Bilingual 2030: time’s up for opinions

The irony of writing an opinion piece with this title is not lost on me. While Bilingual 2030 has generated substantial debate through recent opinion pieces and letters to the editor published in the Taipei Times, the time has come to shift from opinion to rigorous academic analysis.

Jye Smallwood’s piece, “Basic Misunderstanding of EMI” (page 8, Aug. 9), demonstrates sound academic grounding, and I largely agree with his points. However, his rigid definition of English-medium instruction (EMI) as purely an “end state” without language support creates a false binary where any real-world application is deemed incorrect by default. This risks ignoring essential teaching strategies, such as translanguaging (using a student’s full language repertoire to support learning; for example, planning or discussing in their language and then sharing in English), code-switching (alternating between English and Mandarin for clarity) and scaffolding (providing temporary learning support to help students grasp complex concepts).

While his critique of applied EMI methodology is valid, his example of the economics professor highlights a pedagogical flaw — the problem would exist even in the professor’s first language — rather than pedagogical regression (the temporary drop in a professor’s teaching effectiveness when forced to instruct in a second language).

Smallwood’s cited Saudi and Japanese models also faced massive challenges, high attrition and steep costs, proving that successful EMI relies on factors far beyond methodology, training and funding.

From a policy management perspective, Smallwood’s recommendation to “tie every dollar to measurable language outcomes” contradicts his premise that EMI is a content-learning context rather than a language-learning one.

Additionally, attributing policy failures merely to “basic misunderstandings” is overly polite. In reality, failure stems from perverse institutional incentives, such as universities rushing to label courses “EMI” simply to secure a slice of government funding.

In his letter “Bilingual Education” (page 8, Aug. 24), Paul Garrelfs relies on intuitive notions that fail under academic scrutiny. His claim that children absorb language like “sponges” is unsupported; beyond acquiring better pronunciation, children learn significantly slower than teenagers or adults. The Critical Period Hypothesis is overhyped, and expert-led language instruction at the university level remains far more effective for language gains than un-scaffolded EMI or “starting young.”

Garrelfs also confuses Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills with the Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) required for EMI. His comparison to Ontario’s French immersion program is moot due to fundamental differences in writing systems (Chinese versus French), target language exposure and the documented limitations of the Canadian model highlighted by Merrill Swain.

Finally, Garrelfs’ assertion that Taiwan possesses a surplus of qualified English teachers is inaccurate. A 120-hour online Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages certificate is inadequate for institutional teaching, and I would be surprised if the percentage of teachers on ARCs with a Teaching English as a Foreign Language qualification exceeds 20 percent. Lowering entry barriers contradicts successful models in Finland and Singapore; instead, Taiwan should raise standards by requiring globally recognized credentials such as the Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages or Trinity Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Regulations paradoxically prohibit world-renowned experts — such as Common European Framework of Reference for Languages coauthor John de Jong — from teaching in Taiwan simply based on country of origin.

CenYing English Studies Director Daniel Eyrich’s comparison of macro-level policy to classroom error correction in his article “The Challenges of Bilingual 2030” (page 8, Aug. 23) involves a severe scale fallacy. Applying a 10 to 15-minute micro-pedagogical speaking tactic to a multimillion-dollar national strategy overlooks the fact that teachers operate from a shared linguistic knowledge base, whereas policy execution lacks such standardized reference points. Moreover, adjusting communicative techniques in classrooms where students lack CALP fails to produce content mastery and perpetuates confusion between language acquisition and content delivery.

Eyrich’s suggestion to adopt a passive “wait-and-see” approach to gather evidence leads directly to institutional inertia, public waste and stakeholder burnout. Organizational change requires rapid feedback loops and immediate mid-course realignments to fix the supply chain mismatch in teacher training.

Eyrich’s second piece (“Bilingual Education Can Learn from Asia,” page 8, Sept. 1) is far more academically robust. Connecting school-level proficiency to university readiness correctly identifies the structural disconnect between teaching, testing and teacher training as a primary root cause of failure. Utilizing established frameworks (Cambridge, Trinity or International House) and localized, data-driven research (such as the Teaching Knowledge Test study) offers a far better pathway than unvetted training programs.

However, locking Taiwan into a single publisher or provider poses vendor lock-in risks, unlike the multi-supplier approaches used in Vietnam and Indonesia. Furthermore, standard advanced credentials such as the Cambridge Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (DELTA) or Trinity Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages do not automatically prepare trainers for tertiary EMI contexts.

Taiwan must establish clear, scaffolded language proficiency goals across primary and secondary education to prepare students for university-level academic demands. The Ministry of Education must also overhaul its funding metrics and teacher-training models. Structural reform requires tough decisions, but continuing to observe failure is no longer an option.

Gerhard Erasmus is the course and academic director at Inspired CPD, a certified Cambridge DELTA and Trinity course director and tutor, an ex-trustee of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL), and ex-coordinator of the IATEFL Leadership and Management Special Interest Group. He has more than two decades of experience in ELT management, teacher training and assessment.