An examination of the self-presentation of the top five franchised English buxibans in Taiwan

Abstract

This study aims to uncover the connection of shadow education with other discourses in society through exploring the self-presentation of the top five leading franchised English buxibans in Taiwan by adopting a multimodal discourse analysis to examine their homepage and brand story webpage. The findings suggest that these top five leading franchised English buxibans present themselves as ‘a trustworthy, reliable, professional and caring edu-business’, ‘an expert in English language teaching’, ‘a bridge to the world’ and ‘an independent system growing out of mainstream education’. The multiple self-presentations reveal shadow education does not operate in isolation, but acts like an assemblage in which several discourses are entangled and interact with each other to make sense of it. The findings reflect the implicit socio-cultural values or beliefs, show its connection with other discourses in the society and further suggest research on shadow education should be rooted in the local discourse.

Keywords

Franchised English buxiban multimodal discourse analysis self-presentation shadow education Taiwan

Introduction

Shadow education is also known as ‘supplementary education’ (Gordon et al., 2005), ‘cram school’ (Pinar, 2011) and ‘private tuition’ (Foondun, 2002). It has been reported to be a common and pervasive phenomenon in Asian countries, such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and so on. In addition to the Asian areas, shadow education has been seen as a global phenomenon as numerous studies have been conducted in many countries to show that it is ‘occurring at the worldwide level’ (Mori and Baker, 2010: 39). With a worldwide expansion, shadow education is becoming an increasingly visible phenomenon in many countries (Kim et al., 2018) and a lot of research on exploration of this global phenomenon has been conducted from different perspectives, such as social, cultural, educational and so on.

In Taiwan, shadow education is acknowledged as a kind of ‘social education’ taking place outside school hours (based on the definition given by the Taiwanese government; Ministry of Education, 2017). According to the Taiwanese government, shadow education is divided into three categories: supplementary compulsory education, supplementary advanced education and short-term tutorial education (Ministry of Education, 2017). The first two categories take place at school institutions and target people who have not received a formal education, such as primary and secondary education. They are run by the government and are not profit-oriented, but education-focused. Unlike these two types, short-term tutorial education is open to schools, institutions, organizations and individuals to operate and is profit-oriented and known as half-business and half-education (Bray, 2007). Two subclasses of short-term tutorial education are Talent buxibans and Win-Lee buxibans. Talent buxibans offers talent and skills classes, such as music, art or sports classes (Chou and Yuan, 2011) while Win-Lee buxibans offers the core school subjects, such as Chinese, English, maths, science and so on, which are taught at school and are included in the entrance examinations for senior high school and university. In the last two decades, though the birth rate is decreasing year by year – 18,323 in 2008 and 15,149 in 2018 (Ministry of the Interior, Department of Statistics, 2019) – Win-Lee buxibans still show stable and increasing growth from 6712 in 2008 to 11,042 in 2017 (Information and Management System, 2019). One type of Win-Lee buxiban called ‘language buxibans’ focusing on English language teaching (ELT) shows a visible growth within 10 years from 3478 in 2008 to 4549 in 2017 (Jheng, 2017).

The increasing growth of language buxibans reflects the significance of English in Taiwan. In Taiwan, the privileged, powerful and dominating position of English is a complicated phenomenon in which politics (Lu, 2011), economics (Brown, 2015), educational system (M Chen and Johnson, 2004; Lu, 2011; White, 2013), culture (H-Y Lin, 2012), society (H-Y Lin, 2012) and personal achievement (Jonathan, 2013) entangle and interact with each other. Additionally, English is the only foreign language that is included in the formal educational curriculum, tested in the entrance examinations and further plays a role of a gatekeeper in receiving higher education and a key to better careers and higher social status (Jonathan, 2013). H-Y Lin (2012: 70) pointed out that people in Taiwan think the ‘mastery of English is considered important for accumulating personal capital and English is regarded as a socio-cultural asset’. Given its significance in getting access to higher education, social status and personal achievement, learning English has become a ‘national campaign’ and English is the first foreign language that most of the people in Taiwan desire to master (Tsou, 2013). Though the crucial role of English contributes to the growth of language buxibans, especially ‘children’s English buxibans’,¹ it is not the only factor which affects this, and other factors, such as the educational reformation and policy of the Taiwanese government, reinforce the visible growth of buxibans.

Learning English in Taiwan has long been a compulsory part of the curriculum in secondary education, including both junior and senior high schools. However, due to a perception that there is a ‘critical period’ of language learning, it is better for their children to start learning English as early as possible; some send their children to children’s English buxibans to learn English before entering secondary school. This phenomenon, to start earlier, is strengthened due to the employment of English education from the primary school level. In 2001, the Ministry of Education (MOE) announced that English education was now included in the curriculum in primary education from Grade 3 to Grade 6. When this reformation was launched, parents showed little trust in school English education due to the lack of qualified English teachers (Feng, 2015), the inconsistency of textbooks (Chi, 2017) and the teaching method adopted by school teachers, so they tended to send their children to children’s English buxibans in order not to lose at the starting point.

Additionally, in 2014, the MOE in Taiwan announced new policies to improve students’ listening and speaking abilities. English listening was now included as a formal and compulsory part of the Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students. English listening has been an optional part of the College Entrance Examination since 2013 and it became compulsory in 2015. The curricular standards at school education are well known to focus on grammar-translation, with accuracy emphasized over fluency, by building students’ knowledge of English grammatical structures, which further results in the marginalization of listening and speaking instruction (SC Chen and Tsai, 2012). Since schools can not provide enough training on English listening and speaking for students to cope with the new educational reformation, most of the students and their parents seek help from English buxibans which offer courses to balance the development of four English skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Given the importance of English, the educational reformation and parents’ distrust of mainstream education, a 60-billion-dollar market per year in English language learning in the context of buxibans (Chi, 2017) has been created and a great number of buxibans are established to share the profits. Among a variety of English buxibans, franchised English buxibans are reported to share 70% of this enormous market. Because of their high market share, they play a prominent role in ELT in Taiwan and a great number of studies have been conducted to explore issues related to these franchised buxibans in terms of customers’ satisfaction about the services offered (Sung, 2014), the key factor affecting customers’ selection of buxibans (Huang, 2015), the entrepreneurship process (Chi, 2017) and the market strategy (Chang, 2019). However, studies related to how these franchised English buxibans position themselves in the discourses of shadow education and their connection with other discourses have not been explored yet. Also, less attention has been paid to the impact of these franchised English buxibans in the socio-cultural, educational and shadow education discourses. Given their high market share in the ELT discourse in Taiwan, I think an in-depth investigation into the self-presentation of these franchised English buxibans could provide us with an insight into their connection with the ELT discourse in Taiwan and further reflect their impact on the socio-cultural, larger educational and shadow education discourses.

Self-presentation is regarded as a significant aspect of social behaviour (Baumeister, 1982; Goffman, 1990) which is governed by society, culture, politics and so on and it could be viewed as an ensemble in which a number of decisions are made regarding different purposes. For example, in order to make the best impression on potential customers, the information included to present themselves to the public is unlikely to be accidental, but selected carefully to attract an individual’s attention or meet social/cultural needs. In other words, an examination of self-presentation enables us to investigate how people, institutions or organizations identify themselves socio-culturally, which further reflects the socio-cultural values or needs.

Hence, in this paper, I intend to examine the self-presentation of the top five leading Taiwanese franchised English buxibans on their website through looking into the homepage and the brand story webpage to shed light on their impact in the discourses of ELT in Taiwan, shadow education and the larger educational system. One of the three semantic functions of a website homepage is ‘to establish the identity and mission of the website and the institution/s it represents’ (Djonov and Knox, 2014: 174). Hence, not only the brand story but also the homepage of the buxiban website could reveal how these buxibans identify themselves.

The reason for adopting online information is because it is very challenging to access data on shadow education owing to its business nature, so ‘new methods of data collection are needed to shed light on the “vast enterprise” of private individual teaching’ (Silova et al., 2006: 71). Additionally, several studies, such as Forbes and Weiner (2008), Opoku et al. (2006), Saichaie (2011), Yung and Yuan (2018) and Briant et al. (2019), examine the websites of various educational institutions to show that ‘websites are used by educational institutions as a strategic tool for positioning and differentiating themselves on the educational market, building legitimacy and attracting students’ (Kozar, 2015: 357). Hence, the information on websites is able to provide us with a way to examine how buxibans identify themselves.

It is notable that the use of the information presented on the websites is not unproblematic as it may raise issues of data credibility concerning the truthfulness of the inquiry’s findings (Ary et al., 2010). For example, what is presented on the website may not correspond to the reality nor provide 100% accurate information. This does not mean that these data are not worthy of being explored. However, ‘it is critical not to assume that the information presented on the websites corresponds directly to real-life facts’ (Kozar, 2013: 78). Being aware of the nature of these data, in this study, I see the information presented on the top five franchised English buxibans as their self-presentation/self-identification to attract customers via online resources rather than a representation of reality, and therefore seek to answer the two research questions:

What do the top five leading franchised English buxibans self-present as?

What do their self-presentation/identities reflect in the socio-cultural, larger education and shadow education discourses?

Multimodal discourse analysis

Building on linguistic ideas of communication, multimodal discourse analysis views language as a social semiotic system, and language is not merely limited to spoken or written, but encompasses multiple modes of communication (Fairclough, 1992a, 1992b, 2001; Hall, 1997; Hodge and Kress, 1988; Kress, 2000, 2004; Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006). Kress and van Leeuwen (2001) propose that modes refer to resources that are socially and culturally shaped for making meaning or serve as a ‘channel’ of representation or communication. Moving beyond spoken and written texts, ‘image, gesture, gaze, posture, speech, moving image, music, colour, layout and speech could be modes in embodied interactions’ (Jewitt, 2015: 253). It is notable that modes are not fixed and unchangeable, but ‘modes are created through social processes, fluid and subject to change’ (Jewitt, 2015: 253). Moreover, ‘modes are also particular to a community/culture where there is a shared understanding of their semiotic, rather than universal, characteristics’ (Jewitt 2015: 253) as suggested below:

Signs, modes and meaning making are treated as relatively fluid, dynamic and open systems, intimately connected to the social context of use. From this perspective, analytical interest in the modal system (its resources and principles) is strongly located in (and regulated through) the social and cultural. When making signs, people bring together and connect the available form that is most apt to convey the meaning they want to express at a given moment. (Jewitt, 2015: 252)

In other words, the semiotic resources have socio-cultural meanings and the semiotic multimodal analysis enables us to explore the social relations as well as project socio-cultural values.

Emerging in the early 1990s, with the development of the internet, the World Wide Web has proven to be one of the most popular and important social transformations (Djonov and Knox, 2014). Webpages are well known to employ ‘a range of semiotic resources such as written language, speech, image, colour, layout, music, and movement and typically also multi-channel documents (employing visual, aural and increasingly also tactile communication)’ (Djonov and Knox, 2014: 171). Given its multi-semiotic feature, analysis of webpages is unlikely to focus on verbal or written texts only; rather, it is necessary to think of the visual design which is ‘key to organizing meanings on and beyond the page and provide analysts with a coherent “way in” to the data’ (Djonov and Knox, 2014: 171). Hence, multimodal discourse analysis is adopted in this study to investigate not only the written texts, but also the visual data, such as photos and colour use, on the webpages of the top five franchised English buxibans in Taiwan to explore what their self-presentation projects in the socio-cultural, shadow education and larger education discourses.

Methodology

The data were collected from the top five franchised English buxibans on their official websites in January–April 2019. The reasons for choosing these five franchised English buxibans are elaborated below. Franchised English buxibans are reported to share 70% of the enormous market of shadow education in Taiwan. Predictably, these top five franchised English buxibans have shared most of the reported 70% market in Taiwanese shadow education. Moreover, all of these top five franchised English buxibans have been in the shadow education market in Taiwan for over 30 years (Chi, 2017) and offer English courses to both primary and secondary school students. Additionally, they have developed their own teaching materials (i.e. textbooks and workbooks), assessment system and teacher training programme, which indicates their independence from mainstream education and their potential influence in the education system in Taiwan. More significantly, all of them have branches in other countries, such as China, Singapore, Korea or Japan. In other words, they are not just franchised businesses in Taiwan, but they are developing into cross-national enterprises. Due to the high market share, their long history in the Taiwanese shadow education industry, their own curriculum, teaching materials and teacher training programme and the characteristic of a cross-national enterprise, they might have a great impact in Taiwanese English education and larger education discourse. Hence, I think that examination of these top five franchised English buxibans might reveal their connection with the ELT discourse in Taiwan and reflect their impact on the socio-cultural, larger educational and shadow education discourses.

One of the challenges in collecting data from a website is that saves of the webpages as html files using a web browser ‘tend not to preserve the way advertisements, images, animations, and page layout were rendered at the time the webpage was saved’ (Djonov and Knox, 2014: 172). Due to the ‘instantly impermanent’ (Perlmutter, 2003) characteristic of webpages, all the homepages and the webpages where the brand story was located were screen-captured and saved as PDF files for analysis. With regard to ethical clearance, I did not consider it necessary to seek consent from these five English buxibans because the information on their websites was publicly open to everyone without any requirement for access to it. Furthermore, in order to ensure anonymity, I replaced the brands with numbers, such as Buxiban 1, 2, 3 and so on.

All the websites were written in traditional Chinese with the brand name in English underneath, above or next to that in Chinese. It was notable that two of them have an English version of websites and one even offers Japanese and simplified Chinese versions. I browsed the website of these top five franchised English buxibans and looked into the homepage and the section called ‘the story of the enterprise/name of the brand’. In order to reveal the types of self-presentation portrayed on their websites, I reviewed the textual data repeatedly to code the data and then identified the major themes in relation to their self-presentation. For example, data like ‘enterprise’, ‘business’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ were added to the ‘business-related’ coding label which further led to the theme ‘business’. It is important to point out that this was research by one person and the researcher’s inherent bias may affect the research validity. Hence, when dealing with the data (both textual and visual), I adopted an intra-rater method in order to remove my inherent bias and ensure the validity of data analysis. I coded the data, left the analysis for a period of time and then recoded the data. Then I compared the two sets of coded materials to identify any differences between them in order to offer the research some objectivity.

After reviewing the coded data taken from the brand story of each buxiban repeatedly, I identified four major themes in relation to their self-presentation, such as ‘a trustworthy, reliable, professional and caring edu-business’, ‘an expert in English language teaching’, ‘a bridge to the world’ and ‘an independent system growing out of mainstream education’. I further looked into the linguistic features, such as adjectives, which were used to emphasize the differences of buxibans compared to others in order to uncover the discursive process of how buxibans present themselves at lexico-grammatical and structural level (Fairclough, 2003). For instance, the use of positive adjectives in comparative or superlative forms, such as ‘better’ and the ‘best’, not only indicated their image as an expert in ELT but also uncovered their relationship to other organizations/institutes (i.e. formal education schools). Instead of translating all the data into English, I read the texts in Chinese, highlighted the parts related to the self-presentation of these English buxibans and then translated the selected texts into English. The analysis was conducted on the original Chinese texts and the selected examples presented in this paper were subsequently translated into English by me (Chinese-English bilingual).

In addition to the textual data, webpages are full of visuals which are subject to social conditions and are inevitably to be included in the analysis, as Fairclough (1992a, 1992b, 1995, 2001) indicates that visual language, such as videos, photographs and multimedia, operates mutually with spoken and written resources in making meanings. Thus, either images or texts form the discourse and meaning of a message, but it is the combination of them (Hall, 1997). Moreover, similar to text, visuals have an impact on the way individuals respond to messages (Hall, 1997; Kress and Hodge, 1988; Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006) as indicated by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006: 2) who contend that ‘[l]ike linguistic structures, visual structures point to particular interpretations of experience and forms of social interaction’. Informed by the significance of visuals and the connection with the social conditions, in this study I analysed the colour use and photos associated with each self-presentation to explore how the visual presentation on the webpages disclosed the self-presentation of buxibans.

Colour is ubiquitous and is a source of information. It has been suggested that colour use plays an important role in affecting customers’ recognition (Eisemann, 2000; Söker, 2009) and ‘enhance[s] brand awareness, recognition and quality perception’ (Babin et al., 2003; Bellizzi and Hite, 1992; Brengman and Willems, 2009; Schielke and Leudesdorff, 2015). For example, when analysing colour use on the webpages, I looked into the arrangement of the background colour and the texts. Additionally, I also examined colour use in the website banner which is regarded as representing the website as a whole (Djonov and Knox, 2014) to discuss the communication delivered by buxibans to the potential viewers/customers, which further revealed how buxibans identify themselves to the public.

Findings

Applying multimodal discourse analysis to the data collected, I identified four types of self-presentations of these top five franchised English buxibans. They are ‘a trustworthy, reliable, professional and caring edu-business’, ‘an expert in English language teaching’, ‘a bridge to the world’ and ‘an independent system growing out of mainstream education’. Below is a discussion of these four types of self-presentations of the buxibans, illustrated with examples taken from the data.

A trustworthy, reliable, professional and caring edu-business

Shadow education is well known as half-business and half-education (Bray et al., 2015) owing to its fee-charging characteristic. Browsing through the websites of the top five franchised English buxibans, the nature of the business is seen clearly through the text on the brand story webpage and the use of nouns associated with ‘enterprise’ and ‘business’. Examples are presented below:

(1) Promotion discounts or special offers for joining business;

(2) The entrepreneurship has existed for only one third of a century;

(3) The scale of the enterprise comprises only about 500 buxibans across Asia.

Moreover, they also present themselves as being reliable, professional and trustworthy through the colour use on the combination of text and website background and the website banner. The buxibans’ website background colour is white and texts are presented in black. Black text on a white background presents the viewers with an impression as formal as the tradition of print (Djonov and Knox, 2014) and further projects an image as a serious, formal and professional business to the viewers. Additionally, the colours used in the website banners are red (Buxiban 2), blue (Buxiban 4 and 5), orange (Buxiban 1) and yellow (Buxiban 3). They are either a cool colour (e.g. blue) which is thought to create a positive image and reliability, or a warm colour (e.g. yellow, orange or red) which leads to excitement (Bellizzi and Hite, 1992). Through the colour use on the webpage and website banner, these buxibans intend to establish a trustworthy, reliable and professional enterprise image to enhance their brand identity and increase customers’ brand awareness in order to affect their decision-making (e.g. purchase).

Instead of revealing these buxibans’ nature as a business, the colours used by them further reflect on local needs and expectations. For example, the image of a trustworthy, reliable and professional enterprise conveyed by the colour use reflects the needs for institutes like these buxibans which are seen as trustworthy, reliable and professional in Taiwanese society. The local needs and expectations of these buxibans further disclose Taiwanese people’s lack of confidence in mainstream education.

Contrary to the nature of a business with an aim to ‘sell English’, the top five franchised English buxibans also take up an identity as a caring educator who regards students’ needs as the first priority. This is shown by using ‘child’/‘children’ and related adjectives (e.g. child’s, children’s) when referring to students. Some examples are listed below:

(4) cultivate children’s communicative ability;

(5) start from children’s needs;

(6) assert the principle of ‘children-centred’;

(7) We develop diverse forms of materials for children;

(8) satisfy children’s need for extensive learning.

Replacing the term ‘student’ with ‘child’/‘children’ indicates that these buxibans place themselves in the same position as students’ parents and projects an image as a caring educator who takes care of students like their own children. That is, they care about what parents care about, and take care of students like their parents do. Moreover, the focus on ‘child’/‘children’ further points out the ‘student-centred’ learning in these buxibans as shown in the following examples:

(9) start from children’s needs;

(10) assert the principle of ‘children-centred’.

The emphasis on student-centred learning further projects an image of a caring educator rather than a profit-making business only. Moreover, their student-centred learning distinguishes these buxibans from mainstream education, which is reported to be teacher-centred (Chou et al., 2018).

Their self-presentation as ‘edu-businesses’ (Ball, 2012; Burch, 2009) indicates that shadow education occurs in an overlapping area between business and education (Bray, 2013) and it is a complex phenomenon in which other discourses (e.g. education, business) in society are involved rather than existing in isolation. Hence, an analysis of this phenomenon could disclose its connection with other discourses.

An expert in ELT

These top five franchised English buxibans in Taiwan project an image as being an expert in ELT. Their self-presentation as an expert in ELT is shown from several aspects and is revealed by the employment of adjectives. Examples related to the teaching materials and teaching methods are shown below:

Teaching materials

(11) develop diverse types of teaching materials;

(12) cross-national textbook writing.

Teaching methods

(13) professional teaching;

(14) advanced teaching;

(15) multiple and flexible teaching methods;

(16) interactive and digital teaching;

(17) epoch making digital teaching.

Looking into the examples above, the adjectives used to depict the teaching materials and ways of teaching are positive, such as professional, diverse, interactive, advanced, multiple and flexible and epoch-making digital. They further imply positive evaluation (Fairclough, 2003) which distinguishes them from mainstream education – which adopts a grammar-translation teaching method (Tien, 2018) and conventional teaching materials – to establish their image as ‘better’ institutes in ELT.

Additionally, their expertise in ELT is also revealed in texts where they address the services provided and the possible outcome of teaching, as indicated in the examples below:

(18) the best teaching effects;

(19) the best teaching services;

(20) the best design for learning;

(21) the highest learning target.

Linguistically, ‘superlative forms of adjectives signal uniqueness in that they select extreme instances’ (Radden and Dirven 2007: 104). From the examples above, the use of the superlatives (e.g. the best, the highest) emphasizes the uniqueness of the buxibans and highlights their outstanding achievement in learning and teaching, which further implies their expertise in ELT.

In order to impress potential customers, these buxibans tend to use statistical evidence to linguistically legitimate their identity as an expert in ELT (Fairclough, 2003). Three types of statistical evidence are found on the brand story webpage: the starting year of the buxiban, the number of branches and the total number of their publications. These buxibans were established in the 1980s and all of them have more than 30 years’ ELT experience in the shadow education market, as shown in the following examples:

(22) Buxiban 1 was established in 1986.

(23) Buxiban 2 has been operating for 35 years.

(24) Buxiban 4 was established in 1983.

The long history of the brand projects a well-developed and trustworthy image to the public. The trustworthiness of these buxibans is further reinforced by the evidence of the number of branches and publications used by students or published, as indicated in the examples below:

(25) There are nearly 300 branches in Taiwan.

(26) The scale of the enterprise is only about 500 buxibans across Asia.

(27) More than 500,000 students use textbooks published by Buxiban 4.

(28) Until now, more than 1000 teaching materials have been published.

The visual advertisements highlighting the high pass rate in the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT)² or more admissions to the top senior high school presented on the homepage further convey a sense of their expertise in ELT to the viewers, due to the academic achievements attained by students. The combination of text, statistical evidence and visuals forms a meaning which these buxibans would like to convey to the viewers: they are a trustworthy expert in ELT with a long history and a large-scale enterprise.

A bridge to the world

In the last decade, as laid out in a 2012 White Paper, a concerted desire for involvement in the global knowledge economy, for global competency and global cultural awareness is addressed in Taiwanese educational reform policies (Yang, 2013). In order to achieve this, more attention is given to ‘western forms of knowledge, and to global priority subjects such as mathematics and science, and English’ (Majhanovich, 2014: 175). The intention of these franchised English buxibans to show their connection with the world is seen in the nouns and adjectives referring to the world, such as ‘world’, ‘cross-national’ and ‘international’ in examples 29, 30 and 31, as well as their description of the status of English in examples 32 and 33 below:

(29) cross-national textbook writing;

(30) compile and design international-outlook materials;

(31) lead children to the world stage;

(32) use English to connect the world;

(33) English will be an indispensable tool for entering the international arena.

The statements try to impress the customers with an ‘international’ image which the buxibans take up, and indicate that they present themselves as a bridge to the world through their cross-national design of curriculum, teaching materials and teaching method. These statements also reflect the social value of English learning in the discourse of Taiwan: English is regarded as a global language which connects the self to the world for further success.

An independent system growing out of mainstream education

Unlike the formal schooling system, the franchised English buxibans design, develop, adopt and publish their own teaching materials rather than use the same textbooks as schools. The teaching materials are depicted with positive adjectives (e.g. cross-national, innovative, international, diverse) as discussed in the earlier section. The innovative, diverse and international teaching materials alienate themselves from mainstream education and indicate that they do not exist in the shadow of the formal education system, mimicking, following and changing as it does (Bray, 2013). However, they affect mainstream education by their own developed teaching materials as indicated below:

(34) Buxiban 3’s digital online learning system has entered into an agreement with all primary and secondary schools in Taipei.

(35) ‘Cool English’ series of textbooks ranked first in the use of English textbooks in Taipei City.

(36) Buxiban 2 develops textbooks for primary and secondary education.

It is not uncommon that the textbooks compiled by these franchised English buxibans are adopted in both primary and secondary schools as the examples above show. This further implies that franchised English buxibans are ‘penetrating’ into mainstream education and simultaneously affecting it rather than only acting like a shadow of it.

From the teaching aspect, different teaching methods employed in these franchised English buxibans also distinguish themselves from mainstream education as indicated below:

(37) multiple and flexible teaching methods;

(38) advanced teaching which combines English and technology;

(39) We pursue innovation and breakthrough in teaching and teaching

materials.

The examples above show the diverse and creative ways of teaching methods adopted in these buxibans through the use of positive adjectives (e.g. multiple and flexible, advanced and innovative) and nouns (e.g. innovation, breakthrough). The positive evaluation (Fairclough, 2003) of their teaching makes a sharp contrast to the more conventional and test-driven teaching of formal schools (Tien, 2018). Moreover, the goal of English teaching is not like that of formal schools, to focus on the development of reading, writing and vocabulary and marginalize listening and speaking (SC Chen and Tsai, 2012), but is cultivating students’ ability to ‘use’ English in daily life. Their emphasis on balancing the development of the four English skills is also disclosed through a relevant statement by claiming to provide a whole English learning environment. Examples are given below:

(40) not only learn English, but use English;

(41) to create a whole English learning environment.

Apart from the teaching materials and teaching methods, their own curriculum design and teacher training programme also disclose their alienating relationship with mainstream education. Examples are found on the homepage where there are tabs labelled as ‘teacher training class’, ‘teacher training’ and ‘education system’ to provide the viewers with information about the levels of English classes and the teacher training programme offered. Their unique curriculum design and teacher training programme indicate that they are acting as an independent system of teaching with their own teaching system instead of only mimicking mainstream education.

Their development of their own assessment system of students’ learning and of students’ English language proficiency is further evidence to show their independence from mainstream education. Examples are given below:

(42) The 34th JEPT English proficiency test;

(43) 2019 Hess National English proficiency test.

The development of their own assessment system indicates their detachment from formal schools, and their primary focus of teaching is not to help students pass or prepare for school examinations. Students’ English language proficiency is assessed by their own testing system rather than by mainstream education, which implies they are less affected by mainstream education and their loose connection with it.

Looking at the homepages of these franchised English buxibans, one notable thing is the use of photos with foreigners who are white and young. I see this as a message which buxibans would like to convey to their potential customers: we offer classes instructed by ‘white native English-speaking teachers’ to create a whole English environment for your child/children to acquire English naturally. This implied message could be seen in the brand story as indicated in the example:

(44) Classes are instructed by non-Taiwanese teachers to create a whole English environment for learning.

The inclusion of the ‘white’ native English speakers teachers in the photos is not random, but it reflects Taiwanese people’s belief in/preference for ‘whiteness’ in the field of ELT and reveals the possible unbalanced power relations between teachers (e.g. Taiwanese teachers, non-white native English-speaking teachers and white native English-speaking teachers).

Discussion

The findings from the brand story and homepage of the top five leading franchised English buxibans in Taiwan reveal the self-presentation of these buxibans as ‘a trustworthy, reliable, professional and caring edu-business’, ‘an expert in English language teaching’, ‘a bridge to the world’ and ‘an independent system growing out of mainstream education’. These multiple self-presentations indicate that the discourse of buxiban (shadow education) neither exists in the shadows nor operates in isolation; rather, it interacts with different discourses in society, including mainstream education, global English, a test-driven teaching/learning culture and a teacher-centred teaching culture, and it affects and is affected by other social/cultural discourses simultaneously.

Their self-presentational image as a bridge to the world unveils the role of English in Taiwanese society and the drawbacks of mainstream English education. The emphasis on the connection with the world indicates that Taiwanese society values a connection with the world beyond Taiwan due to politics (Lu, 2011) and economics (Brown, 2015), and English is projected to be an international language with power to establish a connection between the local and the world. This reflects that English is regarded as a powerful language which enables individuals to get involved in international tasks, instead of a subject which is taught and tested at schools in Taiwanese society. Not seeing English as a subject for tests only, the purpose for learning English shifts from passing examinations to pursuing the mastery of the four English skills. This further points out Taiwanese people’s awareness of the drawbacks of test-driven teaching and their ignorance of the balanced development of the four English skills in mainstream education in Taiwan.

Interestingly, the buxibans’ focus on the balanced development of the four English skills meets the goal of the 12-year curriculum guidelines for English proposed by the MOE in Taiwan as shown below:

(45) Cultivate English speaking, listening, reading and writing ability for students to use English in daily life.

(46) Student-centred and paying attention to the principle of appropriate learning and the emotional factors of learners.

(47) Explore cultures in different countries through language learning, do cross-cultural reflection, enhance social participation and foster learners’ international outlook.

(48) Emphasize the communicative and interactive function of (English) language.

(National Academy for Education Research, 2019)

According to the 12-year curriculum guidelines, the goal of English education in Taiwan intends to balance the development of the four skills, enhance students’ communication skills in English and cultivate students’ other abilities (such as critical thinking, analysing ability, creative ability) by adopting a student-centred teaching approach. It is important to point out that the teaching method (teacher-centred, grammar translation) and teaching focus (e.g. test-driven) of formal schools do not correspond to the national policy. On the other hand, these franchised English buxibans act as a system which corresponds to the Taiwan national education policy in terms of their ‘innovative/international’ teaching materials, ‘student-centred’ teaching focus and ‘interactive’ teaching method to achieve the goal of using English in daily life and improving communicative skills in English. The ‘expert’ position shows us that in the discourse of shadow education in Taiwan these franchised English buxibans not only view themselves as different from mainstream education but also present themselves as a system corresponding to the national English education policy. That is to say, these buxibans are growing out of the shadow of mainstream education, and developing into a unique teaching system which fills in the gap between Taiwan’s national English education policy and the real practices undertaken in mainstream education.

As indicated earlier, the franchised English buxibans in Taiwan have a significant market share and are becoming more and more prevalent even as the birth rate is dropping year by year. With this increasing popularity, their self-presentation as a system growing out of mainstream education reflects that people in Taiwan show little trust in mainstream education and believe that the ‘services’ provided by buxibans could meet their needs better. In other words, these buxibans act like institutes to complement the shortcomings of mainstream education rather than mimic, follow and change as mainstream education does (Bray, 2013). Their growing out of mainstream education leads us to rethink of the use of the term ‘shadow education’ when referring to paid private tutoring occurring after school hours.

This study demonstrates a case in Taiwanese franchised buxibans showing that certain kinds of shadow education do not exist as a shadow which mimics, follows and changes as the formal schooling system does. Rather, they emerge out of the shadow and are acting as an independent system which fills in the gap between the ideal (e.g. the national policy) and the real world (e.g. school practices), penetrates into the mainstream system by using its own textbooks and teacher training programme and reflects the socio-cultural values in society (e.g. English as an international language). The multiple self-presentations of these franchised English buxibans show that the discourse of shadow education does not operate in isolation, but, instead, is entangled with other discourses in society, interacting with each other. For example, the self-presentations of these buxibans indicate that they are affected by government policy (e.g. 12-year curriculum guidelines), trends in social development (e.g. English as a global language) and customers’ needs (e.g. their distrust of mainstream education). In other words, I think the discourse of shadow education is a phenomenon (Barad, 2007) in which several discourses in society are entangled and interact with each other, and its meanings vary in different contexts. As such, this phenomenon is made sense of within the local (e.g. society, culture) rather than being universal all over the world.

Conclusion

In this paper, I argue that the discourse of shadow education is a complex phenomenon in which several other discourses in society are entangled and interact with each other to make sense of it through looking into the self-presentation of the top five leading franchised English buxibans in Taiwan. I demonstrate a case in Taiwan and show how the discourse of shadow education interacts with other constituents of the ‘ecology of education’ (Bronfenbrenner, 1976: 5), such as society, mainstream education, customers and government policy, to present itself to the public. The multiple self-presentations of these buxibans reveal that the discourse of shadow education does not operate in isolation, but interacts with several other discourses in the society. That is to say, the meanings of shadow education are derived from the local context and vary in different contexts. Hence, the study of shadow education should be undertaken at the local level which is then included in another larger discourse. Following this line of thinking, the analysis of the discourse of shadow education could reflect the socio-cultural values of the society and further contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon in a larger discourse of (shadow) education.

Furthermore, the intimate connection with other socio-cultural discourses further points out that shadow education is not acting as an ‘invasive species’ in the ecosystems of education (Bray and Kobakhidze, 2015); instead, it immerses itself in society, becomes part of it and operates as an assemblage in which society, culture, education and business are entangled and interact with each other to make sense of this phenomenon at the local level. Thinking of shadow education as an assemblage implies that there is no inherent meaning of shadow education, and it is made sense of through the interactions between several discourses in society. Considering it from this perspective explains why the conception of shadow education varies in different societies, cultures and countries.

The findings of this study not only indicate the close connection between shadow education and other discourses in society, but also reveal its emergence from the shadow of mainstream education by an examination of the buxibans’ self-presentation on their websites. Their own curriculum design, teaching materials, assessment system and teacher training programme show that they are operating as a system which is independent from mainstream education instead of acting in a ‘school-like’ mode (Aurini and Davies, 2004). Their independence from mainstream education shows that shadow education is not subordinate or inferior to it (De Castro and De Guzman, 2014). Rather, they are developing into a unique system which exists outside mainstream education, fills the gap between national education policy and real practices in schools and affects the wider discourse of education in Taiwan through their own publications, teacher training programme, curriculum design and teaching materials. With the wide spread of these franchised English buxibans into other countries (e.g. Japan, Korea, China, Singapore), their impact is not limited to the Taiwanese context only but is pertinent elsewhere. Notably, while some features may be unique to the Taiwanese context of shadow education, the rapid expansion of these franchised English buxibans in other countries may lead these features to become globally common in the larger discourse of shadow education and the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) industry.

Also, except for the Asian area, shadow education is becoming a global phenomenon (Manzon and Areepattamannil, 2014) and exists worldwide (Yung and Yuan, 2018). In other words, the impact of buxibans not only expands into a larger cross-national level, but also may further develop at a global level. Hence, I suggest that research on how franchised English buxibans present themselves to the public needs researchers’ attention and should be expanded to other countries or areas to further shed light on our understanding of this global phenomenon and its impact in different socio-cultural contexts.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biography

Feng-Ru Chang’s research interest focuses on poststructuralist concepts of power relations, subjectivity and discourses in the field of shadow education and TESOL education.

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