Oh Taiwan... This is an ad for an English language cram school for children. In Chinese there is a regular term for the English language, 英語, but also one specifically for American English, 美語.
As you can see the latter is used here, Hanlin (the first two big characters, the school name) advertises specifically teaching the US flavour of English. But this is the first time I see the maple leaf in this context. Accident or...?
There is by the way no similar term for Canadian or Australian English, those need more than two characters to express.
4 comments:
No accident I'd guess - Canada is a popular Asian destination for English study. I can't say for Taiwan, but here in Japan people say (for no good reason I can discern) that Canadian English is clearer and easier to understand than either American or British English. Also: visas and immigration is presumed to be more straightforward. Does the school do home stays and the like as well?
Kevyn Winkless not at all, you are expecting too much... A cram school like this is just a small single building, a regular house, where the rooms have been converted to classrooms.
This one here says they are teaching students from elementary to high school, they make money from teaching inside their building.
The only reasons I can imagine for that flag are either that the boss likes Canada or that they have one or two teachers from there. But since they emphasize low teacher fluctuation I think the latter does not apply.
Still, saying "we teach US English" and then waving the Canadian flag is...
Perhaps I am expecting too much, but this is very similar to typical "private" (as opposed to franchise) cram schools here in Japan as well.
Such places would typically also sell home stays etc run by some other company (with kick backs and commissions of course) or would have a specifically Canadian (in this case) channel for recruiting their revolving door of teachers.
And of course there's always the "gone independent" foreign teacher who has married a local and leverages their own nationality in marketing their school.
Or sure: just a personal interest in Canada bleeding over into advertising.
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