二十五年的实验5
云霄飞车

陈碧华　执笔

我从来没想到当初想帮助尔康尔嘉学习英文的单纯念头，竟然变成有如搭乘云霄飞车般惊险刺激，当年痛苦宣布学校结束只是其中一个惊恐的俯冲。

由于我坚持全英语环境的教学，当学校还小的时候，我的外国朋友及同事绰绰有余可以帮助我，但是当学校不断成长，聘请优秀外籍老师已经是每年例行公事。我必须承认在早期我犯了不少错误，学到许多宝贵的教训。最令人心痛的是，有些老师在面谈的时候犹如天使，一旦上任却变成恶魔。压伤骆驼的最后一根稻草，是一个高大英俊的美国男老师，在我们举行成果发表会的当天，大闹现场，直到我抓起电话请警察来处理，他才悻悻然离去。虽然一年后这个男老师亲自前来道歉，并写了一封文情并茂的信告诉我当时是受了一个中籍老师的煽动，误信她的话语，即使他如何诚恳，我再也不敢相信在台湾找工作的外国人，这些在台湾吃香喝辣的外国人，凭著一张外国脸，就踩在我们头上撒野，令人气愤！为了帮助孩子学英文，还得看这些自以为是的外国人脸色，我决定直接在美国聘请教育系毕业，有教师资格的老师。问题是当时孩子又小，锡东研究工作自顾不暇，我如何能出国招募师资？。幸好我的好朋友Yve又立即伸出援手，因此我们成为台湾唯一可以与外侨学校媲美的私人语言学校，十多年来就源源不断从英语系国家引进当地在职老师。

虽然聘用合格专业外籍老师的问题获得解决，但外籍老师因为适应不良，或是疾病、车祸事件层出不穷，有时还必须立即解约，甚至送他们回国，每当外师中途离去，家长通常无法谅解，各种责难排山倒海而来，学校动荡不安，陷入困境，幸好我还够坚强，每次都有惊无险平安度过，但这样的生活真是如履薄冰令人提心吊胆。

除了外籍老师的问题，家长也是很大的挑战。有的家长千方百计将孩子送来康乃尔就读，但又认为学校应该听他们的指挥，只是他们忽略了一个事实，就是康乃尔是一个母亲为自己孩子设立的学校，任何阻挠都不可能影响这个母亲。往往在经过无数次沟通后，我们宁可破天荒的全额退费，请他们另请高明。偏偏他们却抱著玉石俱焚的心态，认为如果他的孩子读不成康乃尔，也一定要让康乃尔关门，让其他孩子也读不成。记得有一年夏天，我陪同锡东去英国参加一个国际会议，才踏进旅馆，工作人员就告诉我有一个来自台湾的传真。怀著忐忑不安的心情接过传真，上面写著：「家长黑函，政府派员调查，请速回！」类似这样的事件不计其数，家长的恶劣行径，令我真怀疑这世界上到底还有没有好人？我在帮助他们为孩子一起圆梦，他们不感激也便罢了，为何还要如此恩将仇报？或许也是被这些家长吓大了，我坚持康乃尔必需零缺点，随时应付一些疯狂的家长到处检举。

由于康乃尔是采用完全颠覆传统的方式，学习也以3或4岁幼儿为起步，在当时保守的社会被视为异类，不过许多家长因为过去自身学习英文的惨痛经验，听到我的理念，趋之若鹜，我受人之托，更卯尽全力想验证我的假说是正确的。没想到当初纯粹为了尔康尔嘉设立的学校无心插柳柳成荫，学生人数不断攀升，家长甚至必须排队抽签等候，许多家长更是一发现怀孕就赶紧登记报名，有的家长干脆搬家或转学，为的只是到康乃尔卡位。看到康乃尔爆红，商业头脑敏锐的地产商竟然发现这是赚钱商机，邀请我与他们合作，由我提供软体负责营运，而他们负责资金以及硬体。这是一个让康乃尔转型成为企业的好机会，但是我拒绝了所有上门的投资客，理由很简单，因为这是个为尔康尔嘉进行的实验，我不愿意在金钱游戏中，让这个实验产生偏差。

合作不成，建商有的是钱，依照康乃尔模式，如法泡制，大量复制。刹那间全英语情境学习成为显学，双语幼稚园也如雨后春笋到处林立，但也因为由商业利益为出发点办学，许多家长花了大钱，浪费了时间，却看不到学习成效。而且传统式幼稚园，无法与建商大手笔投资兴建的双语幼稚园竞争，经营陷入困境。2003年教育部受到传统幼稚园业者的压力，干脆利用一些专家学者似是而非的研究报告，全面执行封杀幼儿学习英语政策，从此台湾所有幼儿英语教育走入地下化。

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A Twenty-Five Year Experiment 5
A Roller Coaster Ride

By Bih-Hua Chen

I never thought that helping my own boys to become bilingual could be like riding on a roller coaster.  The bitter decision of making the announcement to close up Cornel was just one of the dives on the roller coaster.

Since the program I designed was to create an English environment for the students, I insisted on hiring native English speakers to teach.  When the school was small, I had friends who were very kind to help out, but as the school grew I couldn’t simply count on friends.  Recruiting teachers had become one of the most important jobs every year.  In the first few years, I learned many valuable lessons about finding teachers locally.  No matter how careful I was, I had to admit that I made many mistakes.  It was heartbreaking to see someone who acted like an angel at an interview became a complete jerk at work.  I knew the only solution was to go to the States to find qualified teachers, but I couldn’t travel because Kang and Chia were too young and Shyi-Dong was too busy with his research.  Fortunately, Yve saw the problem and volunteered to help out.  Thus, we built up a channel to hire certified teachers directly from the States in the early 90s.  We were very proud that we were the only private school in Taiwan which had the equivalent teaching quality as international schools, but the students didn’t need foreign passports to study at Cornel.  We helped numerous parents to fulfill their dreams without sending their kids abroad.

Hiring the qualified teachers definitely solved the problems and kept Cornel on the cutting edge.  However, there were still times when the teachers ran into troubles or got severely sick, and we had to send them home immediately.  When the teacher left, there was no way to fill up the vacancy right away and it was always a disaster. I was glad that I was tough enough to go through all the crises but it was like constantly walking on egg shells.

Despite the troubles with the teachers, the parents were also another challenge.  There were times that some parents felt that they could manipulate the school but they didn’t know that they could never challenge a mother.  How could they challenge me if the school was established for my own boys?  However, some parents just felt that they would rather destroy the school instead of taking a refund and leaving.  One incident I remember vividly is when I traveled to England with Shy-Dong one summer in the early 90s, right after we stepped into the hotel, the clerk told me that there was a fax for me.  I read the message and it said:  “Come back quickly, the parent, XXX, is turning the school up side down!”  I can’t remember how many nerve-wrecking incidents like this there were since I established the School.  Some parents were so nasty and they made me wonder whether there were good people in the world.

Since our immersion program didn’t follow the conventional way and we took in students when they were only three or four years old.  Cornel was considered very radical in terms of education.  However, the good news spread out like wild fire, and parents were very anxious to sign their children up at Cornel.  Many parents believed that Cornel was the only hope for them to help their children become bilingual without going abroad. There was always a long waiting list and parents had to draw the numbers like a lottery to secure a place.  Many mothers signed their child up once they found they were pregnant and a lot of families moved their homes to be closer to Cornel.  All of a sudden, Cornel became the most demanded school and I was the most valuable woman.  Many investors tried to persuade me to run schools for them if they took care of all the investment.  Needless to say the offers were very tempting because Cornel could immediately become an enterprise.  However, I turned down all the generous offers.  The reason was simple.  It was an experiment for Kang and Chia, and I definitely didn’t want to ruin it.

The investors were disappointed with my decisions; however, they had all the money they needed to build schools.  The easiest way was to just copy what Cornel was doing.  Suddenly, many splendid bilingual schools were everywhere.  It became trendy to send children to bilingual kindergartens.  On the contrary, most traditional kindergartens could barely survive because of the loss of the students to the new bilingual schools.  They pushed the government to forbid any kindergartens from hiring foreign teachers to teach English.  It happened to meet the government’s new policy which was to focus on a Taiwanese dialect in education.  Therefore, all the bilingual kindergartens became illegal overnight!

儿童双语幼稚园：
康乃尔&康尔嘉英语【官方网站】http://www.ecornel.com.tw
康乃尔&康尔嘉英语【facebook粉丝团】http://www.facebook.com.tw/cornelfans
康乃尔&康尔嘉英语【Youtube影音网】http://www.youtube.com/user/corneltai

英文有声书杂志：
彩虹时间儿童英语故事有声月刊【部落格】http://www.wretch.cc/blog/CRainbowTime
彩虹时间儿童英语故事有声月刊【facebook粉丝团】http://www.facebook.com.tw/rtfans