their self-interests lie, I cannot condemn such choice. From an economic point of view, languages are just another free market in which the wane of a language is simply a side effect of individual choices. Taiwanese disappearing would thus be no more or less morally significant than a change in the price of rice.

THE CAUSES

I have argued in previous posts that in Taiwan’s case, the decline of Taiwanese is caused, not by an increase in choices, but by a decrease in choice brought about by the government’s failure to clearly inform people on the value of first language education. Education resources have been diverted into resources to support the economy, while inhibiting the educational and social success of, in particular, the poorer Taiwanese and Aborigines alike.

Linguists generally agree: measures most likely to preserve declining languages are the very ones which will help increase their speakers’ standard of living in a long-term, sustainable way. Taiwan’s market of possibly competing languages has been undermined, first (but arguably) by decades of KMT’s linguistic and cultural repression, then by over a decade of the DPP’s linguistic limbo and missed educational opportunities.

Yet, education is not the ultimate goal of a possible revival of Taiwanese. Without safeguards for the use of Taiwanese by young people at home to ensure transmission, attempts to prop up Taiwanese outside the home will be like blowing air into a punctured tire. It will be impossible to achieve a steady proto-state based on the incoming air due to the continual losses resulting from the unmended puncture.

Currently, Taiwanese is in the unenviable position of having outflow exceeding inflow. Still at the same time, some groups are spending large sums of money on projects without sufficient justification. Spending years on devising grammars and a writing system is an artificial environment for Taiwanese. It reflects only a fraction of the diversity of the language in its everyday use and cannot capture its ever-changing nature. It is like arguing that we should concentrate our efforts on preserving the whale by building museums where we can display whale carcasses, but do nothing to preserve the mammal in its natural habitat.

Building more museums or embarking upon artificial projects, poetry or literature competitions will not save the Taiwanese language: they do not address the root causes of the decline of Taiwanese. People’s sympathies are more easily aroused about the plight of the whale than about the oceans they live in, even though preservation of the oceans is a prerequisite to the whale’s existence.

What startles me about the last “pro-Taiwan” administration of 8 years is that it did not successfully implement new language policies as a means of resistance and reaction to the encroachment of the preceding nationalist administration. It is naive to delude oneself that a laissez-faire approach represents absence of policy. It is instead a policy not to have an effective language policy.

Erik Allardt’s well-known and often-quoted study of 46 linguistic minorities in 14 European countries showed that a minority language which is not taught will decline. That was 1980 and Europe's education authorities have heeded this advice. Consequent studies of language shift have shown time and time again that schools are a major agent of cultural and linguistic assimilation because formal education is often the first point of contact children have with the world outside their own community.

They very fact that the government does not allow for a significant presence of Taiwanese in the school is a signal to the Taiwan public that it is seen as a useless language. Denied the opportunity of learning in Taiwanese, and expected to assimilate to the norms of a Mandarin education, children get caught in a vicious circle. Even under a “pro-Taiwan administration”, schools failed to support the home language of over 70% of the population, and youngsters’ skills in it are often poor and were allowed to deteriorate further.

GOVERNMENT VS. COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

The failure of schools to let children develop in the language they speak at home can and I fear will be used by a future nationalist-dominated legislature to legitimize further oppression of Taiwanese.

Provision for schooling in Taiwanese would not automatically safeguard its future. As I hinted at before, language movements cannot succeed if schools are expected to carry the primary burden of revival. Language revival must first begin in the communities themselves through voluntary efforts. They have to be financed from the bottom-up through community resources, much like the initial mother tongue immersion schools in Spain’s autonomous regions.

Dependence on government resources undermines the community’s responsibility and right to control its own affairs. In Taiwan’s highly centralized political environment, requests for bilingual Taiwanese/Mandarin (or Aboriginal/Mandarin) education may be seen as threats to Taiwan’s cohesiveness. As soon as the Quebec Francophones devised legislation to protect French, they lost whatever good will they had among Anglophones in Canada. In contrast, securing funds for education in Taiwanese through the community and not the government does not rely on cooperation from those reluctant to do so, nor does it involve major costs.

This is not to clear a future Taiwan government of responsibility, but financial aid does come at a price: the right to control the state of affairs regarding the Taiwanese language. After the upcoming elections, requests for bilingual Taiwanese/Mandarin education may represent a great threat to the powers that be.

THE ‘IDENTITY’ ISSUE

It has become fashionable in Taiwan to talk about multilingualism and multiculturalism as if they were recent discoveries instead of what they really are: a condition of life as old as Taiwan’s recorded history. Bilingualism has for a long time suffered from a misinformed Taiwan press. The overwhelming majority of references to it in the media still stress Mandarin/English “bilingualism”. In the best case, “Taiwanese/Mandarin” bilingualism is presented as void of social functions and human value, a divisive setup, confusing, and a stumbling block to the kind of language education a child “really” needs.

In today’s global village, increasing bilingualism in English is working at making the majority of Taiwan’s indigenous languages in effect minority languages. This in itself is no cause for alarm. When diglossia is stable, each language in Taiwan can have its own set of functions and space without threatening the other. A decade ago Sweden, for example, introduced the study of English as a second language into the earliest stages of primary education in order to secure high levels of proficiency. Yet Swedish and many other small national languages such as Dutch (in Belgium and The Netherlands), Icelandic, and Danish are in no danger of not being transmitted inter-generationally.

The countries just mentioned control their own polities at all levels from home to school to government. The learning of English will continue to take place at school and not at home as long as they retain control of the education system and use their own languages among themselves at home and in communities as markers of in-group identity. This is why Taiwan’s rather complex issue (or at times sheer lack) of identity does make Mandarin/English bilingual education a cause for alarm.

Taiwanese first language speakers with a strong sense of identity would not consider abandoning their first language (or mother tongue, if you like), because it is an essential and vital part of “being Taiwanese”. Most Americans have no choice but to speak English since it is the only language they know, and they have not learned foreign languages because it was sufficient to know English. If we imagine instead, that a Swede, Fleming, Dutchman, or Dane were to suggest that all Americans should be taught to speak with a British accent, most would object. Even though British English is not a completely different language, most people would feel that British English was not the right language with which to express their American identity.

Isn’t it odd, therefore, that quite some Taiwanese first language speakers do not have second thoughts to speak Mandarin to their children, or that some (upper-class) Mandarin speakers in Taiwan do so in English? Even those Taiwanese most proud of their “Taiwaneseness” do not seem to hesitate in confining their language to the living room.

Globalization does not change the fact that Taiwanese people will still live their lives in local settings and feel the need to develop and express a local identity to pass on to their children. Language is an all-important marker of identity. When language or identity is not clearly defined or given up, another will replace it, but something important will be lost: the way to pass on cultural content that preserves and transmits meanings shared by people who have/had Taiwanese as first language.

Many are still trapped in the mistaken idea that all people have only a single identity – that the French are only French, the Spanish only Spanish, the Irish only Irish and so on. We all have overlapping and intersecting identities. The Taiwanese might want to think locally but act globally: local languages for expressing local identities and global languages for communicating beyond local levels and expressing their identity as citizens of the world. Without the former, there would be much less left to express to the world.

Still, before any meaningful decisions can be taken to start saving Taiwanese, its speakers must believe that it is worth doing. This decision is a subjective one and carries with it values about the kind of Taiwan people want to live in and pass on to their children.

Cultural and linguistic uniformity is undesirable: nothing will more quickly decrease Taiwan’s people creativity or impoverish the richness of Taiwan’s cultural diversity than a single Mandarin-oriented culture. One culture for Taiwan is not likely to bring lasting peace either; it is much more likely to bring a new form of totalitarianism. As has been proven across the Taiwan Strait, a unitary system is easier for a privileged few to dominate.

REFERENCES

Allardt, E. 1979. Implications of the Ethnic Revival in Modern Industrialized Society: A Comparative Study of the Linguistic Minorities in Western Europe. Helsinki: Societas Scientariarum Fennica.

Fishman, J. 1991. Reversing language Shift: Theory and Practice of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon, Multilingual Matters. Special Edition.

Fishman, J. 2006. Language Loyalty, Continuity and Change. In: Contributions to International Sociolinguistics. Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, pp.126-176.

Gijsen J. 2008. Taiwan: Pedagogical and Methodological Challenges in Language Teaching. Presentation at VALS-ASLA Conference 2008, Switzerland.

Nettle, D. & Romaine, S. 2003. Ces langues, ces voix qui s'effacent. Menaces sur les langues du monde. Paris: Editions Autrement. (Translation from “Vanishing Voices” 2000).

Romaine, S. 2007. The impact of language policy on endangered languages. In Koenig, Matthias and De Guchteneire, Paul eds. Democracy and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies. Aldershot:Ashgate/UNESCO. Chapter 10. pp. 217-236.

Do Business Interests Devalue Education?

I had a nightmare.

One day after class, my superiors announced to me that universities should learn from business. From now on, I had to follow administrators. These administrators would be closely watching market forces. My university would import the kind of goals to raise its economic role. My department had to become an engine of innovation, so that our students could obtain competitive advantages to function in Taiwan’s industries. My colleagues and I were specifically told to increase communicative English skills at the expense of traditional academic literary goals.

Our university’s administration, students and their parents, all agreed that English was to be a practical tool compulsory in an international economy. Our university, in order to survive, had to turn into an instrument to shape students into functional units. The education ministry agreed: education in general had to encourage Taiwan’s industrial productivity. This, rather than being a source for the personal growth of individual students. That was 2008, not 1984.

Knowledge had to become a product. Knowledge had to be made manageable and marketable. Knowledge should be packaged and tidily delivered to the students. Students would then be packaged and delivered to industry. Administrators told academics still offering poetry lessons that this did not help students in speaking English at the workplace.

And then, in my dream, a question formed: had the old idea of broad education with inherent values – for once and for all - been devalued?

The choice to study at university had become a fully job-oriented one. Parents would not apply to a university with a low success rate for students getting jobs. Universities no longer pointed the way for society. Society, through its business concerns, pointed the way for universities.

The role of government had been reduced. This created a Taiwan market within which universities were able to compete against each other. Attempting to control this competition, government set up a policy framework. This merely resulted in financial incentives to those universities capable of transforming themselves according to Taiwan’s market forces.

By 5.50 AM and through some Freudian tour de force, Taiwan’s universities had reoriented themselves totally in response to market mechanisms. Young universities, in particular, proved most defenseless. They had altered their research and teaching priorities. They had allowed business decision makers to extort intellectual labor from academic staff. They had bent academic decision-making to business ends.

All university faculties were virtually forced to teach with a vocational goal. Students had many anxieties about jobs. University administrators made sure those anxieties were addressed. Administration put pressure on teaching staff to pass students. After all, university statistics had to look good. Competition to attract students was fierce: professors were expected to visit schools to beg students to choose their university. This marketing work prevented many from having sufficient time to raise their own standards and that of their institution.

Government’s political agenda helped business by searching out the best economists and agreeable academics. The latter were collected in well-financed think tanks and rewarded handsomely to flood academic journals with a stream of research papers. Research and teaching projects not showing a direct research-commercial innovation track were left ignored.

Just before I woke, the process of knowledge – as we knew it – was permanently altered because we tried to manage it. Curriculum design was fully based on consumer constraints and on the packaging of knowledge. Course evaluations and students’ experiences would, once and for all, place added pressure on teachers, the latter having to respond to students asking for lecture notes and a fixed syllabus – the products for which students enrolled. By heavily regulating academics’ activities, universities had also jeopardized even the most basic student motivations, and a further decline in Taiwan’s student creativity had come about.

Six o’clock already...

Cataract

From the ongoing survey reported on in the previous post, some additional opinion/attitude data.

1. My parents speak/spoke Taiwanese better than I do.
Agree: 80.6% Disagree: 11.3% No opinion: 8.1%

2. Taiwanese is not a separate language; it is a dialect of Mandarin.
Agree: 49.4%(!) Disagree: 25.6% No opinion: 25.0%


3. It is more important for children to learn English than to learn Mandarin.
Agree: 24.0% Disagree: 48.7% No opinion: 27.3%

4. Speaking Taiwanese does not help in finding a job.
Agree: 25.7% Disagree: 52.3% No opinion: 22.0%

5. People who speak only Taiwanese are less educated; people who speak only Mandarin are higher educated.
Agree: 9.2% Disagree: 81.5% No opinion: 9.3%

6. Someone speaking perfect Mandarin and Taiwanese will find a better job than someone only speaking Mandarin.
Agree: 58.5% Disagree: 20.1% No opinion: 21.4%

ENDANGERED LANGUAGE?

1. The comprehension/speaking proficiency for the 10 to 29 age group stands at 65% compared to 94% for the 50+ group. At this rate of language shift from Taiwanese to Mandarin, the former would be confined to literature museums within two generations.

2. With friends, merely 4% of the 10 to 29 age-group indicates to use Taiwanese ‘frequently’, compared to 96% for Mandarin. The relevant number for the 30 to 59 age group stands at a meager 17%.

These alarming figures need to be further researched as to why younger people opt for Mandarin instead of Taiwanese. Code-switching between Mandarin and Taiwanese, in particular, could account for respondents perceiving themselves to speak more Mandarin, less Taiwanese. In this case, what sociolinguistics calls “participant-observation” from one or more researchers is needed to establish how frequently people switch from Taiwanese to Mandarin and vice-versa.

3. Only 36% of the 10 to 29 age-group uses Taiwanese with family members. This refutes claims that the language situation in Taiwan is diglossic. In the 50 to 70 age group, respondents indicate to use about as much Taiwanese as Mandarin in their household (47% and 45% respectively). Further research is also needed here to establish the amount and nature of code-switching involved.

Still, using a language with “Family” and “Friends” is a ‘low domain’ of language use, and diglossia would imply that a language is still frequently used in these domains. Not diglossic = Taiwanese/Mandarin bilingualism = one language will, eventually, completely wipe out the other one. Such linguistic process has been proven and documented.

4. In the opinion-section of the survey, respondents seem to contradict themselves concerning Taiwanese in schools. While 43% percent agrees that “one hour of Taiwanese” is sufficient in primary schools, 48% agrees that children who have Taiwanese as first language would learn all courses “better and faster” if lessons were offered in Taiwanese, not Mandarin. No less than 77% percent of respondents would agree with primary schools offering an equal amount of courses in Taiwanese, Mandarin, and English (trilingual programs).

This would mean that:

a. People disagree with the current system of one weekly period of Taiwanese in primary schools because of reasons of quality rather than quantity, because:

b. People agree on their children being taught more lessons in Taiwanese if this would improve the quality of education in primary schools (as most linguists argue it does).

c. People would agree on putting Taiwanese on equal footing with Mandarin and English throughout primary education. Also, they do not perceive a child being taught subjects in three languages to impede on cognitive skills (as linguistics argues goes a long way in developing a child’s cognitive skills).

d. As a sum, Taiwan’s education authorities are misinterpreting the public’s (correct) perceptions concerning languages of instruction, and are thus lagging behind by not reacting. Increasing Taiwanese-medium courses in primary schools would probably make them gain, not lose electoral votes. Interpreting the public’s disapproval of the current weekly primary school-Taiwanese course as an unwillingness to accept Taiwanese as a medium of instruction has, in this survey at least, proven wrong. Rather than a being burden, trilingual language education in primary schools was supported by 77.4% of respondents.

e. The imperative question should be: why did the education ministry not comprehensively survey the kind of education parents want for their children? Instead, quite brainlessly, primary schools were expected to offer one weekly course in “homeland education”. Teachers were never clearly instructed on what to do or how to do it, only to be blamed, by some academics and journalists, to be “unwilling” and “unmotivated” teachers.

5. As for Kindergartens, 42% of respondents disagree to merely offer Mandarin and English without any Taiwanese. If the 36% of people who had ‘no opinion’ on the matter would be clearly informed about the advantages of trilingual education – even at Kindergarten level – I’m confident three quarters of Taiwan’s public would also support education in Mandarin, English, and Taiwanese, even at Kindergarten level. This would not be a first; Kindergartens in Switzerland, Luxembourg and German-speaking Belgium are already ‘producing’ multilingual toddlers. Unlike for primary schools, the child’s first language should have priority, followed by the country’s official language (if different from first language), with a foreign language (e.g. English) quite a distant third.

6. A clear indication that Taiwan’s government has not been able to inform the public sufficiently and candidly - and therefore break with past stigmas concerning the Taiwanese language: half of respondents still believes Taiwanese to be “a dialect of Mandarin”!

7. Most respondents ARE interested in the maintenance of Taiwanese: apart from the public’s wish to include Taiwanese more extensively in Kindergartens and primary schools, Taiwanese is also considered as:
• necessary for finding a good job in Taiwan (58.5%)
• a language equal in educational status with Mandarin (81.5%)
These figures are higher than those of similar questions from a comprehensive language poll in Galicia some three decades ago. Nevertheless, the Galician autonomous authorities still went ahead and implemented first language immersion education at selected schools.

CATARACT

“Katarakt” is the name of Flanders’ recent popular television series. This medical term comes to my mind in describing the reaction of the Taiwan government and academics vis-à-vis the decline of the Taiwanese language.

Some people with cataracts do not know that part of the light they are supposed to see is blocked out. Most cataracts associated with aging develop slowly; many patients may not notice their visual loss until it has become severe. I hope the future will prove this comparison with Taiwan’s linguistic situation wrong. As for now, I stand by it.

Once Taiwan’s educational authorities and self-serving academic establishment would accept they suffer from linguistic cataracts, they might be capable of doing what they should have done a decade ago: give Taiwan’s children a deeper sense of identity by:

1. making them prouder to be Taiwanese by educating them in and encouraging them to use their first language;
2. helping them to increase their overall performance in school by offering a significant number of courses at primary school level through Taiwanese.

Whether a future nationalist government whose precursors were responsible for most of the evils for Taiwanese would be willing to turn the tide for this language will be their litmus test. The linguistic world is watching.

New Survey Data

In a previous post I posted some figures from a 2004-2005 survey on language attitudes toward Mandarin and Taiwanese. In November 2007 we started a more comprehensive language survey. Although this research is longitudinal and ongoing, here are some statistics - at times sobering (see data in 1 and 2). I will not analyze the selected results in this post.

Our genuine appreciation goes out to those people reading this who were so patient and kind to fill out our, according to some, “difficult” questionnaire!

SURVEY BACKGROUND

a. 917 valid questionnaires (offered in Mandarin); 389 from greater Taipei area, 163 from Taichung, 365 from Tainan and Kaohsiung combined. Respondents were from the age groups 10 to 70 (10 to 22 = pupils/students, 23 to 70 = from all walks of life)

b. Total of 40 questions on respondents’ self-perceived listening comprehension, speaking ability, language use in different areas and with different people, and twenty language attitude/opinion questions.

c. The survey is ongoing. We will extend the number of respondents to about two thousand by the end of the semester. More feedback is needed from eastern Taiwan, as well as in-depth interviews with selected respondents.

d. Respondents gave answers on 11- and 5-, and 4-point Likert scales.

SELECTED DATA

1. Listening Comprehension and Speaking Proficiency / Age groups
“I am able to understand/speak” (proficiency in % derived from 11-point scale)

Ages 10 – 29 for Taiwanese: 65%
Ages 30 – 49 for Taiwanese: 77%
Ages 50 – 70 for Taiwanese: 94%

Ages 10 – 29 for Mandarin: 92%
Ages 30 – 49 for Mandarin: 91%
Ages 50 – 70 for Mandarin: 75%

2. Domain Analysis / Taiwanese vs. Mandarin according / Age groups

Ages 10 - 29 for Taiwanese spoken with:
Family members: 26%
Friends: 4%
People in hometown: 5%
People when traveling in Taiwan: 3%

Ages 30 - 49 for Taiwanese spoken with:
Family members: 36%
Friends: 17%
People in hometown: 31%
People when traveling in Taiwan: 27%

Ages 50 – 70 for Taiwanese spoken with:
Family members: 47%
Friends: 30%
People in hometown: 31%
People when traveling in Taiwan: 27%

Ages 10 – 29 for Mandarin spoken with:
Family members: 73%
Friends: 96%
People in hometown: 94%
People when traveling in Taiwan: 96%

Ages 30 – 49 for Mandarin spoken with:
Family members: 61%
Friends: 82%
People in hometown: 76%
People when traveling in Taiwan: 82%

Ages 50 – 70 for Mandarin spoken with:
Family members: 45%
Friends: 64%
People in hometown: 65%
People when traveling in Taiwan: 73%

3. Selected Opinion/Attitude Questions

a. “One weekly lesson in Taiwanese is sufficient in primary schools.”
Agree: 43% Disagree: 32% (remaining % = ‘No opinion’)

b. “Primary school children with Taiwanese as first language will learn faster and better if the teacher would use Taiwanese to explain all courses.”
Agree: 48% Disagree: 26%

c. “Children with Taiwanese as first language must go to Kindergartens where teachers teach in Mandarin, not in Taiwanese.”
Agree: 22% Disagree: 38% (No opinion: 40%)

d. “Children with Taiwanese as first language must go to Kindergartens where teachers teach in Mandarin and English, not in Taiwanese.”
Agree: 42% Disagree: 22% (No opinion: 36%)

e. “Primary school children with Taiwanese as first language should be taught in 3 languages: Taiwanese (1/3), Mandarin (1/3), and English (1/3).”
Agree: 77% Disagree: 9%

f. “The survey I am doing now is not necessary because the Taiwanese language is doing fine.”
Agree: 22% Disagree 51%

More results and analysis to follow soon.
If you are interested in filling out a questionnaire, we will gladly send you an electronic copy via email!

Structured vs. Two-Way Bilingual Immersion Education

English departments and cram schools in Taiwan are proud to advertise: “we offer our students English-only courses” or “we offer English-immersion education classes”, supposedly speeding up children’s foreign language acquisition. This is a sad myth, proven to be just that by language researchers and educators in North America and Europe alike.

In the meantime, the press has seemingly targeted language teachers for the state of Taiwan’s language education. In a China Post article entitled “English education in Taiwan is distressing” (2008/1/11), it reads:

Our language-teaching academics have the responsibility to develop more effective methods for teaching the English language. In our view, improving teacher qualifications and applying sophisticated teaching techniques are among urgent measures that need to be undertaken.

I’m afraid the solution to the problem is by far not as simple as the article implies. Moreover, do journalists now expect language teachers to use teaching techniques that the government is not willing to support?

This post aims to raise awareness that improving Taiwan education involves “getting back to basics” (Prof. P. Chou in a Taipei Times 2008/1/24 editorial). This, however, has to be done by methods suited to the socio-linguistic and cultural background of Taiwan’s children. Not by fresh Ed. D.’s returning from overseas to apply one or two language techniques inappropriate to Taiwan’s multilingual and multicultural enviroment.

STRUCTURED IMMERSION IN TAIWAN

Taiwan offers Mandarin-only education in elementary and high schools: Mandarin, not the child’s first language (Taiwanese, Hakka..) is used as the medium through which all subjects are explained. The term “first language” is increasingly preferred by linguists as it makes provision for a linguistic situation as found in Taiwan, where a child’s parents might be of mixed descent (e.g. Taiwanese mother/Hakka father). In such case, either Taiwanese, Hakka or Mandarin might be the dominant (preferred) language for communication inside the home, earning it the label “first language”.

The kind of education-model Taiwan schools offer is known in pedagogics and applied linguistics as Structured Immersion Education (or SIE). For Taiwan this means that languages other than Mandarin or English are seldom heard and used in the classroom – not by students nor by teachers.

A typical structured immersion classroom in Taiwan attempts to create an overall positive learning environment by merely “allowing” – though discouraging - students to use their first language. Depending on the teacher’s second language ability, he/she can also use a language other than Mandarin or English to structure a lesson and present it, or to reply to student inquiries or comments. But recent interviews with teachers show that this is merely the case in some vocational schools, not in most mainstream education.

Unlike the US, Canada and most multilingual European countries, Taiwan does not offer any alternative to SIE. Pupils and students who do not have Mandarin as first language are deprived from a more effective instruction and from developing a greater understanding and trusting relationship between student and teacher. It also deprives them from understanding the different local cultures of their classmates: the Hakka or Aboriginal students. This could - and according to language research does - improve students’ self-esteem and sense of identity, two issues that deserve urgent attention, even among the majority of Taiwanese first language speakers.

For a North American language researcher, for example, there are about 250 reasons to criticize any education system implementing only structured immersion: the amount of research articles and surveys in the US and Canada alone (excluding relevant European literature) since the early 1960s. These studies unanimously disprove the merits of the SIE solely on offer in Taiwan. Not that SIE is absent from North American education (far from), but there are alternative programs from which parents from non-anglo-saxon origins can choose. There’s one notable exception to this: in 1998, proposal 227 re-introduced SIE education as the only education model for California, a political decision made because of the “high cost” of two-way immersion bilingual programs, coupled with a certain degree of academic xenophobia.

In a nutshell, and applied to the context of the Taiwanese language:

1. There is a problem with the purpose of SIE. In SIE programs the student’s first language (mostly Taiwanese for Taiwan) is not incorporated sufficiently to make an impact (e.g motivation to study or read outside the classroom). While SIE recognizes Taiwanese and does not prevent the student from using it in class, it does very little to actually develop the Taiwanese language, in effect devaluing it. While SIE intends to create an environment of multiculturalism and tolerance, it imminently and inherently leads to assimilation:

a. the assimilation of Taiwanese speakers to the dominant Mandarin language, and culture, and
b. the assimilation of both Taiwanese and Mandarin speakers to Anglo-Saxon values.

2. SIE follows a minimalist pedagogical approach: there are no targeted goals for the development of the child/student’s first language. While many western countries have turned their backs to SIE, Taiwan has not. Considering Taiwan’s people collective rather than individualistic psycho-sociological profile, this is ironic - as the remainder of this post will also try show.

3. SIE often does not make use of a certified bilingual teacher or a teacher who is actually formally trained as a bilingual educator. Hence, in Taiwan English first language speakers with little or no knowledge of Mandarin and/or Taiwanese are teaching English at all levels. As a result, the students do not receive the quality of education they deserve and that their counterparts in Europe or the US can choose to have: the alternative of bilingual (for Taiwan preferably two-way bilingual) education.

THE ALTERNATIVE 


Two-way bilingual immersion programs were first started in 1962 in the United States. In most states with a significant Hispanic, Chinese or Korean population, two-way immersion programs (also known as “dual immersion”) are offered as an alternative to mainstream SIE education – with the notable exception of California, as mentioned above.

Put in Taiwan’s context, a two-way bilingual program would allow both children with Taiwanese as well as children with Mandarin as first languages to interact. Both sets of students would be in one class in which they learn in Taiwanese and Mandarin.

There would be two sets of classrooms: in one classroom the students primarily learn in Taiwanese, in the other classroom the students primarily learn in Mandarin. The Mandarin-speaking children (often from urban areas) are able to learn Taiwanese and Taiwanese-speaking children (often from rural areas) are able to learn Mandarin.

There would be two sets of teachers, one set teaches Taiwanese, one set teaches Mandarin. The students spend one week in the Taiwanese classroom and one week in the Mandarin classroom. This ensures that half of the year is spent in a Taiwanese learning environment and half the year is spent in a Mandarin learning environment. The children who speak the other language more fluently are able to help the students who are not fluent in that language.

Two-way immersion programs allow for Taiwanese first language and Mandarin first language children being taught to assist each other in cooperative learning; this is a fundamental feature of two-way immersion programs in the US and bilingual or trilingual programs in Western Europe alike.

There would be projects that promote cooperative learning because each student has different skills, and as a group everyone is able to learn and contribute. A project in the Taiwanese classroom might be led by a student to whom Mandarin is a new language. He would be able to communicate to the other students because everyone in the class is a Taiwanese speaker, allowing the student to become comfortable and confident in his abilities. This same student would be able to be the follower in a cooperative project in the Mandarin classroom and to contribute to the group because he can use both Taiwanese and Mandarin.

THE IRONY

Cooperative learning and two-way immersion education allows children with Mandarin as first language to assist children with Taiwanese as first language when in a Mandarin classroom and vice versa. The sad irony is that while cooperative learning is a style of learning that suits East Asian countries, Taiwan’s academics and government refuse to even discuss it. As to the reasons for this, I believe a psychologist rather than linguist is needed to figure out why seemingly no native Taiwanese academics have the courage to at least kick-start an alternative (non-structured immersion) educational program.

Instead, the latter insist on adopting (and adapting) the system widely implemented in western countries before the 1970s. In this system learning is a very personal and competitive process with all children compared and graded against the other children in the class, creating intense competition for grades. This system is still around in mainstream schools in those countries, but in multilingual and multicultural regions in particular, it is surely and rapidly brought into pedagogical disrepute by ever-growing evidence of its ineffectiveness in such settings.

Two-way immersion education would make Taiwan’s children learn more cooperatively and in groups, focusing on a more traditionally Taiwanese/Chinese way of thinking. Learning cooperatively would not only help Taiwanese-speaking children, it would also teach the Mandarin first language speaking children another way to look at education. In two-way immersion, Taiwan students’ math grades would still be outstanding, but they might also actually enjoy learning the subject.

According to applied linguistics theory and contrary to what many in Taiwan like to believe, a child educated through structured immersion is not seen as a bilingual learner. At its earliest (Kindergarten) level, for example, the goal of SIE is to get the young child into the Mandarin/English only classroom as fast as possible. This devalues the child’s native Taiwanese (or Hakka, or Aboriginal) language and culture and creates a barrier between the child and his peers.

Fundamental to SIE programs is a lack of cooperative learning between Taiwanese first language-speaking peers and between Taiwanese speaking and Mandarin first language-speaking peers. As I already mentioned, SIE is a very “western” program since it is highly individualized: get each child into mainstream education as fast as possible, and put emphasis on individual achievement and competition. What this means to Taiwan’s students is obvious for all to see: a surplus in pressure, a lack of motivation, and any academic success coming at a high cost.

Unlike two-way immersion programs where both native Mandarin speakers and native Taiwanese speakers would be able to interact in both languages, not every child placed in a Mandarin or English-only classroom has a group of peers that speak both Taiwanese and Mandarin. The teacher discourages the use of Taiwanese in the classroom and the child is expected to interact entirely in Mandarin or English.

SIE, TWO-WAY IMMERSION, AND TAIWAN’S CULTURE

An important recent aspect of Taiwan’s education is enculturation. Traditionally in Taiwan’s school system students used to be exposed to the culture and history of Mainland China. Local cultures were not integrated into the curriculum. Culture has therefore recently been emphasized for Taiwan’s students. Ideally, this could help integrate parents into the curriculum and encourage parental involvement