A Review of Recent Language Teaching Literature in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper examines recent locallanguagelEnglish teaching literature in Taiwan, the Republic of China via a professional review of existing research reports, and compares the findings with topics presented in Taiwan's first English teachingconference in 1984 and in the World Congress of Applied Linguistics in 2002 (AILA). It also points out possible avenues or future directions for local scholars who rnay wish to integrate new insights from the intemational academic comrnunityto address local issues. The database for the review includes various conference proceedings, some issues of a particular joumal, and the program book of an international conference, AILA. Content analyses of abstracts were conducted topoollogistic data about content areas or issues and levels of leamers. A comparison is then made on the findings of local literature and those of AILA. The results showed that college leamers were the major participants or subjects investigated,followed by high school and prirnary school students; and quantitative research approaches such as experimental design and survey were the major methods adopted. The topic of Technology and English leaming has stayed a popular theme, preceded by that of four skills. Those of English teaching for young leamers and language testing/assessment are on rise. Lastly, issues concerning research on English teaching in Taiwan as compared with those addressed by some intemational joumal papers are discussed with research implications.