What Else after "How are you?"-Reflections on Methodologies of English Teaching in Taiwan

It seems to be a general consensus, for most English teachers who have been teaching English in university-level institutes in Taiwan for more than a decade, that students' linguistic competence or communicative proficiency has been deteriorated rapidly or at best has been shown statistically as bimodal distribution in terms of their language achievement. It is understandable that most students who received English instruction dominated by the Grammar-Translation Method about 20 years ago might not produce fluent spoken discourse and accurate written texts. However, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), a method focused on the process of effective communication rather than the mastery of linguistic forms, has been prevalent in Taiwan in the past 10 years. It appears that the pedagogical results are not fruitful. In addition, more and more language schools or cram schools offer better English learning environments for learners or at least give students great opportunities to use English to interact with their English teachers, most of whom are native speakers of English. Nevertheless, most English learners in Taiwan seem to get stuck in their ”silent period” stage even after they have learned English ”communicatively” for a couple of years. This paper is going to first summarize the principle of three major language teaching methods-CLT, The Natural Approach, and Multiple Intelligence, followed by challenges and criticism of these methods. Finally, it will conclude with the author's personal reflection on current English teaching methods.