English Teachers In Taiwan Research Articles

English Textbook Selection in Taiwan: Voices of Two Book Sales Representatives

This qualitative case study explores the experiences of two book sales representatives when introducing textbooks to university English teachers in Taiwan. The participants were two experienced book sales representatives working for two large book companies. Analysis of semistructured interviews showed that the two sales representatives had considerable influence on teachers’ decision-making concerning textbook evaluation and selection. These two representatives not only used information from previous users and publishers to introduce textbooks to teachers and students, but they also used their professional positions and social networks to connect teachers across institutions. They collected feedback from previous users (teachers and students) to aid their introduction of textbooks to prospective users. By analyzing the needs of students and teachers across institutions, the two representatives helped teachers choose the right textbooks for students. This study sheds new light on research investigating the views and experiences of key stakeholders in English textbook evaluation, promotion, and consumption.

Structuring professional dialogue through protocols: a study among elementary English teachers in Taiwan

Structuring professional dialogue through protocols: a study among elementary English teachers in Taiwan

The Effects of Integrating Board Games into Ice-breaking Activities in a Fifth-Grade English Class to Reduce Students’ Anxieties

Elementary-level English teachers in Taiwan were facing problems caused by students’ bimodal distribution of English achievements. Many of the teachers tried new teaching tools to eliminate the obstacles of teaching. This study was based on a quasi-experimental research design and supplemented by qualitative feedback to explore how the new teaching method, ice-breaking board games, could reduce students’ anxieties of learning English. The researchers combined popular board games, Halli Galli and Alles Tomate, with English words and sentences in ice-breaking activities for 10 weeks in two fifth-grade English classes in Taiwan. Forty-eight fifth-grade students were invited to participate in the study and randomly divided into two equal-sized classes. One class was selected as the experimental group, and the other as the control group. The study lasted for 10 weeks. The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) developed by Horwitz et al. (1986) was employed as the instrument to measure students’ English learning anxieties. Quantitative data were analyzed by using independent-sample and paired-sample t-tests as well as descriptive statistics, whereas qualitative data (which included the participating students’ feedback and teacher’s reflection notes) were analyzed through content analysis. The research findings suggested that integrating board games in English teaching as ice-breaking activities did not effectively reduce students’ overall foreign language anxiety. However, the descriptive statistics and qualitative data revealed that the constructs of anxiety for both groups had changed in opposite directions, and ice-breaking board games appeared to be more impactful in reducing certain aspects of anxiety construct, namely, communication apprehension.

“A Different Story to Share”: Asian American English Teachers in Taiwan and Idealized “Nativeness” in EFL

ABSTRACT In a broader context where English is marketed as a desirable product of consumption, hiring English speakers as language teachers and de facto cultural ambassadors is a common practice in some East Asian countries. This paper investigates how 20 self-identified Asian American teachers in Taiwan teaching English in local schools wrestle with the positionality of their racialized selves and idealized “nativeness.” Using an informal interview approach, a grounded theory framework, and narrative analysis, we investigated how participants made sense of their Asian American-ness in the ELT profession in Taiwan. Findings include complex feelings involving the image of Asian Americans, strategic language use to construct Asian-American-in-Taiwan identities, and unique interpretations of teaching U.S. culture. We discuss the emotional labor and strategic discourses these teachers undertook to convert their cultural and linguistic capital and offer suggestions for professional and curriculum development.

Analyzing Relationships Among Activities for Teacher Development, Teaching Beliefs, Efficacy and Teaching Behaviors of Elementary School English Teachers in Taiwan

The purpose of this study is to evaluate elementary school English teachers’ perspectives on the relationship of activities for teacher development, teaching beliefs, efficacy and behaviors regarding teaching English. This study intends to reveal the influential interconnection of the four variables by running regression analysis. A total of 197 elementary school English teachers in Taipei city participated in this study. The data was collected through a four-point scale questionnaire and the results indicated the path of activities for teacher development and teaching beliefs, and teaching beliefs and teaching behaviors respectively was significant. Teachers’ engagement in professional development is crucial, and the educational authority is strongly recommended to take action on this issue.

Diverse Interpretations on Nativeness but Unanimous Subscription to Native-speakerism : Identity of Future Non-native English Teachers in Taiwan

In the current body of knowledge about the influence of native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) on the professional identity of non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs), the fundamental question of ‘What exactly do native English speakers (NESs) mean to NNESTs?’ has been left unanswered and the voices of preservice NNESTs are largely absent. This study examined the influence of NESTs as ‘significant others’ in the English language teaching profession on preservice NNESTs’ identity by looking into how preservice NNESTs interpret the term native English speakers, accept native speaker norms, and respond to the active recruitment of NESTs through the national policy in Taiwan. Survey and interview data were collected from 258 preservice English teachers. The findings show that although the participants held diverse views on who constitute NESs, they shared a unanimous subscribingto native-speakerism. The participants gave conditional support to the policy of recruiting NESTs while highlighting their opposition to uncertified NESTs and differentiated payment. Implications to teacher education and policy decisions are provided.

Diverse Interpretations on Nativeness but Unanimous Subscription to Native-speakerism : Identity of Future Non-native English Teachers in Taiwan

Diverse Interpretations on Nativeness but Unanimous Subscription to Native-speakerism : Identity of Future Non-native English Teachers in Taiwan

Impacts of the Test of English Listening Comprehension (TELC) on teachers and teaching in Taiwan

High-stakes testing has frequently exerted a strong influence on teaching and learning in educational contexts. In 2012, the Ministry of Education passed legislation that made the new Test of English Listening Comprehension a requirement for the University Entrance Examination. The present study investigated how far the launch of the new English listening test has impacted on English teachers and their instructional practices in senior high school. This research involved a semi-structured interview with 20 senior high school English teachers in Taiwan. The findings revealed a complicated entanglement of external and internal factors that influenced the degree and intensity of test impact on teachers and teaching. The new national English listening test was found to have both positive and negative effects on teachers. While how the listening instruction was delivered was affected by teachers’ pedagogic knowledge and past experiences in teaching and learning, the frequency of instructional practice was constrained by the key stakeholders, such as parents’ and students’ expectations.

Professional dialogue among elementary school English teachers in Taiwan: current challenges and issues

ABSTRACTElementary school English teachers in Taiwan are required to have a formal professional dialogue regularly and engage in purposeful discussions about the curriculum and classroom practice (Ministry of Education. [1998]. Small-Size Class Plan. http://163.19.62.3/smlass/E983A8E8A888E58A%83.htm). This study used a questionnaire to discover the current situation of elementary school English teachers’ professional dialogue in New Taipei City in Taiwan. Based on the descriptive, factor, and regression analysis of the questionnaires answered by 154 elementary school English teachers, three important features emerged from this. First, professional dialogue has only been held irregularly among elementary school English teachers in New Taipei City. Secondly, regular implementation of professional dialogue was more likely in larger, more urban schools. Third, topics and the format of professional dialogue, as well as English teachers’ attributes and instructional leadership, were regarded as important factors that influence the effectiveness of professional dialogue. Three suggestions are provided to strengthen the effectiveness of professional dialogue.

Analysis of design and delivery of critical incident workshops for elementary school English as a foreign language teachers in community of practice

ABSTRACTLanguage teachers can uncover new understanding of the teaching and learning process through reflecting on critical incidents [Richard, J.C., and T.S.C. Farrell. 2005. Professional Development for Language Teachers. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press]. Based on the data analysis of workshop handouts, observation notes, and interviews, this study analyses three critical incident workshops designed and delivered to 19 elementary school English teachers in Taiwan in terms of design, participants’ learning, strengths, and suggestions. The study has the following findings. First, the participants moved from knowing nothing about critical incidents or mazes to writing up, discussing, and analysing critical incidents in collaborative reflective practice. Most importantly, the workshop facilitator fostered a safe and trusting environment for participating teachers to discuss critical incidents freely and combat their isolation. Five elements are recommended to be integrated into the design and delivery of critical incident workshops.

TAIWANESE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TO NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS ENGLISH TEACHERS

Numerous studies have been conducted to explore issues surrounding non-native speakers (NNS) English teachers and native speaker (NS) teachers which concern, among others, the comparison between the two, the self-perceptions of NNS English teachers and the effectiveness of their teaching, and the students’ opinions on and attitudes towards them. Most of these studies have been conducted in ESL contexts in which the teachers are NNS English teachers, while most NNS English teachers actually work in EFL contexts. It is important that we understand issues on NNS English teachers in EFL contexts. Hence, this article aims to investigate university students’ attitudes towards their NNS English teachers in Taiwan. The data were collected through questionnaires and interviews. The findings indicated that Taiwanese students’ attitudes towards their NNS English teachers are positive and favorable and NNS English teachers are generally perceived as capable of delivering efficient instruction though some shortcomings of NNS English teachers were pointed out by participants. Discus- sion on these shortcomings and implications on Taiwan educational system and the qualifications of NNS English teachers is provided.

Automatic Pronunciation Scoring with Score Combination by Learning to Rank and Class-Normalized DP-Based Quantization

This paper proposes an automatic pronunciation scoring framework using learning to rank and class-normalized, dynamic-programming-based quantization. The goal is to train a model that is able to grade the pronunciation of a second language learner, such that the predicted score is as close as possible to the one given by a human teacher. Under this framework, each utterance is given a score of 1 to 5 by human raters, which is treated as a ground truth rank for the training algorithm. The corpus was rated by qualified English teachers in Taiwan (nonnative speakers). Nine phone-level scores are computed and converted into word-level scores through four conversion methods. We select the 16 best performing scores as the input features to train the learning-to-rank function. The output of the function is then quantized to a discrete rank on a 1-5 scale. The quantization is done with class normalization to alleviate the problem of data imbalance over different classes. Experimental results show that the proposed framework achieves a higher correlation to the human scores than other methods, along with higher accuracy in detecting instances of mispronunciation. We also release a new version of our nonnative corpus with human rankings.

The Computer Literacy and Use: The Case of Taiwanese Pre-service Elementary School English Teachers

Language teachers’ computer literacy, beliefs, and attitudes toward computer-assisted language learning (CALL) have been widely discussed (e.g. Aydin, 2013; DelliCarpini, 2012; Hong, 2010). However, scant attention has been given to pre-service teachers in Taiwan. This study aims to address this gap in the literature by focusing on the beliefs and attitudes of pre-service elementary school English teachers in Taiwan. The findings report on thirty participants’ perceived computer knowledge and skills, the frequency of their technology use, and their attitudes toward the integration of computer use in language learning and teaching. Based on the participants’ responses to a survey of computer literacy and use, the results show that the pre-service teachers with different backgrounds and specialties displayed diverse computer literacies. There was an interconnection between the frequency of using a specific computer program and the mastery of the program. A large proportion of the pre-service teachers felt positive about the adoption of technology in their language learning regardless of their various levels of perceived computer literacy. The pedagogical implications, such as the integration of technology use across training sessions and the possibility of using online trainings, are provided. The significance of the study is to offer a picture of Taiwanese pre-service English teachers’ computer knowledge and skills. By utilizing this information, the training of computer assisted language learning could be better tailored to fit teachers’ needs.

English as an international language? Taiwanese university teachers' dilemma and struggle…

ABSTRACTThis study aims to explore university English teachers' perceptions of the role of English today in Taiwan from two aspects – the ownership of English and acquiring target language culture in the English language classroom. The concept of English as an international language (EIL) or English as a lingua franca (ELF) has been discussed extensively in the ELT field for many years. Theoretically the concept promotes the idea that English is no longer a possession of any particular English-speaking countries and that there are many different varieties of Englishes. Since teachers are an important – if not the most important – influence in the language classroom, their perceptions are likely to affect the students profoundly. In spite of the theoretical discussion of EIL, in reality, what do university English teachers in Taiwan think about the role of English today? In the study, five experienced teachers were invited for a focus group interview to discuss these issues. The results suggest that university English teachers in Taiwan are facing a dilemma and struggle to follow the notion of EIL (or ELF) in the classroom.

Reflective practice in a pre-service teacher education program for high school English teachers in Taiwan, ROC

Although reflective practice has become a dominant paradigm in language teacher education research and programs worldwide, little of the inquiry into EFL teacher education has been documented in Taiwan, ROC. Critical reflection raises teachers' awareness about teaching, enables deeper understanding of variables related to teaching, and triggers positive changes in their practice. The study aims to provide a description of pre-service teachers' reflective practice by examining 20 student teachers' observation reports and 20 practice teaching reports over a six-week period while they were taking a practice teaching course. Topics, types — descriptive or critical, and development of their reflective practice as shown in the 40 reports were analyzed. Results show that student teachers talked about topics mainly related to practical teaching issues and evaluation of other teachers' or their own teaching among seven major topic categories, could do more critical reflection than descriptive reflection, but did not show substantial development of critical reflection within a six-week period. Providing a lower affective state may be helpful for teacher change, and interventions such as reflective training and teacher development group meetings may need to be incorporated into teacher education curriculum in order to trigger the development of reflectivity for teaching. Future directions regarding considerations of the factors in social contexts for teacher education programs and research on reflection-in-action are suggested.