Due in large part to the trends towards economic globalization, English has become the most widely disseminated and ubiquitous international language. The purpose of the study was to investigate what Taiwan's EFL teachers at the elementary level believe about the policy of English as a compulsory subject and how they perceive the benefits and obstacles of the policy's implementation. Ten elementary English teachers in Tainan City and its suburban areas participated in this study. Data were collected through teachers' interviews, classroom observation and document analysis. Results found that all ten teachers agreed with the policy for English as a compulsory subject at the elementary level. They observed both positive and negative sides of this top-down policy. Classroom observation and interview data revealed that EFL teachers had to plan their English classes with the constraints on a large class of students with mixed levels of proficiency, limited teaching hours and resources. Parents' expectations of and attitudes towards English learning also became an obstacle.

Textbooks play a central role in Taiwanese education. In the wake of the political reform and social protest movements of the 1970s and 1980s that led to Taiwanese educational reform, critics assert that traditional textbooks reinforce the dominant national Chinese cultural identity without considering the specific perspectives and voices of different gender, cultural, and ethnic groups. The study's purpose is to examine how political and ideological issues were represented in nationally standardized grade-four social studies textbooks from 1978 to 1995; how the textbook portrayed the history of cultural and ethnic groups as well as both genders in Taiwan; and whether the ideology changed because of political and socioeconomic pressures. In order to explore this question, two series of textbooks were examined. The first series was published between 1978 and 1989, the second between 1989 and 1995. Two social studies textbooks from each series were examined. The study's theoretic framework centers on the relationship between legitimated knowledge and the textbooks, employing the methodology of textbook analysis. Three themes were examined: (1) Taiwan's historical development, (2) national identity and nationalism, and (3) ethnic and gender studies. Two analyses were applied in each theme: (1) story-line analysis and (2) language analysis.

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Learning about foreign language (FL) cultures is becoming an important objective in the FL curricula and national standards of different countries throughout the world. The purposes of the study were to examine the effects of the cultural portfolio project on (1) students’ specific aspects of development of cultural knowledge and change in perception of native English speakers and their cultures; (2) students’ self-awareness, evaluation, and modification of stereotypes toward the target cultures; and (3) students’ change in perception of and attitude toward cultural learning. Data were collected through students’ cultural portfolio projects, pre- and post-questionnaires, classroom observation, and interviews. Results indicated that instead of memorizing cultural facts, students experienced an active process of constructing knowledge. Most students commented that their views toward native-English-speaking cultures and language learning had been changed after completing the cultural portfolio project, for instance by moving from an ethnocentric view to respect cultural differences, becoming more aware of diversity within culture, and understanding that the media presents the surface culture of native-English-speaking countries.