The Taipei Times has published two articles recently on the Paju English Village, one of 10 in South Korea ("English village in Korea," April 18, page 14; "English only in South Korea's teaching towns," April 5, page 9). These "towns" are, we are told, real communities in which only English can be spoken, a place where students of English can go to practice their English and feel like they "have left Korea behind."
The Korean government enthusiastically supports English villages because they feel such sites will reduce the number of Koreans who go abroad (or who send their children abroad) to improve their English, which is a drain on the Korean economy. Such villages are also a better bargain for parents, who pay about NT$50,000 (US$1,500) for a four-week course for their children.
According to the Taipei Times articles, the Korean government paid US$90 million just to set up the Paju village, which employs 70 staff and 100 full time teachers. That probably means a payroll of at least US$5 million per year.
But the two articles leave out some important points. First, the villages are not real. The buildings are simulations of banks, post offices, airline offices and the like, and the interactions are simulations: The "residents" of the English village in Korea are actually English teachers trained to play different roles, such as policemen (an ad for English teachers for the Seoul English village mentions that the teachers will also be trained to act as doctors).
Second, to my knowledge, there have been no formal evaluations of the English villages. We have no idea if they are really helping children acquire English skills.
Third, contrary to the claims that they save money, English villages are very expensive. The Paju school has a maximum capacity of 550 students. If the other nine schools have a similar capacity, that means the schools can deal with about 6,000 children per month. A total of 12 million children are in school in Korea, with at least six million in grades in which English is taught. Thus, English villages can, at best, impact on 1 percent of the children who are in English classes.
In other words, Korea is paying an enormous amount of money to provide an untested English experience to just 1 percent of its school-age children, an experience limited to children whose parents can come up with the tuition money.
Other countries should think twice before investing in English villages.
Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern, California, Los Angeles
The return of US president-elect Donald Trump to the White House has injected a new wave of anxiety across the Taiwan Strait. For Taiwan, an island whose very survival depends on the delicate and strategic support from the US, Trump’s election victory raises a cascade of questions and fears about what lies ahead. His approach to international relations — grounded in transactional and unpredictable policies — poses unique risks to Taiwan’s stability, economic prosperity and geopolitical standing. Trump’s first term left a complicated legacy in the region. On the one hand, his administration ramped up arms sales to Taiwan and sanctioned
World leaders are preparing themselves for a second Donald Trump presidency. Some leaders know more or less where he stands: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy knows that a difficult negotiation process is about to be forced on his country, and the leaders of NATO countries would be well aware of being complacent about US military support with Trump in power. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would likely be feeling relief as the constraints placed on him by the US President Joe Biden administration would finally be released. However, for President William Lai (賴清德) the calculation is not simple. Trump has surrounded himself
US president-elect Donald Trump is to return to the White House in January, but his second term would surely be different from the first. His Cabinet would not include former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former US national security adviser John Bolton, both outspoken supporters of Taiwan. Trump is expected to implement a transactionalist approach to Taiwan, including measures such as demanding that Taiwan pay a high “protection fee” or requiring that Taiwan’s military spending amount to at least 10 percent of its GDP. However, if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) invades Taiwan, it is doubtful that Trump would dispatch
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has been dubbed Taiwan’s “sacred mountain.” In the past few years, it has invested in the construction of fabs in the US, Japan and Europe, and has long been a world-leading super enterprise — a source of pride for Taiwanese. However, many erroneous news reports, some part of cognitive warfare campaigns, have appeared online, intentionally spreading the false idea that TSMC is not really a Taiwanese company. It is true that TSMC depositary receipts can be purchased on the US securities market, and the proportion of foreign investment in the company is high. However, this reflects the
RSS