Tag: class

Sabrina Chang

Being a bilingual or even multilingual person has become a norm in Taiwan lately. Parents are eager to have their children learn English as early as they can. One of the students I tutor is only 2 years old, cannot deliver Chinese sentences properly but knows what the “Statue of Liberty” is. Her mom is very anxious about her child getting behind other children of the same age so she asked me to teach her daughter English as much as I can. On the other hand, my sixth-grade student in a local school does not even know what an “airplane” is. They only learn English for two hours per week and have little contact with this language. Their parents are not able to provide a good language learning environment for them. What led to this phenomenon?

From my point of view, it is directly related to class and poverty. Parents who are more economically available want to immerse their children in a bilingual environment. Whether it is to hire a tutor for them or send them to cram schools, parents use whatever means they can to help their children get ahead of others. On the other hand, people who are in a lower class do not have as much choice. They work from 9 to 5 every day and have no extra money for their children to go to cram schools. It is not to say that children from lower classes have lower achievements than those from higher classes, however, they must be work twice as hard to reach the same height as them.

According to my students who are studying in international schools, most of them have one-on-one tutors who guide their homework at least once a week. Parents are willing to pay high salaries to teachers who are able to help their children improve. I have also asked my students in local schools whether they have tutors. The answer is, most of them do not. If you ask me whether these two groups of students have differences in terms of academic performance, I will have to say, absolutely. However, they do not have much choice, do they? Children living in poverty may have to make money as soon as they are old enough. While other children are doing their schoolwork and holding spring fairs, those children, especially girls, must stop going to school and make money so they have food to eat.

People always say, education ends poverty. But how is education going to be fair when children start at an unfair place from the moment they are born? How can teachers help students have an appropriate language learning environment when they have difficulties maintaining their basic needs?