Introduction
General overview of the topic
As every nation may have some internal problems within a state and within a nation due to the number of the disputes related to ethnicity, origins, and rights, it is also necessary to remember that globalization can be characterised as one of the major contributors to the discussion of cultural diversity issues.
Every country that wants to operate in the international market has to strive for English language acquisition as well as every person who wants to enter a prestigious educational institution or/and obtain a good position has to acquire English as it is claimed to be an international language.
Every change finds its reflection in media and public pressure and reaction. Sometimes, people fail to understand the importance and potential benefits of the change implemented. However, the situation can be absolutely different when the external factors influence the change and prevent it to demonstrate its positive benefits. In this respect, it is necessary to adjust the environment or the change so that it would be the most positive contributor to the current situation in the sector.
Though Taiwan is a small country in Asia, it has its unique traditions and culture that also require great efforts for implementation of educational programs in a certain language, cultural programs aimed at development of the cultural importance recognition. In this respect, the changes made in the sector of education in terms of instructions affected the elementary and junior high school.
The decision to implement educational instruction provided using the Tai-yu language provoked certain discussion in public because it enables the community to preserve traditions with the help of the language implementation though some students reacted negatively on implementation of the Tai-yu language instructions for elementary and junior high school because they think English to be international language that provides them with sufficient cultural enrichment and opens new perspectives for professional growth in future.
Thus, the Tai-yu language and its dialect can be protected with the help of the rising generation’s efforts and a step-by-step implementation of this language on the national level in all sectors of human activity.
As the language policy reflects the necessity of reforms to make improvements in the educational area, facilitate operation at the international level, and encourage more effective business partnership, it is necessary to treat the implementation of the Tai-yu language instructions for elementary and junior high school as the indicator of changes aimed at expanding into the international arena in terms of higher level in all areas of human activity.
So, as any change requires training, it was decided to start with educational policy. In this respect, a language policy basically reflects the democratic thoughts and the ideology of the country. In other words, the policy reveals the restrictions imposed on acquisition and use of the Tai-yu language and dialects in the period of Japanese colonialism; the same situation remained concerning the Tai-yu language use after the colonisation.
Aim and scope
The aim of the research consists in investigation of the attitude toward the language policies implemented in order to encourage the rising generation to speak the Tai-yu language and be educated using this language. Though historical roots of this language show that its use was interrupted, it can be implemented into practice in the current period when the global community actively acquires English language which is claimed to be international.
Taiwan children that are currently in elementary school and in junior high school can obtain education in the historically native language of their country. So, the research should demonstrate how the students who are sure to be impacted by this program and changes imposed by it feel about this innovation and their possible suggestions concerning the ways of improvement.
In other words, the overall research is aimed at making sure that all students will be able to adjust to the new language policy requirements effectively and in the shortest possible time in order not to ruin the curriculum with regard to inability of some students to comprehend material because of the Tai-yu language instruction.
Literature review
Historical context
The history provides us with a great scope of sources for analysis to investigate the most unexpected issues and possible rules and laws existing in nature and society and affecting the members of the contemporary global community. As suggested by Hudson (1999, p. 2), the communication presupposes that both speaker and listener know the form and the meaning of the message. In this respect, it is possible to acquire a second language though great practice should be applied to ensure that the language can be used for educational instruction.
On April 14, 1994, the ex-president of Taiwan, Teng-Hui Lee, has delivered a talk publicly about the language problem he has faced on the island. As reported by Chung-yang Jih-pao (1994), Lee said:
I am more than seventy years old. Having lived under different regimes, from Japanese colonialism to Taiwan’s recovery, I have greatly experienced the miseries of the Taiwanese people. In the period of Japanese colonialism, a Taiwanese would be punished by being forced to kneel out in the sun for speaking Tai-yu.
The situation was the same when Taiwan was recovered: my son, Hsien-wen, and my daughter-in-law, Yueh-yun, often wore a dunce board around their necks in the school as punishment for speaking Tai-yu. I am very aware of the situation because I often go to the countryside to talk to people. Their lives are influenced by history.
I think the most miserable people are Taiwanese, who have always tried in vain to get their heads above the water. This was the Taiwanese situation during the period of Japanese colonialism; it was not any different after Taiwan’s recovery. I have deep feeling about this (cited in Hsiau 1997, p. 302).
Lee’s talk was aimed at summarizing the past few decades of Taiwan’s local language history with respect to the changes that should be introduced.
As the Taiwan society is influenced with a rich mixture of diverse cultures including Mandarin Chinese, Tai-yu, Hakka language, and other Chinese dialects, the authorities should do something to encourage people use the language they go used to or bring back the historically widespread language. Liu (1987) states how the KMT government ignored the Taiwanese language in the educational policy:
The KMT established policies that were intended to Sinicize the Taiwanese. They promoted a form of orthodox Chinese, Chinese gentry culture, and represented it as national culture- the culture of all Chinese.
China’s monuments and geography, the high culture of its elite, the Mandarin dialect adopted as the national language, and the history of its heroes, achievements, and development dominated school curriculum and were validated by the official expression in word and deed. Taiwan, and all that is distinctive about it, was largely ignored (cited in Wachman, 1994, p.40).
According to Garcia and Baker (1995, p. 77), proficiency in a second language would be a necessary issue in the 20-century world as well as the third language proficiency.
Moreover, the importance of second and third language proficiency can influence the effectiveness of a person for his/her family, career, company he/she works for. In other words, every person should think about the future and certain skills that can be used in future though obtain at school. As Laitin (1977, p. 18) points out, a change in worldview should be included into the language planning.
This means that every change concerns most sectors of human activity including culture that consists of language, traditions, customs, and other numerous issues. This idea finds support in the study by Meyerhoff (2006, p. 1) who analyses the ways and importance of language acquisition and difficulties encountered by members of the community that fail to communicate with representatives of other language communities.
Every change concerning the language affects all parties concerned. As suggested by Butler (2004), the language proficiency of teachers should be appropriate for teaching English. The same concern was claimed by authors who studied the second language acquisition classes in terms of teachers’ proficiency and adequacy of materials (Chang Y. 2002, 2004; Chang W. 2007). Moreover, “The significance of English has actually been acknowledged since 1945 in the early foreign language education policy in Taiwan” (Chang Y. 2008, p. 424).
Though some people think the second language acquisition to be an activity aimed at destruction of the national culture and main principles of education, experience sharing, and other sectors of their activity, international language contribute greatly to the development of friendly relationships between countries who operate simultaneously in the international arena in various sectors including production and commerce.
Importance of English language as an international one has been evidenced by numerous researches and analyses that are aimed at providing a sound evidence of the necessity of acquiring one of the international languages as the second or third one. As reported by Wardhaugh (2009, p. 388) while referring to international language such as English and French, “This language not only serves many as an internal working language but also still regarded as the language of mobility.”
In this respect, different studies considered the English language as one of the ways to improve the internal economy of the country through education and business whereas others rejected the necessity of learning English due to national peculiarities of Taiwanese culture and community.
Basic information
The research is aimed at proving that the attitude of the students in elementary and junior high school should be taken into account while implementing some further programs and educational reforms designed to improve the quality of education including teaching methodology, technologically advanced techniques, and the use of international languages along with the national one.
In other words, it is necessary to find out whether the children are ready for the implementation of the language policy or it is necessary to make necessary preparations and implement appropriate educational methods and training techniques for teachers primarily than for children. So, the overall study requires some evidence to prove that children are ready for the language policy.
Though there are numerous researchers based on evidence provided by second language learners and other people who are knowledgeable in the linguistic issues, it is necessary to make sure all students adjust normally to the new requirements designed using the Tai-yu language instructions.
Methodology
Data collection
The research requires a specific method to be used for providing strong evidence concerning the readiness of children to adjust to the language policy in the shortest possible time with regard to possible negative reaction that can be demonstrated by older children. The main method is the data collection and analysis via literature review.
Moreover, as it was necessary to analyse the attitude of students toward the implementation of the Tai-yu language policy, a survey had to be included into the research. The main concern of the research consisted in the survey compilation and adequate answers to be provided by respondents.
In this respect, it was necessary to choose the random sampling method to survey twenty students including two different study level such as junior high and elementary as the policy will concern these level while its effective implementation can encourages the authorities to expand it into the national level regardless of the sector ad age of people including their ability to adjust to changes and new policies, especially concerning the language.
Limitations and variables
The limitations of the method included possibility of inadequate answers due to threat of being punished or victimised. In this respect, it was necessary to make sure that the survey is conducted anonymously though would include necessary data for conducting of the research and comparison of data. Though the selection of respondents was random, equal number of boys and girls was used due to relatively equal number of boys and girls at school.
So, five girls from junior high, five girls from elementary, five boys from junior high, and five boys from elementary school were selected to complete a survey. In other words, children had to be surveyed anonymously. So, they were given sheets of paper containing questions presented in the Appendices section of the current research including five questions of different types. Every respondent provided adequate answers and most of them provided possible suggestions on the issue.
Analysis and discussion
The current language policy
As suggested in the study by Benjamin and Chen (2003), it is possible to investigate the reasons for acquiring a second language and motivation of second language learners in order to implement more effective methods and facilitate and accelerate their learning efforts and make the results more prominent.
The current issue concerns the language policy aimed at implementing the Tai-yu language as the instruction language in elementary and junior high school. The historic approach provides the researchers with the following example concerning the overall attitude toward the language acquisition: “As the island struggles to define its future, many intellectuals have argued that the imposed China-centered ideology of the past has created, at best, an unhealthy situation in Taiwan” (Brubaker 2003, p. 37).
In this respect, it is necessary to apply some new theories and methods to make sure the process of adjustment flow normally and no student experiences difficulties with comprehension of material using the Tai-yu language instruction.
The results of the research show that most of the respondents are happy with the current situation though the results were not presented in the table with the findings as less than 20% of respondents (namely, 3 respondents) provided answers for that question in the survey though most of them provided oral answers while bringing back the completed surveys.
Sometimes, the actions of people are difficult to forecast hence impossible to analyse. It is clear that the process of implementing the Tai-yu language instructions policy into elementary and junior high study levels of Taiwanese school can appear to be more difficult that it is claimed by authorities and experts in the area of educational programmes and linguistics.
Bilingual education policy and Tai-yu language
Though English language has its distinctive features that are used by native speakers and unique peculiarities used by non-native speakers (Holmes 2008, p. 189), it is necessary to strive for acquiring the correct forms of pronunciation and other features that the language possess in order to obtain adequate knowledge of the language.
This issue concerns the suggestions made by the respondents of the survey who claimed that the implementation of the language policy should be supported with adequate training programmes for teachers and quality improvement methods applied to the classes where children have little knowledge of the Tai-yu language as this language will be used for instructions. Fasold (1996, p. 275) suggests that children should be provided with compensation while being taught second language in order to obtain the knowledge correctly without mixing rules and principles typical of the native and the second language.
Though most respondents treated the English language normally, at the same time, most of respondents reacted positively on the possibility of the implementation of the language policy justifying this fact with the opinion about the necessity of protecting the national culture and traditions in order to be more identified as Taiwanese people in the global community.
Besides, the bilingualism is not a negative issue as many countries of the world have two and more languages as their national official languages which do not restrict the number of languages used by representatives of different ethnic minorities all over the globe. For instance, Wei (2006) in her study examines the multiculturalism as one of the possible preconditions of acquiring a second and even a third language.
Parents’ attitude toward English language education in Taiwan
The parents’ attitude toward the English language education was not the primary focus in the current study though it should have been taken into account as in many cases the attitude of the child depends greatly of the position taken by parents.
In this respect, it is necessary to analyse the parents’ attitude toward the Tai-yu language instructions and the extent of the support provided by parents to their children who encountered necessity of studying in the Tai-yu language.
The parents; attitude affects the attitude of children. However, this issue was not investigated in the current study because the attitude of learners was more important in terms of the difficulties encountered in the process of studying by means of the Tai-yu language instruction.
Thus, the main problem concerning the parents’ attitude toward the Tai-yu language instruction implementation is related to the influence of the parents’ attitude on the child’s attitude. The questionnaire completed by the respondents was not supposed to be aimed at investigating to what extent the parents’ attitude affacts the children’s attitude. In other words, the analysis of the relation between attitudes can be the primary focus for the further research.
Though every child think he/she has independent opinion that is not affected by attitudes and opinions of other members of the community, parents, media, friends influenced by their parents’ attitude, and a great number of other indicators can be named while analysing the way a child can be affected. However, the overall attitude of parents was positive with regard to the implementation of the language policy for elementary and junior high school learners.
Conclusion
Summary of findings
The results of the research show that most respondents do not feel negatively about the implementation of the Tai-yu language instruction while a few respondents expressed rather negative opinion concerning this issue.
Moreover, most respondents expressed an idea of some improvements that should be applied to teacher training and instructional material to ensure that the teachers can provide students with adequate materials using appropriate methods. Thus, participants of the research were of little concern toward the implementation of the Tai-yu language instruction in elementary and junior high school in Taiwan.
This study investigated the learners’ attitudes toward the Tai-yu language education policy in Taiwan. The results showed that the majority of the participants expected to learn English education than Tai-yu language. The finding that the major part of the participants who were enrolled in the Tai-yu classes at the elementary level indicated the Tai-yu language policy in effect is actually powerless.
Recommendations for further research
The study was limited due to the number of respondents and the questions asked by means of a survey. In this respect, it is necessary to take into account the attitude of parents toward the language acquisition and language policies implemented because a parents’ attitude can affect the attitude of children.
So, it is preferable to analyse the relation between the attitude of children and parents in order to find out whether the positive attitude was retrieved from the parents’ attitude or it was self-generated. Another limitation of the research concerned the number of respondents as the findings could be more objective and multi-variant if there wwere more respondents.
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