A Debate About My School
February 5th, 2006 by MarkThere’s a debate about my school on Scott’s Blog here. Some opinions are positive, while others are quite negative. It may be interesting for readers of my blog to see how some of the other teachers in Taiwan feel about my school.
:
February 5th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
What do you think about the whole idea of studying English in general?
Personally I don’t see the point. Why force every child in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and the rest of the world to learn English and then tell them how bad they are when they suck at it? Of course they do bad at it, they never wanted to studying it in the first place. If you look at people from all those countries that actually liked English and wanted to study, they speak pretty well. I’ve met plenty of Japanese people who speak amazing English. They went through the exact same education system as everyone else — I suspect the reason they did well while everyone else failed is they were actually interested.
And, what’s the point? Everyone says they need English to get a good job, but do they really? How many people does a company need that speak English well? I don’t think that many. Perhaps one in 50(?) will need to have a good command of English, while the other will just continue to crunch numbers at their desk in their native language.
I like to use myself as an example… I started studying Japanese only a few short years ago, yet I’ve met plenty of people who’ve studied Japanese for nearly 10 years who pretty much suck. My Japanese is not perfect, but I do well enough to get by. Some people are just better able to learn languages then others. I’m good at Japanese, but I’m terrible at Math. Some people are just good at Math and not English, why does that need to be a problem?
Now I realize I’m putting you in a hard position by pretty much asking you to defend having a job, (and also petty far off topic) but do you think it’s really all that necessary for everyone to be so wound up about English?
February 5th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
That’s one of the most interesting comments anyone’s ever made on my blog. I could probably write three or four new posts covering what I think about all of those topics. I guess the quick answer would be that I don’t really buy into the idea of “innate language talent”. There is some variation, but anyone who has enough talent to learn a first language also has enough to learn a second. It’s just that most adults can’t devote the same amount of time to a second language, don’t have a mom teaching them, and can’t accept going back to zero in terms of communicative abilities. There are also social issues that make it difficult to get enough input. Address those problems, and nearly anyone can learn. For that matter, I’m sure that if you put 10 years into working as hard as you could at math and did so in a good environment, I’m sure your progress would be startlingly good.
As for the necessity of learning English, as much as my boss might not like it, I completely agree with you. The idea of EVERYONE needing to learn English is just nuts. Look at it this way:Japan was dirt poor in the 60’s, but became very wealthy by the 80’s.Very few Japanese people during this time had good English skills.Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philipines all do well in comparisons of English abilities amongst Asian countries. All are poor countries.Prosperity is strongly correlated with engineering skills, and after normalizing for engineering technological development, English skills have very little correlation at all.
I argued that point on Fred’s blog, and he came back with another article, suggesting that high-tech workers need more English. To me, that is about as insane as it gets. Companies aren’t leaving Taiwan for countries with better English. They’re leaving Taiwan for China, and it’s sure as heck not because of English skills.
February 5th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
“That’s one of the most interesting comments anyone’s ever made on my blog. ”
Did I win something? hehe
“I could probably write three or four new posts covering what I think about all of those topics.”
I’ve been bouncing ideas off friends on this topic for a while and want to write something about it, so if you get the chance to write something, at least I’ll for sure read it.
I think it’s a combination of talent and motivation. Just one or the other wont do it, you need both. Sports are the best example. I think for me and math, I have neither the talent or the motivation. My younger sister, who I think is probably one of the biggest air-heads this world has ever seen, gets straight A’s because she is so motivated. But I worry that she’ll hit the wall in college.
I dunno, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, so I thought I’d carpe diem (I’ve been watching Rome all day.. half way through the first season) and see what you thought about it.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
Mark,
I read the post you linked to, and it seems like the guy really has it in for the system at your workplace for whatever strange ideological reason. Well, you know that I happen to think mindless drills are actually amazingly important for establishing a foundation for language learning.
This reminds me of the discussion we’ve been having over at my blog about bribing kids to do well at school and the importance of intrinsic motivation. I agree with Darin in that having kids who are really interested in learning English is the most important part. But you cannot sprinkle true motivation on like pixie dust no matter how “fun” you make the lessons — that comes from within. And barring that, if you still want to make the kids learn, there are accountability mechanisms that provide extrinsic motivation, like homeworks and quizzes and having the parents in the room.
Isn’t it interesting how conversations in the blogisphere tie into one another? In Darin’s question about how useful English really is, I am reminded of the more general discussion lately about how useful a college education really is. The consensus seems to be, “the stuff you actually learn are just about useless. But the process helps you grow, and you will be judged by how well you do in this.” I think this is probably right about English too — for whatever mixture of reasons sensible and spurious, enough people became convinced that English is an essential part of a balanced education like history or biology. And as soon as enough people believed this, knowledge of English became a signalling mechanism for “educatedness” and the arms race between students is afoot to get better and better at it, much as a college education has become a pre-requisite to many jobs where previously a high school diploma would have done simply because more people are getting college degrees.
February 7th, 2006 at 6:56 am
Read more of Scott’s blog. He also attacks Chinese universities, for profit universities, English teachers and buxibans in general, and so on. I don’t think he has any specific grudge against my school. It’s just not a western university, that’s all. We also emailed at length, and apparently he judged my understanding L2 acquisition unworthy. Oh, well.
Well, speaking of bribes er I mean “extrinsic motivation”, we have a points system. Basically, the kids can raise their hands and try for extra points by answering and asking questions out of turn, spelling out extra words etc… They also get or lose points based on how well they do on homework and tests. That’s what the numbers at the top of the homework assignments I posted on this blog are.
Anyway, the top 25% of the class, as ranked by points are “A” students. They don’t have to do any taped homework. The next 25% percent are “B” students. They just do half the normal amount of taped homework. “C” students do the regular amount, and “D” students have extra homework. In addition to this, we give kids graduation gifts based on how many points they earn. Being an A student the whole way through as opposed to a D student is the difference between getting a high end computer or just a crummy little mountain bike. We brainwash the kids with “more points means less homework and better gifts” speeches nearly every class.
There are plenty of speeches that go like, “You have to study English no matter what, right? Everyone does in Taiwan, right? Do you want to study for 10 years and still be bad at it, or do you want to study really hard for four years, get good at it, get lots of gifts and feel good about yourself?” As a result, this school is the only Taiwanese one where I’ve ever worked in which asking questions often results in all the kids raising their hands and wanting to answer. I’m becoming more and more convinced that teaching is 80% sales. Once you sell the kids on the idea that working hard is vitally important, you’re most of the way there.
February 9th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Hey Mark,
Kind of amazing how something gets attacked only because you went into detail to try to describe how it is different than the schools and “systems” that truly warrant greater criticism. I think it’s sad that somebody with an academic background should have such an axe to grind on your description of a “business” model without really considering the context.
I spent some time at MoDaWei in 1997 and know it for what it is–a more effective method than the others will ever dream of–and I always emphasize its context in judging it or the students’ or my performance in that kind of system.
I’m not a business apologist, but effective methods and models have been around and will stay around as long as customers get what they came for. Does that mean the students are happiest there? No, maybe not in the early stages, but when they can speak English correctly and their friends can’t, they feel pretty good.
I’d be willing to bet that these kids, at the final 1/3 of their program, can speak natural English more correctly than many of Scott’s university students. Even if I were to lose that bet, it would be interesting to see the results and an academic should know better than to make his conclusions before he has analyzed the data.
Say hi to Frank.
February 9th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
@Jim: Thanks for the comment, it’s interesting to hear from another former “Modaweier”. I’ll be sure to say hi to Frank when I go back for my tax form.
@BP: Hmm… I think the thing about learning English, biology or just about anything, is that it’s only “useful” to learn if you get really good at it. In other words, if you learn a great deal of biology and help Amgen develop an Alzheimer’s treatment, it’s very useful. If you are a Japanese person who’s English is flawless and you become a translator for Sony or a UN diplomat, it’s very useful. If you just learn enough biology to survive a B.S. program, or just enough English to “sort of” converse with random foreigners in Tokyo it doesn’t have much use beyond, as you put it, “signalling educated-ness” and some personal enrichment.