Table Of Contents
Studying English in China
The history of officially sanctioned English teaching in China goes back as far as 1862 ( Chang 2006, p. 515), but has fluctuated according to the political and economic exigencies of the moment. In the 1950s, for example, Russian virtually eclipsed English in Chinese schools; but in the '60s relations with Russia went sour, and the tide turned in the direction of English, which "was officially stipulated as the first foreign language in middle schools during that period" ( ibid.). Education was severely disrupted during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), and as late as 1981 former Russian teachers were still being re-schooled to teach English; but in the early '80s, under Deng Xiaoping's policy of "reform and opening up to the world" ( gǎigé kāifàng), English was mandated as the principal foreign language throughout the Chinese education system. English is now "a core course required of all students in secondary and tertiary education in mainland China" ( Ouyang 2000, p. 2), and a prerequisite for both for admission to and graduation from university ( Cheng 2002, p. 258).
Thus, students who come to Australia from mainland China can be expected to have studied English at high school for at least 6 years; younger students may well have started learning English in primary school ( Cheng 2002), and students who have completed an undergraduate degree in China will have a further four years' English study under their belt - in all, 10 to 12 years or more. However, as many middle-aged or older students of French in Australia will be aware, studying a language as a high school or university subject does not guarantee communicative competence in that language. A lot depends on the teaching approach.
It is more than twenty years since a communicative approach to English teaching was first adopted in a Chinese university, but the inertia of the enormous Chinese education system is considerable, and traditional methods (cf. McKnight 1994) still hold sway to a considerable degree. Unfortunately, as Fang and Warschauer (2004) have pointed out, the traditional approaches teach knowledge about the language rather than developing effective communication skills in using the language. Many of the skills listed in the section below on Obstacles to effective English are unlikely to be covered in this form of language teaching.
It is evident from the accounts of the students interviewed for this project that, apart from some limited experience with foreign teachers, for the most part these are the sorts of teaching methods under which they have acquired their English, from teachers who themselves learnt English the same way.
In a T[raditional ]M[ethod]-dominated English language classroom, the textbooks are standardized and used nationwide (with few exceptions in universities with privileged resources and expertise). The textbook usually consists of some units, each with a short text of around two pages… followed by a list of key words and expressions used in the text accompanied by their Chinese translations, plus some exercises for students to practice the grammar and vocabulary covered in that unit…
The teacher is a knowledge-giver, an authority of what counts as true, as well as a disciplinarian. In a typical TM lesson, the teacher lectures through the text and explains the language points one by one, mostly in Chinese, while students are expected to take notes during the lesson. After class, students are expected to memorize the new vocabulary and to complete the exercises on the language points, which will be tested informally in the following class, typically with the teacher calling out individual students to stand up and give answers or with the whole class answering in a chorus. Asking teachers in class or in public by spontaneously raising unsolicited questions about the subject may be seen as a deliberate, offensive act challenging the teacher's authority and credibility ( Cortazzi & Jin, 1996). Examinations are standardized nationally, testing students' textbook knowledge essentially.
— Ouyang (2000), p. 2
A typical English major will enter a Chinese university with about 6 years of experience studying English and will then follow a 4-year program that provides foundational training in reading, listening, speaking, and writing in courses arranged by skill area (e.g., "Extensive Reading," "English Grammar," "Oral English," "English Composition"). Within this program, a core course called "Comprehensive English" appears to be general but in practice narrowly focuses on helping students understand written English.
"Comprehensive English" is taught using traditional grammar-translation methods (see Dzau, 1990a) that require teachers to explain in detail word meaning and usage, sentence formation, and English grammar; the course also includes audiolingual methods that feature pseudo-communication activities such as memorization and role-playing dialogues. These methods fail to promote extensive reading skills and can even help to fossilize poor reading styles, thus hindering students from ever reading efficiently (Li, 1984). Because students are taught to focus on each word in a text and to examine the text carefully for any unknown grammatical phenomenon, they often miss the thread of the argument, the relationship between the parts of a text, and the text's main idea (Dzau, 1990b, p. 83). And if Chinese students' reading skills remain poor, their listening and speaking skills are usually weaker, and their writing skills are the weakest because they do not use language for real communicative purposes in "Comprehensive English" or any of their other courses.
These traditional teaching approaches are based on the notion that language learning involves a quantitative increase ( liàngbiàn) in knowledge. Traditional wisdom suggests that memorizing the target language's vocabulary and studying its grammar will automatically foster fluency, flexibility, and appropriate use of language, the final qualitative change ( zhìbiàn; Dzau, 1990a). This view holds that creativity will flow naturally, in time, from discipline and proficiency in rote memorization, so the teacher does not need to encourage it. Even after learning language in this way for a decade, most English majors still experience stark pragmatic failure in authentic communication (see Yan & He, 1990).
I don't think so. Because sometimes is quite difficult for me to express myself… yeah, I think my English still need to improve.
For me the speaking maybe is the most important for me to improve because when I be study in China they made me focus on the grammar or the listening or reading.
It's like you study lots of grammar and you do lots of exercises but you don't have enough opportunity to practice your speaking.
We have some oral practice. But mostly, we practise more about reading. Every morning we have the reading. Not mostly focus on the writing...
— Diane
I think the students from China, their grammar is quite good… But… um… the grammar we learn from China sometimes it doesn't make sense when we use it in Australia.
This was fairly new to me, not just public speaking, but doing it in a second language - it was quite hard. I think this is a weak point for Chinese students; we get little practice in that sort of activity. I think there are two problems here. The first is not being used to this activity; the other is having the language to express yourself adequately. I think Chinese students are rather weak in this respect: reading is not such a problem for them - they've done plenty of that in their previous studies; but they've done very little speaking, and never in this sort of environment. So this is quite a problem for them.
From primary 4th year to high school… 10 year I think so. Over 10 years.
In China, like, English class, the teacher speak English… It's too much, just because, like, we have at most 4 classes a week; only in English class we speak English, but other classes no English
Yes, 4 classes per week, and each class lasted 45 minutes… That's not much.
Most of the English teaching in China was focus on the grammar and how to pass exams, like high school exams, and not very focussed on conversation like listening, just focus about exams and grammar.
Yes.
English and Chinese. Special for vocabulary of course.
Chinese.
Most of them speak fluently… some of them I don't think so.
Download a printable version of this page (.doc ~10Kb)Problems? Questions? Comments? Please provide us feedback.
Yes, high school… if you want a good university of course you must have a test of English, you must get a very high mark
Yes - Chinese, Maths and English. Three major…
No, any university. It's the only way to go to university in China.