Taiwanese student and teacher views of the English language curriculum: A multi-case study

This study was designed to explore and describe the views of Taiwanese students and teachers concerning their English language curriculum. More specifically, a multi-case study was carried out to examine the needs of students in terms of their English Language Curriculum (ELC) and to investigate teachers' perspectives on their students' needs. The data generated by this study included survey questionnaires completed by students in Case 1 and Case 2, semi-structured in-depth interviews with six English teachers in Case I and Case 2, and a document analysis. The statistical methodology based on SPSS WINDOWS software was selected to analyze the data from the survey questionnaires, and the interview data were interpreted according to the grounded theory approach.;Four principal results were obtained from the students' attitudes toward their current English Language Curriculum (ELC). First, the majority of students in both Case 1 and Case 2 valued their required English courses highly. Second, however, there was less support for some of the elective English courses. Third, all of the students in Case 1 and Case 2 appreciated the importance of all the twelve different kinds of English instructional activities identified for this study. Finally, of ten specific English language skill categories, students in both Case 1 and Case 2 considered reading and pronunciation to be the least difficult.;Four major categories emerged from the analysis of the interview data derived from the six English teachers' descriptions of their views on the English Language Curriculum. These were (1) teachers' views on students' attitudes toward their English courses, (2) teachers' views on the English teaching process and on the relative importance of certain English teaching activities, (3) teachers' views on students' difficulty in English language skills, and (4) teachers' suggestions for future English curriculum design and the challenges faced by teachers.;Various implications were drawn from the findings of this multi-case study. These included the need for problem-posing education instead of banking education, the adoption of communicative language teaching, the recommendation of communicative curriculum, a view of teachers as transformative intellectuals, the encouragement of English practice beyond the classroom, and the promotion of bilingualism in Taiwan's future English education.