Letters:

Teacher's face tells us little

I laughed myself silly reading that the Ministry of Education doesn't think Indians and Filipinos have "native" accents ("Ministry cool to teachers from India, Philippines," Jan. 21, page one). Why can't the government say what they mean: we want people with white faces and long noses to teach English. Those with darker color skin need not apply.

I am not sure this is so much a government policy as it is bowing to market pressures. I teach at a kindergarten. At the school I teach at, there was an ethnic Chinese from Singapore whose English was as good as mine, with no audible accent. But her face was Chinese, and the parents told the principal to get a white face or they would pull out their children. What a pity!

She was an early elementary teacher. I am not. I had three hours of training before being thrown to the "lions." I have fun, but someone else who has been trained in early childhood education would be a superior teacher for the sake of the children.

What really needs to happen is for someone to start an association dedicated to educating Taiwanese parents.

If the environment is not going to change, (and by that, I mean a ready access to English print and visual media on the street, nationwide) the best teachers for the children would be someone who can help them understand. Some Taiwanese English-language teachers I have met have a very adequate and sometimes superior command of English. Songs, stories, fake conversations are all good in their place. But if the parents don't speak English at home, the kids won't either. Some parents can't.

And that's OK. But the ones who can, limit their English to "What's this?," "What's that?" and "What's your name?" If this is the only English the kids hear outside of class, they won't speak whatever English they have learned in the classroom at home.

Just like affirmative action in the US came along to try to erase some of the prejudices in American minds and practices, some version of this needs to happen here. An auxiliary American to help with pronunciation would be a good thing, but only as an auxiliary. If the classroom English teacher is an American, he or she should at least be conversational in Mandarin.

The students, in kindergarten, elementary school, junior and high school should be taught to use their English in daily life. Part of their homework, as corny as it may sound, should be to watch English-language TV programs. One cannot learn English only in the classroom one hour a week, or a day. More time listening to English is needed. Even if one relies on the subtitles, the sound track would be in English and it would benefit the students to listen.

I sincerely hope that parents can be educated away from prejudices, and that the best teachers can be obtained for the children of Taiwan. Whether they are Chinese or American, or green men from Mars, they should be the teachers who can best help the children understand, and not just someone with a white face.

Shervin Marsh
Ilan County