Mon, Oct 06, 2003 page8

• Free students from China's shackles

  • By Liza Ling-Yu Lee and Jonathan Gardner
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  While the commitment by the people of Taiwan to emphasize their independence grows daily, there remains a very serious threat to our status that is unfortunately lower on our leader's agendas than debates about the nomenclature to be used on passports. We face a crisis of perpetual economic dependence on China.

  This dependence grows by the day, based to a degree on the gross lack of development of truly innovative approaches to English-language education. We must not get distracted by the recent protests accusing the government and educators of failing to prepare our children for the future.

  While some arguments are valid, our dangerous dependency on China will not be solved merely through the allocation of new education budgets or by hiring new teachers. The harrowing English-language education situation is real and is widely appreciated and discussed by academics, parents, professionals and students.

  Great fear exists that our children will enter the working world speaking only Mandarin or Tai-wanese, limiting their employment options to the shrinking domestic job market or a post in China and perpetuating a growing reliance and economic dependence on China's future.

  For young adults about to enter the workforce, this fear is even more real, but we have found that this can and must be addressed.

  Vast sums have been and will continue to be spent on English-

  language education. Parents who fear their sons or daughters' futures are limited to being a manager in a Chinese factory allocate small fortunes to years of private English instruction. Why? Because they say the best non-China alternative is for their children to be educated overseas or work at home or abroad for a Western company.

  In Taiwan we hire high-paid foreign teachers (who often have questionable experience and motivation) while continuing to utilize standard, outmoded curricula.

  While many cutting-edge schools offer computer-aided approaches and other technology tools, they are simply that, tools, not new learning experiences based on the multidisciplinary approaches being developed worldwide.

  Through decades of experience and research in the US and in Asia, we have had the benefit of working with some of the greatest minds and utilizing the best contemporary thinking in areas of education, psychology, linguistics, brain research and arts education.

  It is through this exposure that we have developed a new way far removed from the Asian rote-learning approach. We encourage others to examine our new methods, perhaps inspire their own methods and invigorate discourse on the topic.

  We recently completed a study using a music-education-based curriculum to promote linguistic and cultural acquisition in a group of 150 university students. The 22-week program included singing, playing instruments, visual aids, storytelling and the use of take-home bicultural materials.

  All activities greatly improved student's linguistic skills and cultural knowledge, and vastly enhanced their use of English both in class and out. While the scope of the course and its activities are quite detailed, a short summary of the results will suffice in demonstrating the power of such an approach.

  Pre and post-assessments showed the following: 67 percent of students showed considerable progress in the ability to read and speak English. Prestudy, only 1 percent of subjects spoke English at home;, post-study, this rose to more than 60 percent. Before the course, 15 percent said they spoke English with their friends, while 100 percent said they did so after the program.

  The motivation to study and acquire a language often comes from an appreciation of the language's native culture. It is important for educators and authorities to recognize the value in selectively exposing students to Western culture, as it is a valuable motivator and language-learning tool. Our study found that prior to exposure to our curriculum, only 7 percent of students said they enjoyed listening to English-

  language or American songs, rising to 45 percent at the conclusion.

  Strikingly, the number of subjects reporting an interest in British or American culture soared from 4 percent to 96 percent through the program. In short, this curriculum worked not because of some new high-tech approach, but due to a rethinking of motivation and the learning process, using the best from every school of thought and the old cliche of "thinking outside the box."

  We must think outside our own Chinese box. It's time for us to join together to explore new methods, not try to rework old ones.

  The answer may not be found in textbooks, but in cooperation among those in the Chinese diaspora who share a commitment to the advancement and promotion of our people and seek a future with opportunities unbound by self-imposed language boundaries in a borderless world.

  As with other recent issues, our independence is threatened. How-ever, if we fail at the task of preparing our young for a globalized future, we will have only ourselves to blame, not Beijing.

  Liza Ling-Yu Lee is an assistant professor at Chaoyang University of Technology. Jonathan Gardner is the director of international development at the New York Institute for Social Research.
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