Resumen de Learning English as a foreign language in Taiwan: students’ experiences and beyond

Ming Fang Hsieh

• In Taiwan, earlier English instruction has become prevalent in response to the trend of English as an international language. Current studies are interested in investigating the outcomes or developmental process of learning English from a linguistic perspective. However, this article aims to reveal children's subjective experiences of learning English, examine implicit meanings of parents’ attitudes towards earlier English instruction, and explore how children's experiences are shaped by the school context. By using the framework of the Mosaic approach by Clark and Moss, this study collected data from classroom observations, interviews with children and relevant adults, and children's drawings. The results described how the children learned English under drill-focused teaching practices. The children can identify what they did and what they liked in English class. However, they considered English to be a difficult language to learn because they recognised that they did not truly understand the meaning of the target vocabulary or sentences. The children would have found English easy to learn if the teacher had translated English expressions into Mandarin. The students’ experiences exposed the inappropriateness of English instruction and revealed the gap between parental expectations towards earlier English instruction and school anticipations of parental involvement in children's English learning.