My Fulbright Year in Taiwan

A few years ago, Yilan County created “English Village” 英語村, which is an environment for children to practice English in realistic situations. The ETAs will work in the English Village for half a day each week during the school year. The Village has eight stations, which give children opportunities to interact in different situations. As part of their training, the ETAs planned and carried out activities at a few of the stations with some students who the schools recruited.

One of the stations is an airport and airplane. Children use English to check in, go through security, and board the airplane. A local airline donated a part of an airplane to be used in the Village. On the plane, they practice interacting with the “flight attendants.”

Another station is a store. Children review vocabulary and useful phrases, then interact with the storekeepers, asking prices, bargaining, and practicing using numbers.

I thought that the ETAs did a good job with their activities. This was their first experience in teaching in Taiwan, so they were a little nervous and apprehensive. It was also hard for them to plan the activity, since they didn’t know much about the students and their levels of English. They had to improvise a little, and modify their activities on the fly. They were prepared, though, so their activities went off without any problems.

Only a small number of schools will have an ETA at their school. The English Village is open to all schools in the county. For many children, their experience in the Village will be their only interaction in English with a native speaker. Since the English program is sponsored by the county government, it’s good public relations for us to have the ETAs interact with as many children in Yilan as we can.