臺灣受到國際化之衝擊，無論政府或民間皆以提昇英語能力來加強競爭力；然而近年來英檢結果卻顯示，臺灣甚至落後於某些未開發國家。本文嘗試就政府相關政策、社會期望、教育體制等層面探討，重新檢視臺灣英語教育之發展與現行作法，概述各級學校與學術類、應用類之教學狀況。相較於臨近國家及歐關單語或多國語環境之作法與利弊，臺灣之方向已呼之欲出，政府當務之急即為培訓合格英語教學人才、重整現有教育體系與資源、與成立專業外語政策委員會、與制訂一貫且精確的全國英（外）語課程綱領。

Recognizing impacts from globalization, Taiwan has met the inevitable challenges, both at government and private sectors, to maintain its competitiveness by uplifting English proficiency; however, results have shown that Taiwan still falls behind some undeveloped countries in English proficiency tests. This paper seeks to probe into the problems in government policies, social expectations, and education systems, and to reexamine the development and current practices of English education at different levels ranging from elementary school to university as well as from academic to technological application contexts. Directions for possible solutions are proposed after a comparison of the practices respectively made against a monolingual or a multilingual background in neighboring countries and in the European Union. The urgent demand for qualified teachers of English, a restructure of current education systems and resources, and, above all, a professional foreign language education committee at the national level and well-designed working national syllabi will be the first challenges for Taiwan's government.