More than speaking to teach others speaking

English-language teacher Kevin Fitzpatrick argued that Taiwanese students need substantially more opportunities to speak English (“Bilingual 2030 and the elephant,” Sept. 27, page 8). If students are expected to study, work and communicate in English, they need opportunities to develop spoken language rather than simply knowledge about it.

Walk into an English classroom in Taiwan and it can appear that students are practicing speaking. They might read a passage aloud, repeat sentences after the teacher or rehearse a textbook dialogue several times with a partner, but are they learning to communicate?

Those activities are not inherently poor teaching. Repetition can support pronunciation, model dialogues can provide useful language and controlled practice can prepare learners for something more demanding. Problems arise when producing spoken English is treated as equivalent to learning how to communicate.

Speaking requires learners to formulate meaning in real time. Communication adds another person whose contribution cannot be entirely predicted.

Two students might describe differences between pictures, tell one another stories, solve a problem together or hold different opinions and try to reach agreement. In each case, the language has a purpose beyond demonstrating that the learner can produce it.

The challenge is helping learners move from encountering and practicing language toward increasingly independent use. Doing that well requires considerable teacher expertise.

Taiwan has invested considerably in English-language teacher development and communicative ability has been in curriculum goals for years. Yet research suggests that translating those goals into classroom practice is not automatic.

A 2020 study involving three teachers and 90 students in a junior-high school found that limited understanding of communicative approaches was an obstacle to implementation.

The encouraging part of the study is what happened next. Through repeated cycles of trying communicative approaches, observing what happened, and reflecting and adapting, the teachers developed a greater practical understanding of how to use the approaches in their own classrooms.

It is not enough to tell teachers in Taiwan that communication matters or provide a collection of interesting speaking activities. Teachers need opportunities to understand why activities work, see them modeled, try them with learners, examine what happens, receive feedback and try again.

Communicative teaching is not simply a methodology that can be copied from another educational context. Teachers in Taiwan work with particular learners, curricula, examinations, class sizes, expectations and time constraints. Effective teachers need professional judgement to adapt what is known about language learning to their classroom.

Fitzpatrick is right that assessment can help make speaking count. Taiwan’s major university entrance examination assesses English reading and writing, but not speaking, even while curriculum goals emphasize interpersonal communication.

While a test can make speaking matter, it cannot by itself teach students how to speak. That happens through experience and teachers capable of designing those experiences well.

If Taiwan wants students who can genuinely communicate in English, there is a need to ask not only whether learners are being given opportunities to speak, but whether teachers are being given the preparation they need to make those opportunities count.

Daniel Eyrich is the director of English studies at Cenying English in Keelung and has more than 15 years of experience in English-language teaching, assessment and teacher development in Taiwan.