EFL study tips
I write to respond to the comments of Chang Yen-chung on the teaching of English in your country, ("Letters," Jan. 15, page 8).
The first thing you must do is define why you are learning English. By this I mean; be clear as to whether you are going to learn English, or any other foreign language, to converse with foreigners, to write English translations of Chinese books or other material, to move to another country where English is the language of use, and so on.
This may sound simplistic but it is very important because these different goals require very different levels of understanding. The students themselves can do a great deal to help themselves in this matter. They can, for example, buy English newspapers such as the Taipei Times and learn to read them. Also, the Internet can be of enormous benefit here because of its ability to give you access to any country's press and literature. Students can also seek out places where English is spoken regularly and learn from the people they meet. Another possibility is for students to seek English-speaking pen-pals with whom to exchange letters or e-mail.
Most important of all, any English program must teach the student how to think in English. If you cannot think in English you will never be able to learn to speak or write effectively in English. No one, regardless of his or her skill at memorization, can hold more than one language at a time in his or her mind. As a personal example of this, I live in Canada and own several power tools which are made in Taiwan. The machines are very well made and work perfectly. But the operators manuals can be very difficult to understand because they were translated into English by people who were still thinking in Chinese. Other examples can be found on a Web site called, www.engrish.com. These examples may seem amusing to us Westerners, but I don't think they are amusing to the people who wrote them.
I agree completely with Chang Yen-chung's idea that English immersion is one of the best ways to learn. If a student is placed in an environment in which English is the only language that is spoken or written, he or she is forced to learn it. This can be difficult to do in reality though. Exchange programs with English-only schools are one possibility, although I don't know how practicable that is in Taiwan. Advanced students might consider an exchange program with a school in the US or Canada, although again I do not know how practical this is.
Lastly, any person hired to teach English in your country should have at least a basic understanding of your culture and history and speak a little Chinese. This will add enormously to his or her credibility with the students. My nephew is teaching English in South Korea and is taking a sabbatical to attend a Korean university to study the Korean language and culture. He thinks it will help him a great deal to relate to his students in the future.
Earl Goudie
British Columbia,Canada
Two sides to IPR issues
Your editorial "Taiwan: keep walking with IPR" is simplistic (Jan. 16, page 8).
The recently settled Californian class action against Microsoft has shown that consumers may be overcharged when buying from monopolies. IPR creates a monopoly. So governments need to back up the privilege of intellectual property rights with laws that ensure consumers are not overcharged.
People have no respect for thieves; but when consumers see that they are being overcharged, who are the thieves?
Rick Jelliffe
Sydney, Australia
North Korean movie reviews
I didn't see the new Bond movie Die Another Day, but now that I have read the review from the North Korean SCPRF press office, I'm glad I didn't. The SCPRF is the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland. But I suppose everybody already knows that. Who doesn't read the SCPRF movie reviews in the DPRK press these days?
The SCPRF thought the Bond movie wasn't too good except for its special effects. In fact it was mostly nothing but a "dirty and cursed burlesque" and a "premeditated act of mocking."
The villain in the movie does not represent the true face of North Korea. That the movie came from the American motion picture industry only proves one thing: the US is "the headquarters that spreads abnormality, degeneration, violence and fin de siecle, corrupt, sex culture."
Eric Mader-Lin
Taipei
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS