No, I am not writing my master's thesis. I am generalizing from personal experience and anecdotal evidence. A process without which, even on LBO, nobody would ever claim anything or say anything at all : )
for example, If I told you, "yknow, it seems like americans are way fatter than chinese, generally speaking" nobody would ask me for a study. There are studies that show this but they are not necessary. anecdotal evidence suffices.
just for instance, woj once claimed that "asian" cities are generally quieter than american cities. nobody called him on this howler or asked for a study to support his claims, but anybody who's spent a week in a part of asia you might have heard of- you know, china?- or any small taiwanese town knows how far up your ass your head would have to be not to notice that chinese people are feckin' LOUD. I mean what's quiet about chinese cities? the jackhammers? the firecrackers? all-night video arcades? the tombstone grinder who plys his noisy trade right across from an elementary school because there's no feckin zoning in this country? Or is it the old men hawking dou hua by loudspeakers that can be heard over blocks? or the lingerie shop a block from my house that blares the price of padded bras over a makeshift PA system? the loudspeaker vans that wake me every morning with pronouncements of a sale on shampoo at watson's? Chinese people talk loud, laugh loud, fight loud, screw loud. They are loud! As long as I am not writing for publication I do not need a study to tell me this. Sheesh...
> > I suggest that this extremely high rate of failure
> can
> > be ascribed to the incredible sucktastickness of
> ESL
> > programs in taiwanese schools.
>
> No, only to the goals set by the educational system.
> Which in a lot of
> places does not include "communicate", but rather
> "pass the exams" with
> easy to score exam sheets.
>
> JC Helary
Yes, this is what i have been saying.
But you do not agree that an ESL program that does not take communication as one of its goals is not sucktastic? In fact i would think that would be quite a reliable criterion of suckery.
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