I used to visit the back aisle of my elementary school library almost every day after school. I’d get lost for hours in the pages of Roald Dahl, Beverly Cleary, and Judy Blume. I would pretend I was brown-haired Romana Quimby, and I’d change my mind daily about which blond-haired blue-eyed Sweet Valley twin sister I liked better.
Then one day, I picked up a book by Bette Bao Lord. It was called In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. On the cover was an illustration of a little Asian girl listening to the radio.
“In the year of the boar.” I had never seen something from my culture so directly referenced in any piece of English-language fiction before.
Although I enjoyed most of the stories I had read before In the Year of the Boar, they were all missing something—a character who looked like me, had a family that looked like mine, came from a culture that was similar to mine.
Every day after school I rushed to my spot on the library carpet to read what would happen next for the story’s protagonist, Shirley Temple Wong. Even as a native English speaker, I had craved literature in English that I could relate to on a deeper level. I just didn’t know it.
There was often a disconnect between my mind and the textbooks I read in school. The stories rarely reflected my background, my family life, or my culture. I didn’t see myself in the lessons, and because of that, it was easy to tune out. The material felt distant, and while I could complete the assignments, I wasn’t truly engaged.
If I, as a fluent English speaker, felt unseen in my textbooks, imagine how much harder it is for children learning English as a second language. How well will students engage when their textbooks show only unfamiliar places, characters, and traditions?
Connection matters
Research shows that students learn best when they can relate to what they are reading. When a story feels familiar, children are more motivated, they comprehend more easily, and they remember the content longer. When it feels unfamiliar or irrelevant, they struggle to engage and retain information, and learning becomes something they have to do, rather than something they enjoy and find intrinsic value in.
Educators like Gloria Ladson-Billings, who pioneered the concept of culturally relevant pedagogy, have long championed that when curriculum reflects students’ culture and experiences, this not only affirms their identity, but students perform better academically and are more successful in school.
In other words, your kids will learn better if they relate to and are actively engaged with what they read.
Englist textbooks use storytelling to build identity
Because kids learn better when they can relate, so many of the stories and articles in our textbooks are based here in Taiwan. Children read about festivals they celebrate with their families, the foods they eat at the night market, the places they’ve visited, and characters who live lives very similar to their own. Then something powerful happens:
- They feel seen and their experiences are valued.
- They understand that English isn’t just a foreign subject; it’s a language they can use to tell their own stories.
- They engage more deeply, which leads to better comprehension and stronger retention.
A sense of belonging
For most kids in Taiwan, learning English means only reading about American stories and American children. This sends a subtle message that English isn’t really for them. If every story takes place in an American suburb, features holidays they don’t celebrate, and are about problems or humor they don’t relate to, it becomes harder for them to see themselves in the learning process. They might start to think that English education itself belongs to another world that isn’t theirs.
This turns students into outsiders in their own classrooms. They may still learn the vocabulary and grammar, but they miss the joy and confidence that come from seeing their own lives reflected in what they read. Reading then becomes a chore—something students “have to do for school” instead of something that helps them understand the world better.
That is why it’s so important for Taiwanese English learners to have textbooks that include their stories, their traditions, and their voices. By grounding English learning in familiar settings and experiences, students feel a sense of belonging and are more motivated to learn. They become more confident in their abilities and then come to see English as a tool they can use here and now to tell their own stories, not just something they have to use for college later on. Culturally relevant learning, in short, shows children that learning English is not about replacing their identity, but about expanding how they can express it.
That’s the mission behind our textbooks: to make English learning meaningful, personal, and relevant. Because when students can see themselves in the stories, they don’t just learn English—they learn it belongs to them.
– Ms. Liz