Reason for no English

Gerry just enlightened me as to why my students do not speak English as well as they should. He found a test on his floor, and it was written by one of the Taiwanese-English teachers. It was a fill in the blank and was formatted like this.
Example: She IS pretty
1. He ____ nice. (with direct Chinese translation following)
2. She ____ thin. (Chinese translation)
3. He ____ heavy. (Chinese translation)

The next question:
Example: We ARE happy.
1. We ____ sad.
2. We ____ going to the zoo.
3. We ____ playing a game.

The test went on like this. Every example had the exact answer that was expected in that section. There was ZERO brain power used to take this test.
Typically I don't worry about what my co-workers do; I try to focus my energy on teaching my students at the best of my ability. After 9 months, I still feel like I have not made much progress at all. Upper Level students can speak as much English as they could last August. No new conversations happen in or out of my classroom. I honestly feel like I have not made an impact after 9 months of trying so hard. I feel like this is part of the reason. If the Taiwanese-English teachers are giving little effort, the kids are giving little effort. And then, ha ha, look at the foreign teacher busting her butt to try and get through! It breaks my heart.
This isn't the case for a lot of schools I have heard about from other foreign teachers. My friend, Emilie's, school is very innovative and has a striving English program. They push the students and expect results. The students can relay their feelings or questions to the foreign teacher.
When I mentioned this all to Gerry he shrugged it off and assumed it was our location. Low-income farming community. This very well could be a factor. The rich kids go to English tutoring school (cram school) after public school. The poor kids don't. This should mean that the "rich kids" are ahead of the group and the "poor kids" are right on target. Well, that's not the case. The non-cram school kids are behind terribly; and the cram school kids are at an average level. I feel that the school(s) need to observe other striving English programs, have motivated teachers, and work toward an English program that will make a difference.