A Dissertation by GRACE HUI-CHIN LIN Submitted to the Office of ...

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Today, increasing numbers of Taiwanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
adult learners are pursuing their goals of communicating in English in worldwide
institutions. This need has caused more attention to be focused on their
communicative competence. The urgent need to communicate in English has
increased due to Taiwan’s wish to join global organizations, such as the World Health
Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN). If Taiwan were to be accepted by
the Unite Nation, it would have more opportunities to participate in UN-related
organizations and other forms of multilateral cooperation (Chen, 2005).
Moreover, Taiwan should be allowed to participate in the WHO because the
health authorities of Taiwan are the only ones possessing the relevant information
about any outbreak of an epidemic that could pose a threat to global health
(Government Information Office, Republic of China, 2005). For joining the above
global institutions where English is used as a communication tool, Taiwanese
people’s communicative competence needs to be raised to fulfill the urgent need of
international communication (Wei, 2005).
Another reason why communicative competence currently is emphasized is
because of the joint entrance examination that drives high school students to develop
reading and writing proficiencies and ignore the importance of communicative
competence. Very few, if any, communicative questions exist on the examination.
Therefore, since communicative competence is not tested, students have less
The style and format of this dissertation follow the TESOL Quarterly.
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