The Academy is a two-year junior college for volunteer soldiers and in-service sergeants or non-commissioned officers (NCOs). It is under the dual supervision of the Ministry of National Defence (MND), which is directly in charge of officers and NCOs and goal-
oriented military training, and the MOE, which is in charge of the evaluation of the teaching faculty, the Academy’s teaching performance and academic standard and process-oriented future development. In Chapter 1, I have briefly introduced how the MOE has been promoting English learning and English medium education at university level in Taiwan as a macro-system. Here I will explain why the MND is also keen to promote English language learning and training in all military schools including the Academy as an exo-system.
The relationship between Taiwan and the United States in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act lays the foundation for cooperative security and military operations. As a result of the cooperation projects between Taiwan and the United States, the importance of learning English has often been emphasized, interpreters are in demand and speaking English is largely seen as the most important skill to learn. In-service NCOs who can meet the required score for a specific course on the English Comprehension Level (ECL) test held by the American Institute in Taiwan can have the privilege to be sent to the U.S. for intensive training and will be promoted after they come back to Taiwan. Though ECL does not test speaking, the opportunity and prospect of meeting English native speakers have made English language speaking a priority for those who set their goals on being eligible for overseas training.
The students have slightly different secondary school educational backgrounds, i.e., academic-oriented senior high graduates or skill-oriented vocational school graduates. They enrol in eight different engineering-related majors including Aircraft Engineering,
Power Mechanical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Computer Science and
Communication Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Vehicle Engineering, and Civil Engineering. It is required that they live in campus dormitories belonging to different units. Generally, even number weeks have long weekends (from Friday 6:00 pm till Sunday 8:00pm) and odd number weeks have short weekends (from Saturday 8:00 am till Sunday 8:00 pm). In the year 2010, there were 1,466 first-year students (1,348 males and 118 females). Except for the in-service NCOs, all freshmen had an eight-week basic training boot camp from 5 July 2010 to 27 August 2010.
Conducting this research in a place with which I was familiar and had worked as a full- time lecture gave the capacity to understand things from the participants’ perspective (Richards, 2003). However, by the time I started collecting data I had been away from my teaching post for two years. This, on the other hand, helped to raise my awareness of the activities and setting in the environment which I used to take for granted. This will be further discussed in 3.4. In short, the Academy was chosen because it was easier for me to gain access. To the best of my knowledge, there appears to be little LLS research conducted in military settings with cadets.
It should be borne in mind that, on the one hand, this research site shares the
commonality of EFL environments as discussed in 2.2. On the other, the descriptions of the school setting and classroom setting demonstrate the unique features of this learning environment. For example, in a military school, the first and foremost ethic is obedience and the superintendent’s approval is essential. A document approving my research was
signed by the superintendent, and the administration system then recorded this, before the data collection took place in September 2010. In fact, the apparently rigid and collective military routine sometimes made it difficult even for an ‘insider’. For example, normally I had to give my female participants proof of the approved document beforehand and had to ‘collect’ them in person before we could sit down and have our scheduled one-to-one interviews. Also, since they were following military routine, all the interviews were conducted either in the evenings or weekends. The classroom setting will be described in greater detail in the following section.
3.3.2 The classroom setting
Figure 3.2 The classroom setting
Dennis Cindy Fanny
Nick Peter
The researcher
The fifteen classroom observations were undertaken in a computerized, air-conditioned, and internet-connected language laboratory. One desktop and a headset with a
Control Panel (teacher’s seat) Document Projector Platform Whiteboard (Screen) D O O R D O O R P r o j e c t o r
microphone were furnished for each seat. The teacher could control the Internet access and what was shown on students’ desktops. The tables were heavy and fixed to the ground. It was not easy to move around in the classroom because the aisles were narrow. Since this was an optional course, the students were from ten different original classes allocated according to their majors. There were twenty-eight students. There were forty seats. Some of the desktops broke down on occasions and the students were allowed to move to the seats where the desktops were working. The teacher normally talked from her seat with a microphone. She checked on the students and walked around while they were doing pair work and tests.
The teacher chose two English language learning magazines accompanied by DVDs for this course: one elementary level; the other intermediate level. Most of the time, she played the DVDs or asked the students to practise with the DVDs on their own desktops. This type of activity was usually followed up with an oral test or volunteer
individuals/pairs acting out the material in front of the class. She gave written tests for mid-term and final examinations. She normally showed the quiz sheets on the computer screens and she used the document projector when correcting a writing assignment and revealing answers to quizzes to the class. She used video clips on YouTube through the Internet when teaching English songs.