Making Money on English Magazines: As Easy as ABC?

The inking of a Taiwan-US joint ven-ture occurs amid swirling smoke, jazz music and laser lights flashing from a crystal ball. Here comes an American-style cheer-leading squad shaking their pom-poms-and yet another English language magazine is born in Taiwan!

Why are Taiwan's English instruction magazines such hot commodities? Their success is testimony to the power of their message: that if you believe in yourself and are willing to work hard, then you can get high marks on tests, speak English with ease, have access to all the latest global information, and attain personal empowerment!

Some people are describing the popular and ubiquitous English instruction magazines as the hottest things in the publishing industry. Their success has surpassed all expectations.

If you look at the bestsellers' list at the Kingstone Bookstore chain for the first half of 1999, magazines teaching foreign languages were one of the five most popular categories of magazines. (The others were women's, technology, leisure, and finance magazines.) Sixteen percent of all magazines sold were language magazines, of which English magazines, numbering more than 20 all told, hold the lion's share. The best-selling language magazine was EZ Talk, which in May launched a debut-issue sales campaign. It offered a special discount price, held press conferences and took out full-page newspaper ads. In three days, the entire print-run of 100,000 copies was sold out. Chen Ping, the assistant general manager of Kingstone Books, holds that these English-language instruction magazines will occupy a large share of Taiwan's magazine market for a long time to come.

A graduate of military school, Peter Lai puts the conclusions he has reached after years of hard work learning English into Ivy League Analytical English, which is a typical test-oriented English magazine.

The sales success of English magazines quite simply reflects supply and demand. Glen Shu, head of business development for the English-language daily paper the Taiwan News, which has launched three different student weeklies in quick succession, points out that the 800,000 students in Taiwan's high schools and million plus in its junior highs form a huge consumer base for English magazines. Then, when you add all those working people "who will study English anywhere and at any time," it's no wonder English magazines account for a large slice of the pie, notes Arty Su, the northern Taiwan operations manager for Gram English. Can't survive without English

English magazines are just one part of an interconnected English industry. Cultural critic Chiu Kuei-fen argues that the success of this industry is testimony to "Taiwan's yearning to become a member of the world community." A press release announcing a new English magazine put it this way: "English is used to pass along information about the newest scientific and technological developments around the world. The latest financial reports are written in English, and the most important political activities are conducted in English. On the Internet, if you can't read English, you can't go anywhere!" Since this is the way that people in Taiwan think, it is only natural that there are magazines to help them learn English.

Recent trends in government educational policy are also giving English magazines a helpful push. Beginning in 2001, English will become a required course in elementary schools. "Now the English parts of both the college and high-school joint entrance exams are growing trickier. Whether one is talking about written tests or oral tests, they both require excellent English," says Chang Yu-heng senior staff editor for Landmark English. It's only natural that students need English magazines to bolster their efforts to learn the language.

There isn't anywhere in Taiwan that the "English fever" hasn't penetrated. From their study tips, to their management methods and packaging, English instruction magazines in Taiwan are a diverse lot. Yet professors in departments of foreign languages argue that these magazines are more style than substance. Most of their teaching materials and methods have been the same for years. They've just been repackaged in the style of commercial advertising to attain great popularity. But this phenomenon does expose the difficulties that Taiwanese have had for years learning English.

Study should begin with interest, points out Leung Yiu-nam, associate professor of foreign languages and literature at National Tsing Hua University. The biggest problem with English education in Taiwan is "that it is test-driven, and that these tests only measure reading and writing ability. The result is that everyone memorizes vocabulary lists and sentence structures, and they lose interest in learning English."

Studio Classroom was one of Taiwan's first English magazines. Its American editor-in-chief, Doris Brougham, has clear pronunciation and brims with enthusiasm. The famous lexicographer Lin Yu-tang considered her the best English teacher he knew. （courtesy of Studio Classroom）

Changing the impression that "learning English is hard work" is the chief selling point of these English magazines. Take a look at their own promotional advertisements: "It turns out that opening your mouth to speak in English is really quite EZ." "Learn English in high spirits." "Take it easy, and float up to an advanced level." "Let your children be happy learning English". . . . Virtually every one of these English magazines boasts that with their help you can enter the age of "learning English without stress." "Easy does it" vs. "hard labor"

So can you actually learn English without working hard? "That depends upon your expectations," says Professor Leung, who comes from Hong Kong. If all you want is conversational English for everyday living, then people who have already mastered the basics can reach their goal just by living in an English-speaking environment for two or three months. But if you want to advance further and read newspapers or write academic papers, then you're going to have to rely on hard work.

No matter how boring you think the current methods of teaching English in the schools may be, Leung notes that for the vast majority of students, "Studying English is primarily a matter of dealing with tests." It's a reality that means-in addition to the aforementioned easy-learning style of English magazine-there is another more test-oriented sort, which puts the emphasis on the hard work of learning vocabulary lists and grappling with grammar.

The magazine Ivy League Analytical English, which has been around for more than 11 years, is known as one of the "evergreens" of the English magazine market and is also very popular in mainland China. Its founder, Peter Lai, grew up learning English the hard way.

A graduate of the Political Warfare College who did graduate work in America, Lai says that he had no inkling of what the magazine would grow into when he founded it. When he returned from graduate study in America over a decade ago, a friend invited him to host an English teaching program on the radio. Teaching the old-fashioned way, by explaining grammar and analyzing sentences, he never expected to receive such an enthusiastic response from his listening audience. One thing led to another, and he started publishing the magazine too.

"The English for tests and the English for everyday life aren't mutually exclusive," says Lai, who says natural talent had nothing to do with how he learned the language. When he was at military school, Lai would spend as many as 10 to 16 hours per day studying English. Several years later, when he was flipping through some grammar books, he discovered that all the time he had put in meant that he had now had "virtually instantaneous understanding of the grammar." He grew determined to use his own experiences and conclusions to help others in their quest to learn the language. He preaches hard work: flipping through the dictionary and having mock English conversations with yourself. "Learning English is like losing weight," he says, "Every day you've got to keep to your diet and get exercise. There are no shortcuts."

Apart from news articles, song lyrics, and other examples of actual English, Ivy League Analytical English features even more materials like practice tests, translations, grammar analysis, vocabulary and so forth. "To cope with tests, write translations and essays, I often read Ivy League Analytical English," says "Little Shih," who is in her third year of commercial college. She is typical of the readers of this kind of English magazine. This self-description is written in big letters on Ivy's cover: "Well-suited for those preparing to take the joint college entrance exams, the junior college transfer exams for university, TOEFL or other similar tests."

Yet as far as Little Shih is concerned, getting a good score isn't enough. In addition to reading Ivy League Analytical English, she also spends at least two hours every day reading Studio Classroom, the Bilingual Weekly and EZ Talk, in hopes of overcoming her fear of "opening her mouth" to speak in English.

John Marcom, president of Time Inc. Asia, and Classic Communications' Richard Huang, shake hands on their latest joint venture: Time for Students, which debuted on September 15. Over the past few years Classic Communications has spared no effort to increase its share of the English magazine market in Taiwan.

Beaver or bee

Taiwanese don't just have problems conversing in English when they meet foreigners in Taiwan. Even high scorers on the TOEFL and GRE, including English teachers, find that they have problems getting their point across when they come to America. "They couldn't understand me, and I couldn't understand them," says the mother of "English whiz" Jenny Pao.

Wang Pei-ching scored more than 590 on the TOEFL before she went to America to study. One morning there, she discovered several yellowjackets buzzing around her room. Locking the door behind her, she fled. "There are beavers in my room," she told an American classmate. "Could you help me get them out?" Eyes widening, he looked at her skeptically. "Beavers? You're sure you're not mistaken?" He moved a ladder over to the window and prepared to climb in. When he was two-thirds of the way up the ladder, she suddenly recalled that the word she had been looking for was "bee," not "beaver." "Yikes! I meant bees, not beavers!" she yelled, startling her classmate. Like in a cartoon, the ladder fell backward and he dropped off it in mid air.

True, it may not be a mistake likely to be repeated, but there's no denying that people from Taiwan really do have problems expressing themselves in English. Once, when Wang was in America, she wanted to buy a rolling pin to make Chinese you bing pancakes, but she didn't know how to explain what she wanted in English. After a great struggle, she found a short club in a store that she thought would do. When she was settling the bill, the cashier told someone to get the other half of her purchase out of the stockroom. She was dumbfounded when he came back with the rubber suction cup for a plunger.

Chinese who go to America all have difficulty with understanding slang expressions like "standing someone up," or the meaning of "yield" in traffic signs, or that what they know as "hiding from the kitty" is called "peekaboo" in English and that when describing someone unattractive, it is better to say "plain" instead of "ugly." This is the sort of knowledge that everyone could use in real life. Ninety percent of Taiwan's new English magazines try to help resolve the problem of being tongue-tied.

Huang Chih-cheng, who started EZ Talk after his Time Express was already a hit, says that when he goes to events such as cocktail parties in international settings, he often notices that Asians are gathered in little groups, scared of trying to talk to anyone else. Meanwhile, Latin Americans and continental Europeans, for whom English isn't their first language either, show no concern about whether their English is top notch and are always able to communicate with other Westerners.

"We're too concerned about being perfectly correct," holds Huang. "Just open your mouth. Mistakes can be turning points in the process of learning." Therefore, EZ Talk encourages "overcoming one's fear of making mistakes and daring to talk." It intentionally creates hypothetical conversations in places like restaurants and gyms, so that everyone can practice English in everyday contexts. It also has a section in which it teaches readers to avoid common pitfalls in certain situations, such as when talking to their girlfriend or using the copier. The English phrasing that Taiwanese might typically think of first is offered as "everybody's attempt," and then the "teacher" explains a better way of getting the point across. Thus readers are able to "learn from their mistakes."

A youth rally sponsored by an English magazine draws a crowd. When making friends using English, who says it is hard to start talking?

These methods are hardly new, points out Simon Hung, general manager of the granddaddy of Taiwan's English magazines, Studio Classroom. For three decades, it has been working under the principle that "If you're going to study English, you might as well study the most authentic kind." Studio Classroom has always published two different magazines: Let's Talk in English, which is more oriented on conversation and Studio Classroom itself, which stresses excerpts of written English. Studio Classroom also buys a lot of radio time and has a television show, allowing students to call in and talk to their teachers, and it holds "youth rallies," all in the hope that people will get caught up in the atmosphere of excitement and start speaking in English. Does English give you the world?

There are not as many foreigners in Taipei as there are in such international transport hubs as Hong Kong and Singapore. This means that readers of English magazines in Taiwan "lack opportunities to speak English," says Glen Shu of the Taiwan Student News and Bilingual Weekly. Whether these magazines can provide their readers with environments in which there are more chances to speak English may determine their success or failure.

In order to foster an English-speaking environment, in September the year-old Bilingual Weekly established a "bilingual club," where subscribers could come and converse in English. When they can't figure out a way of conveying an idea in English, they make a note of it and then discuss it with fellow club members or consult reference books. "This instills the habit of trying to resolve problems," says Shu. The Bilingual Weekly is preparing to issue I.D. cards, so that members who want to practice speaking English can just clip on their club I.D. and start practicing at any time. "We want to bring about the odd sight of Chinese speaking English anywhere and any time," says John Chuang, its assistant marketing director.

Yet acquiring a foreign language is a multi-faceted endeavor. One can't be content just with speaking and give little attention to reading and writing, especially in the age of the Internet when "learning English means getting a handle on information." This brings us to yet another group of English magazines being warmly received on the market: those that put the focus on using English to obtain knowledge.

"Reading English means gaining control of new knowledge." This is the mantra of these magazines. Time Express, a joint venture between Time and a local media company, uses Chinese to explain the content of the internationally famous English-language newsweekly.

Richard Huang explains that in 1997 Classic Communications started publishing the Chinese edition of Time Express, as a result of his feeling that the US edition of the magazine was too packed with information and references for readers in Taiwan to digest. Taiwan quite simply had too few people who had both a good enough grasp of English and the proper international outlook and understanding of the West required to really understand the magazine. "It was excluding too many people." After publishing Time Express for five years, Classic Communications then worked with the US magazine Time for Kids to develop a new magazine in Taiwan for young learners of English. In mid September of this year, they released the first issue of Time for Students.

In recent years parents in Taiwan have been sending their kids over summer and winter vacation to America. The kids learn English and get an introduction to a foreign culture at the same time.

The name of the game is diversity

The typical model for this kind of magazine involves a joint venture with an international media company. The focus is usually on current events and the latest trends. Quite a few of these magazines work with ICRT (International Community Radio, Taipei), the only full-time English station on the island. They use texts of ICRT news reports to explain vocabulary. "We've all grown up listening to ICRT, and listening to it hooks us in a mysterious way," remarks Gram English 100's Arty Su.

There are also some English-instruction magazines that work with popular television shows, using English to convey information about the latest pop and entertainment news, such as new songs by Tang Na and Jen Chien-chi, the hottest new trends, and words to the soundtracks of the latest English-language movies released in Taiwan, such as The King and I. These allow readers both to study English and to keep up with the times. Most English magazines try to cover a wide variety of news topics so as to give readers a real feel for the pulse of the times. Topics might include the singing star A-Mei, computer viruses, cellular phones and so forth.

Ten years ago, The China Post, the long-established English-language daily, began publishing The Student Post, a supplement for English learners. It has been consistently well received. The Taiwan News, the island's other long-time English daily, last year launched the Taiwan Student News and Bilingual Weekly, which have attracted a large share of the student market, and which have similar concepts. Cover stories have included The Titanic, You've Got Mail and Taiwanese Japanofiles. The latest entry in the market is the Discovery Channel, which features English-language documentaries on the environment and other topics. It too is preparing to publish a magazine, which will aim both to help its readers learn English and acquire in-depth knowledge about the subjects of its documentaries, thus killing two birds with one stone.

These magazines all follow editorial policies that adhere to the basic mass-communications industry principle of staking out a clear identity. "These magazines aren't textbooks, and they aren't teachers' handouts," says Richard Huang. "They have their own special function, which is to connect to our everyday life." What is current life like in Taiwan? Taiwan is working hard to attain diplomatic and economic breakthroughs and hoping to gain a deeper understanding of the West. Beset with ethnic and environmental problems, popular culture reigns supreme. While studying English, we are perhaps also confronting our own hopes for improving life here.

Let's take a look at these Chinese editions of international publications. In one, a famous teacher explains English phrases in an article about the popularity of Latin American pop star Ricky Martin. Another explains the English words to a Time interview with Li Hongzhi, the leader of the mainland Falun Gong cult. Thanks to this explanation and analysis, readers can understand everything from the works of Shakespeare to the lives of Taiwan's aborigines, from the views of the Dalai Lama, to those of the overseas Chinese singing star Lee-hom Wang. There is international news and also domestic news. Some of it's serious, and some of it's trendy. These English-instruction magazines attest to the fact that Taiwanese appetites for information are getting larger and increasingly varied!

Most magazines for English learners focus on entertainment and the latest pop trends, but some criticize them for featuring rude and vulgar language.

"Whether we like it or not, or believe that it is the leading factor in Western hegemony, we all have to face the fact that English is the world language," says Lucie Cheng, the honorary publisher of Classic Communications. But Chen Kuang-hsing, an associate professor of foreign languages at National Tsinghua University, reminds everyone that understanding English is not the same thing as understanding the world. The view presented in advertisements for English-instruction magazines is that "learning English = getting a command over knowledge = having control over the future = hope," but Chen stresses these equal signs are "like blanks that need to be filled in, instead of solid lines." He admits that he may sound a little overly pessimistic. But he thinks that amid this "English-language fever" people in Taiwan ought to be thinking more about these issues. Making Money off English

Many people believe that sharp-eyed business interests are behind the popularity and educational packaging of Taiwan's English magazines, and that they are eyeing not only the traditional markets of subscribers and newsstand buyers, but also a general English-study industry that has developed with growing globalism. Money can be made from English camps, English language schools, and English language tapes. Chen Pai-ling, a professor of journalism at National Chengchih University, wonders if this growing emphasis on marketing English is a result of educational reform in Taiwan forcing many cram schools out of the joint-entrance exam prep business. Looking to create new business opportunities, these companies are turning to the English-study industry. The idea of publishing Time Express and EZ Talk both came from Richard Huang, who used to work for the Chienkuo cram school. "He has unique vision about the 'educational market,' and his magazines are close to their readers' hearts. It's no wonder that in a short period of time, he's done so well," says one editor-in-chief of a bilingual magazine.

Moreover, although these English magazines are "culture commodities" stressing education, the operative word is "commodities" not "culture." To steal readership, English magazines are offering lower prices, promotional gifts, and discounts on other related products. When Time for Students debuted in September, you could obtain one issue of the magazine, plus two CDs and a CD-ROM game for only NT$49. Gram English 100, which is aimed at working people, has given subscribers small electrical appliances. Every magazine employs its own tricks, all aimed at grabbing the next wave of new English learners.

On the ground and on the air, on radio and television and the Internet, with CDs and CD-ROMs and listeners' clubs, this wave of English magazines is showing a multi-faceted character. In the words of Simon Hung, now that the English magazines have pulled out all the stops, "They're squeezing even more readers into the market. Perhaps different kinds of people will subscribe to different English magazines, and maybe some people will subscribe to several at once."

The era of the English magazine has truly arrived!