Bilingual 2030 Panel in Yilan City

May 27, 2024

Visit to National Luo-dong Senior High School, Yilan, Taiwan.  Participated in a round table discussion about the concerns about the bilingual program and status of government support. Few teachers are interested in teaching in English and only one teacher volunteered to work with an American teacher who was hired to help facilitate the transition.  She knows nothing about art but has been doing her best to help teach art.
 
•Most teachers are resistant to teaching in English as they feel students will miss out on content and they will not succeed when tested
•The government requires students to pass standard tests to prove content understanding
•The government is pressuring teachers to teach in English but are not providing the support teachers need to implement necessary changes
•Teachers have legitimate concerns about bilingual education and need more than one period of teaching deleted from their roster.
•Teachers need dedicated time during the school day to prep for teaching English, e.g. teachers who are good at teaching geography are now expected to teach English
•Students may have better English skills than the teachers and they make fun of their teachers’ mis-pronunciations.
•The teacher who volunteered to teach bilingually said that she volunteered to do it because she felt that she should do what she asks her students to do and that it was a teacher’s responsibility to continue learning