Hi Everybody,
Here's an editorial from the Taipei Times. (Sorry I had to forward it
in this format, but the link is below, with the full article. My
apologies to the Taipei Times.) Am I the only one to find this
editorial a bit irritating?
Hu Di~
Chinese Culture University, Taipei
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Published on TaipeiTimes
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/11/23/2003212248Students need better proficiency in English
By Su Han-lin`hŠËèÁ
Tuesday, Nov 23, 2004,Page 8
Junior high school proficiency exams have never tested writing
skills, such as translating between Chinese and English, making
sentences or writing compositions. As a result, most students in
junior high school and even elementary school pay less and less
attention to their writing ability and language performance.
It goes without saying that their English writing might go from bad
to worse. And it could also lead the younger generation to
embarrassment, resulting from using unacceptable writing expressions
on the worldwide stage. The younger generation's international
competitiveness will be weakened year after year from neglecting
writing in their youth.
Theoretically speaking, speaking and writing are both productive
skills of a language. Speaking is the output of sounds while the
output of writing is letters. With no writing test, young students
will quit practicing writing English, and lose the opportunity and
pleasure of expressing a language through the written word.
Meanwhile, it is difficult to reach a complete understanding of the
English language, even as we emphasize its importance.
To my knowledge, more and more students taking the English
proficiency exam tend to prefer the reading test to the multiple
choice test. Some of them say the answers in the reading test can be
found easily, even though they haven't studied grammar or sentence
patterns very well.
So for a foreign language student, it seems unnecessary to have a
good command of syntactic rules. How ridiculous an idea that is!
Aren't junior high school students going to attend senior high
school? Aren't senior high school students going to attend college or
university? Aren't college students going to find a job?
College entrance examinations have two or three sections with a
writing test, including a 120-word essay. How can students do a good
job on such a test, without having established a foundation in the
previous stage of language learning? I think that is why more and
more people criticize the English skills of college students today --
they seem worse in English than ever before.
Without realistic demands in English writing, the younger generation
develops a kind of modern subculture in communication, a fast food of
words. They create strange communication signs with only a couple of
letters, numbers or figures, often found on the Internet or SMS.
Their language is no longer made of meaningful vocabulary or
sentences, only things like TKS, KTV, or CU5.
While using this popular language, they are losing their interest in
cultivating a literary appreciation. They are moving in the opposite
direction, while their value is declining in a highly competitive
world. How cruel is it to help push the young generation toward a
predictable failure?
Testing has a great influence on teaching. The lack of a writing
assessment in the basic proficiency test leads to misguided English
teaching in junior high school, causing a terrible situation: the
undermining of the younger generation's social and international
competitiveness.
Su Han-lin is an English teacher at a junior high school in
Kaohsiung.
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