To resolve the confusion parents have about educating their children in English at an early age, Chang Chiang-jiun, director of the Graduate School of Children's English Education at National Taipei Teachers College, has gone public several times with a call to Taiwanese parents not to invest large amounts of money rushing to follow in the footsteps of relatives and friends who send their children to all-English kindergartens.

"Language is a powerful tool," says Chang. Many parents are only willing to see the successful aspect of such education, but unwilling to admit that there is something lost as well. Its after-effects--language rejection and identification with "dominant" or "weak" cultures--exhibit themselves gradually only after the child begins elementary school.

The "all-English" myth

Because English-language educators in Taiwan had not done much research into English education on preschool children, five years ago Chang Chiang-jiun accepted a friend's suggestion and sent her daughter, then two years and ten months old, to an all-English kindergarten. "For just NT$5000 a month more than other kindergartens, she can get a foundation in English at an all-English kindergarten," said her friend.

Back then, there weren't kindergartens teaching in English on virtually every street corner as there are in Taiwan today. She also wanted to experiment with the immersion approach to language learning. The so-called "immersion technique" means that all day-time classes are taught in English, about 22 hours a week, one-third longer than in a bilingual kindergarten. When her daughter came home, she would speak to her mother in Chinese but watched only English TV channels and read only English books in her leisure time.

Her daughter grew up in an environment where her foreign teacher was strict about the "no Chinese" rule, and if she spoke in her more familiar native tongue, then she was a "bad girl." Due to a long period of interaction with her foreign teacher, her daughter became quite extroverted, liked to embrace others and developed a rich body language. When she took her to the park, her daughter quickly melted into the circle of young children, and made friends on her own. But her Chinese grammar and intonation were very odd. She would say the Chinese equivalent of: "Read to me a book," "Today. How are you?" "Now. I am very hungry."

"At the time I wasn't considering cultural factors. I just wanted her to learn English well and foolishly believed that living in Taiwan, who would not learn Chinese? Little did I know that I would encounter such a big obstacle."

Lending a hand to Chinese

By comparison with Chang Chiang-jiun's admission of failure, Lu Chen-ying, a teacher in the English department at Wanfang Elementary School, declares the result of her outlay of NT$700,000 for three years of all-English kindergarten tuition to have been "very good value."

"Students are really under a lot of pressure nowadays," says Lu. "Anyway, there is plenty of leisure time in kindergarten, so why not study a bit and build a foundation for English?" She doesn't really have to worry about the English level of her daughter who is in her third year of elementary school. Lu just takes responsibility for borrowing books for her. Her daughter reads English books faster than she, and she estimates that her daughter's reading level has already reached that of a junior high school graduate.

"But a tree that has grown up in an all-English environment still has to be pruned," says Lu. A child is bound to prefer to use her stronger language. Her daughter used to read only English signs on the road, and didn't note those in Chinese. So Lu had no option but to teach her daughter Chinese while driving the car. To ensure that their child's Chinese doesn't fall behind, parents need to offer a helping hand. Lu Chen-ying's method? Have her daughter read large numbers of Chinese books.

Her son is attending an all-English kindergarten now, and Lu has discovered that a gap has appeared between his ability to learn Chinese versus English. On the weekend she takes him to attend a class in "creative building blocks," and when the teacher instructs the children to pick up the green (lu se) blocks in Chinese, her son is a half-beat behind others. Sometimes he asks her: "What is the English for lu se?" His ability to learn Chinese is much weaker than that of English.

When Chang Chiang-jiun took her daughter to a series of dance and music workshops organized by the Cloud Gate Dance Theater, she just sat in the same corner each time, silently watching others banging away. Only later did Chang Hsiao-chun realize that her daughter hadn't understood the lyrics of the song, "Little Sister is Carrying a Doll on Her Back." Unable to understand the medium of instruction, her keenness to learn was lessened. But when class was over, she would run over and hug the teacher to show her friendliness. When she noticed her teacher was not feeling well, she would help out by kneading her back or even pouring her a glass of water. She gave others the impression of being sweet, sociable, and able to get along well with others.

The earlier the better?

In reality, the great majority of parents are keen to let their young children study English simply because they believe that young children's memories are good, their ability to mimic is strong and that there is relatively less interference from the mother tongue. Therefore, studying English early on means a certain advantage. But is there any research to support this conclusion?

Early study of English is a very contentious topic, points out Chang Chiang-jiun, and many experts in and out of Taiwan do not support it.

It's especially worthwhile noting that because a young child's vocabulary in Chinese and English is rather limited, it is easy for "superficial learning" to occur as a side effect of all-English learning. Although all-English kindergartens teach totally in English, when topics are discussed, the children mostly can only get by with a "yes" or "no" answer. When the teacher introduces "dinosaurs," for instance, since the English names for the individual species are too difficult, most children retain only the word "dinosaur." But if Chinese is used to explain, children can be made to understand that there are various kinds of dinosaurs, such as the brontosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, and pterodactyl, in which case there is less likelihood that new knowledge will be classified in an oversimplified way.

A typical Taiwanese child begins learning Chinese in kindergarten, but children attending an all-English kindergarten come into contact with Chinese in first-year elementary school--three years later. "She missed the golden period for studying her mother tongue," says Chang Chiang-jiun of her daughter, who now feels learning Chinese is too hard. She finds doing her Chinese homework painful, and does it rather reluctantly.

Don't let ABCs trample childhood

The sole benefit supported by the approach of starting foreign language learning early is probably a fairly accurate accent. But research shows that there are two preconditions to mastering English pronunciation: The model for imitation must be capable of correct pronunciation, and secondly, there must be sufficient time for contact with English. While there are a small number of successful examples, most students of all-English kindergartens are only capable of speaking a little English, communicating with others and using simple greetings.

As Taiwan's anxiety over English has spread, it has lead to the division of kindergartens into three types: all English, bilingual, and standard. Despite the fact that many experts oppose an all-English environment for young children, the market for it has grown rapidly, a worrisome phenomenon.

According to Chang Hsiao-chun's survey of kindergarten curricula and employment of foreign teachers, one-third of public and 97 percent of private kindergartens offer English instruction. The main problem with the instruction lies in whether teachers are qualified. Many parents insist that kindergartens display a local teacher's qualifications outside the classroom entrance, but never look at a foreign teacher's educational background. Being a foreigner is enough.

"Nowadays not offering English is a loss of face for a kindergarten," says Chang Chiang-jiun. But since the media publicized the story of her daughter, many kindergartens have invited her to make presentations, so that they can use a scholar's words to defend their approach.

Among Taiwan's 3000-plus kindergartens, 65% offer all-English classes and have replaced the former curriculum for pre-school children with language courses, according to a survey of preschool education completed in 2002 by National Chiayi University. In November 2002, 31 bodies for preschool education held a press conference at the Legislative Yuan. They expressed their opposition to the manner in which English instruction is destroying the healthy development of child education. Their slogan: "Don't let ABCs dominate a child's studies."

"Taiwan's English craze has reached fever pitch. How long can we maintain this intensity?" queries Chang Chiang-jiun, and suggests everyone should be posing these questions. "Do we want to cultivate mediocre people with fluent English? Or do we want professionals who can communicate in English?" The stirring story of her own earlier misdirection aside, with a heavy heart Chang points out that parents really needn't make their children lose so much just to acquire English.