Why Taiwan won't be an English speaking country as it plans to achieve by 2030

Karen Chung from the USA has been in Taiwan for more than 30 years and has so far devoted most of her time as a professor at the National Taiwan University. Prof Karen, teaches English, linguistics, and phonetics, with specializations in English listening skills, pronunciation, and poetry. She also co-hosts an English teaching radio program called Ivy League Analytical English. Prof Karen speaks English, Mandarin Chinese, German, and Spanish.

Professor Chung finished her BA in East Asian Languages from the University of Minnesota, MA in East Asian Studies from Princeton University, and PhD in Linguistics from Leiden University.

Professor Chung talked about the key step that Taiwan should implement in order to achieve its target of making Taiwanese fluent speakers of English by 2030. This target is aimed at making Taiwan even more attractive foreign talents.

[StartupTaiwan]

Thank you all for your feedback. Sorry to delete political tone comments, to keep the discussion within the topic.

[copycatkaraoke]

@6:13, Right on! Exactly what we do with pop music during our sessions.

[mengho]

I used to work with the government, and I guess it's sometimes quite understandable for the policy makers to set an ambitious goal to allow the deployment of resources no matter how realistic it is. That's the reason why I always believe a bottom-up method would work better and an inspiring interview is surely a great initiative.

[Conscious_Sea_Magic_Wave]

It's a great interview! Thank you very much! I'm a big fan of Karen. So I really appreciate your questions to help me know more about Karen such as her breakfast menu and her favorite movie. It's also my first time to hear that Taiwan has the goal of becoming a bilingual place in 2030. Although I'm very enthusiastic in learning English and encourage everyone to learn English to broaden their horizons and have more access to information, I don't think it's a good idea for the government to force people to speak English and make it official. It should be a personal choice.

[brianfunshine]

about correcting grammar. I think people shouldn't be constantly endlessly correcting your grammar and pronunciation but the opposite experience is what I've had in Taiwan where nobody corrected me when I've been saying something wrong for 20 years. That's also not cool. If you want to be helpful to a language learner you can gently and calmly tell them what they are saying wrong. As long as you don't do it too much and do it in a thoughtful way it will be appreciated. Otherwise they will spend 20 years saying it wrong and people will be laughing at them behind their back.

[unstoppablezone]

Many in Taiwan are fixated on which 'yin-biao' is the best (which phonetic system is the most reliable to give you the 'standard' pronunciation.) I sympathize, and, most of the English teachers here are folks who have mastered grammar and structure but speak English poorly, so they can't really provide the Holy Grail of correct pronunciation...so they rely on Yin-Biao. I always tell people that if they really want to improve pronunciation, spend more time with native speakers, listen and imitate all you hear. The reality is that opportunities to interact directly with non-Chinese are quire limited. If the government wants to reach its goal, it will need to vastly increase the number of native speaker teachers in the school system, starting with elementary schools.

[adrian_terran]

As the interviewer, try to avoid using "what you're trying to say", it generally sounds unprofessional and can most likely be interpreted as being rude to the interviewee.

[ffhgffg]

I feel many of the suggestions made by Karen about how to learn English were actually part of the reasons that Taiwan decided to go English speaking

[benjaminbittle]

Do you think If Taiwan does switch to becoming Bilingual (English speaking), it will lead to a decline in native languages? Like in Singapore and Malaysia.

[titan]

I took an English writing course taught by a famous Taiwanese teacher.
On the first day, I was mind blown by her poor pronunciation.
Eventually, I gave up on the course, but many people were still on it.

[monicasu]

The host needs to study more and prepare more good questions related to the topic

[unstoppablezone]

Pro-noun-ciation? Nope. Pronunciation. But in fairness, I hear native speakers from the US make the same mistake. English is a brutal and unforgiving language.

[xXxSkyViperxXx]

taiwan should get english teachers from the philippines

[kevtherev]

I disagree with MOST what she says. Research in linguistics & education PROVE she is wrong wrong wrong