China Holistic English » Teaching English in China

PROPOGANDA

Theodore — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:08:15 +0000

On the one hand China admits the need to produce students with creative thinking skills. On the other hand, China suggests the need for more thought control over students. These two positions are not reconcilable. One is academic, the other is anti-intellectual. One promotes academic freedom while the other stifles academic freedom. One promotes free and informed thought while the other merely programs human robots.

We have previously written that China views its institutions of higher learning as farms for the cultivation of future loyal party cadres. We were right.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-12/01/content_11635749.htm

Teaching students to think creatively

By Patrick Mattimore (chinadaily.com.cn)

An editorial last week in China Daily revealed that a survey of 21 countries, conducted by International Educational Progress Evaluation Organization, highlighted that Chinese students tied for last place when it came to using their imagination and were fifth from the bottom in creativity. Chinese students finished first in math.

According to the editorial, the survey confirmed what Chinese parents know, that their children rarely are challenged to use their imaginations to solve problems.

Undoubtedly, teaching students to think creatively is important. A July Newsweek Magazine article entitled “The Creativity Crisis,” concluded that the “necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed.” The Magazine cited a recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs which identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future.

There is a perception that Chinese education focuses on rote memorization at the expense of creativity. A November news story in an American newspaper promoting a joint exchange between the University of Maine at Farmington (UMF) and Beijing University of Technology (BJUT) suggested that “for centuries, Chinese education has focused on memorizing information and practicing skills.”

UMF President Theodora Kalikow said the question Chinese educators most often asked her last month on a visit to Beijing was, “How do you teach creativity?”. Without providing specifics, President Kalikow hinted that American educators could teach Chinese professors a great deal about the subject.

Other recent reports suggest that China has already begun to teach creativity. The “Newsweek Magazine” story featured an exchange between Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University and colleagues at Chinese universities.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8995123/Chinas-vice-president-orders-more-thought-control-over-students.html

China’s vice president orders more thought control over students

Xi Jinping, the Chinese Vice-President, who is tipped to take over from President Hu Jintao later this year, has ordered universities to increase thought control over students and young lecturers.

By Peter Simpson, Beijing

His call for more ideological indoctrination comes amid a ratcheting up of propaganda ahead of next autumn’s keynote Communist Party congress, which is likely to see Mr Xi unveiled as China’s next leader.

“University Communist Party organs must adopt firmer and stronger measures to maintain harmony and stability in universities,” Mr Xi said told Communist Party members at a meeting attended by the country’s universities chiefs in Beijing.

“Daily management of the institutions should be stepped up to create a good atmosphere for the success of the Party’s 18th congress,” he added.

The Party’s grip on universities is seen as crucial in cementing its ideology among the influential middle classes – and campuses have long been regarded as source for discontent.

In the past, aggrieved students have received public sympathy and support, most notably during the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protest which was crushed by PLA tanks and troops.

Mr Xi’s directive comes as the ruling Communist Party tries to engineer a trouble-free leadership transition amid growing internal threats to its political control.

The increasing number of riots, demonstrations and strikes sparked by official corruption, land seizures, widespread pollution and labour disputes over low pay has deeply unnerved the secretive government.

The Arab Spring uprisings, which led to online calls for copycat revolts in China, have also rattled the leadership.

And the increasing influence and popularity of internet social media sites – especially among young Chinese – is also causing great anxiety.

In response to the myriad of threats, the government has issued national orders for officials to get a grip on ideology and push “socialist core values”.

Mr Xi, the “princeling” son of Communist veteran Xi Zhongxun, also told university chiefs to closely monitor lecturers, especially those starting their academic careers.

“Young teachers have many interactions with students and cast significant [political and moral] influence on them,” Mr Xi said.

“They also play a very important role in the spread of ideas,” he added.

A paramount task for universities is to “instruct” the thoughts of young lecturers and recruit more of them as party members, Mr Xi said.

National newspapers were on Thursday also reporting instructions from senior leaders to intensify “propaganda work”.

Li Changchun, a Standing Committee member of the Communist Party’s Politburo, told propaganda officials to enhance “the ability of opinion guiding and international communication, and strive to create an objective and friendly international public opinion environment in favour of our country”.

TESTS

Theodore — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:41:04 +0000

Who would argue that a 2^nd language student possessing confidence, intrinsic motivation, self- discipline, autonomous learning skills and creative thinking ability, would not excel over students lacking in such psychological attributes?

Yet, Chinese college and university students arrive on the school’s doorstep almost completely lacking in any appreciable development in any of these areas, even post-graduate students with four years of undergraduate work under their belts. In short, they are lazy procrastinators who, at the last minute, cram for the exam.

Most Chinese students are gold medal champions when it comes to memorization skills. This has given rise to the Chinese three-day educational system. Students literally sleep through an eighteen week semester. Then, the first day before the exam they memorize all the materials, even the teacher’s PPT’s that the kind teachers freely make available. The second day they spit out everything on the exam. On the third day they forget everything they had memorized.

The tests include: Listening Comprehension, Vocabulary, Cloze and Reading Comprehension. The questions are multiple guess or fill in the blanks from the choices on offer. Such tests contribute nothing to development of creative thinking and without substantial feedback, merely reinforce wrong answers.

Uniform exams, with uniform answers, graded by uniform templates, for the assembly line production of Human Robots with uniform skills and uniform capabilities.

This testing methodology is extremely unfair to the students who are not accomplished in memorization skills. They are also no measure of growth and development and do not reward actual effort expended. They only measure an accomplishment level that a student may have attained even before taking the course. They penalize a student who has made a significant effort and improvement but has not attained the required uniform English level.

In Holistic English we attach great importance to the development of the psychological skills of confidence, intrinsic motivation, self- discipline, autonomous learning skills and creative thinking ability. Once a student possesses a degree of such skills or attitudes, learning will be a natural consequence. Each student is free to progress and develop their English skills in accordance with their personal degree of confidence, intrinsic motivation, self- discipline, autonomous learning skills and creative thinking ability. There is no predetermined level of English skills that must be attained.

The testing in Holistic English is designed to measure the progress in developing the psychological skills necessary for real learning. Real learning will be a natural consequence that will be commensurate with the degree to which the psychological skills have been developed.

For instance one measure of the psychological skills is contained in the oral portion of the Holistic English final examination. On the first day of the semester, all of the students are given the three oral final exam questions and the correct answers. They are advised to start working on them immediately and continuously to get them right. The oral final exam is given one week in advance of the date the students expected. Ten percent of the students will take the opportunity and admonition seriously and will excel at the time of the oral final exam. Ten percent of the students will outright fail the oral final exam, having made no effort beforehand, because they were counting on the Chinese three days educational system mentioned previously. The remainder will do a “so-so” job and fall somewhere in the middle grade wise.

Another measure of the development of the psychological skills is found in the written final examination. The students are given a five week advance take-home exam. They are instructed to write and correct in WORD. A submission deadline is given. Ten percent of the students will follow the instructions in a timely manner and will submit excellent papers. Ten percent of the students will either not follow the instructions to write and correct in WORD or they will attempt to submit an untimely paper. The remainder of the students will submit a timely “so-so” paper.

The results of the oral and written final exams are thoroughly discussed during the time initially thought to be set aside for the oral exam, usually the last class of the semester. This comprehensive review gives the students one last learning opportunity where it is once again emphasized that they must learn to follow instructions because an employer demands this; they must learn to do things on time “Don’t Delay – Do It Today” because procrastination can result in job failure; lose your “so-so” attitude and strive for perfection because your employer and country require this to move from a developing stage to a developed stage; and be prepared to creatively respond to whatever circumstances life might hand you at any given moment. These principles are reinforced and hammered home through the Holistic English testing methodology which provides real life experiences of each principle. .

Those students who grasped these principles early on made demonstrative corresponding advancements in their reading, writing, listening and speaking English. Those students who rejected these principles from the get go and never changed their attitude failed to make any appreciable improvement in their English. The remainder of the students made correlative improvements in their English commensurate with the degree to which they embraced these principles. The extent to which the students continue to implement these principles will determine the extent to which their English continues to improve through autonomous learning efforts and strategies.

It is time to move away from tests that are unfair, only require memorization skills and only measure standardized results.

CET INSANITY

Theodore — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:35:07 +0000

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

For more than the past 30 years, ESP (English for Special Purpose) has been taught in China to pass exams, College Entrance exam, TEM and CET. The entire English pedagogy and methodology, from primary school through college or university, is test driven. The text books are specifically written and the course teaching plans are designed to maximize test scores.

China annually produces more than five million college and university graduate who know more about English than most native speakers but who are functionally illiterate, unable to use that which they have studied for up to sixteen years. They are simply unable to produce comprehensible English.

The tests have been roundly criticized but the test authors mount a rousing defense. To quell the opposition and maintain the test royalty income, the test authors fine tune or tweak the tests from time to time. They staunchly maintain the efficacy of the tests even in the face of the reality that the tests inappropriately drive the curriculum and produce functional illiterates. They tinker with tune ups when a major overhaul is mandated.

China’s tertiary education system is like a factory assembly line, producing more than five million end products (graduates) each year. Most responsible factories have quality control personnel who inspect and weed out defective products. But China’s colleges and universities produce over five million defective Human Robots each year, i.e. functionally illiterate graduates. TEM and CET are the quality controls but they are flawed quality inspection tools that are incapable of discovering product defects.

A factory which produces flawed products cannot remain in business, yet, China’s colleges and universities have continued to produce defective products for over thirty years.

Some efforts have been undertaken to eliminate the tests.

Wang Shugua, President of Harbin Institute of Technology, is quoted as saying ‘I recognize CET as a good tool to promote English studies but I am against the practice of regarding a CET certificate as the prerequisite for graduation, which is totally misleading.’ He tried to eliminate the requirement for a CET certificate in order to graduate from HIT, but gave up without success. ‘I had to reconsider the usefulness of CET certificates in job hunting for our graduates.

Almost all employers want their recruits to have a CET certificate, so I had to push my students to pass the CET for their good, although it is against my will. (Beijing Review, “Education Feared to Raise Robots” http://www.bjreview.com.cn/special/txt/2007-08/31/content_74644.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

Chinese graduates who go abroad for further study find their English so poor that they are required to take expensive and time consuming remedial English courses before being allowed to participate in the foreign school study.

Albert Einstein would call this insanity.

China must develop an English pedagogy, curriculum and methodology that develops graduates who can produce both oral and written comprehensible English output, with confidence.

Then a testing system should be developed that actually measures the efficacy of the curriculum instead of the current system where the curriculum measures the efficacy of the tests.

Producing functionally illiterate graduates is a National disgrace, a monumental waste of time and resources and does NOT make contribute to a better off, harmonious society.

WHITE MONKEYS

Theodore — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:31:14 +0000

The teaching of English in China is mired in many fallacies. One of them is that if someone can speak English they can teach English. This demeans and diminishes the teaching profession and leads to abuses in the foreign teacher recruitment process.

In 1978, when China first opened its door to the outside world, China recruited high quality foreign teachers like Mark Salzman, a Yale University graduate, to teach English as a foreign language (EFL) at the university level.

As China expanded the English curriculum to middle schools, the demand for foreign teachers outgrew the supply. China started the slippery slope of recruiting less than qualified foreign teachers. The requirement of a Bachelor degree in English, Linguistics or 2^nd language acquisition disappeared, as did the 2 years of teaching experience requirement. China’s recruiting approach also changed.

The original “employment opportunity” became “come experience the culture and travel around China.” This recruitment advertising appealed to those who wanted an extended vacation in exotic China, necessarily interrupted by the necessity of “work” to finance the adventure. Thus China recruited those who became known as “backpackers.” They arrived in China with a short term tourist mentality and a backpack, not a suitcase.

When China extended the English curriculum to the primary school and even kindergarten, there was simply an insatiable demand that could not be met so China further reduced the requirements of foreign teacher qualifications. If a foreigner could play the guitar or piano or just chat with the students, they were considered qualified.

Initially, white skin and blue eyes remained an iron clad requirement. This group of foreign teachers quickly became known as the “white monkeys.” In China, brown monkeys are regularly trained to entertain and collect money from the crowd. White monkeys entertain the students and collect money from their employer.

Even white monkeys could not fill China’s insatiable need for English teachers; so foreign exchange students, in China to learn Chinese, were pressed into service. L2 English speakers are now regularly recruited due to a lack of qualified and even unqualified L1 English teachers. Russian, Filipino and even African L2 speakers are now employed to “teach” EFL in China.

The Chinese students are cheated because they do not get the quality education they deserve. Their hard working parents are cheated because they are paying for a quality education for their child. The employer is cheated because their new hire does not possess the English skills represented by their diploma. And finally, Chinese society is cheated because the university graduate is not fully equipped to make their maximum contribution to a better off harmonious society.

The solution is simple and practical. Start English education in the first year of university and only recruit qualified foreign teachers and weed out those Chinese teachers of English who are unable to teach in the target language, ENGLISH..

JOURNALS

Theodore — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:28:01 +0000

All of China’s Universities and colleges publish an in-house journal. They are all published in Chinese. Even China’s three most famous foreign language universities publish exclusively in Chinese. The Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai Foreign Studies University and the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies refuse any article written in English. (There may be the occasional exception for an article in English by an internationally famous linguist.) This policy can be viewed as racist or bigoted because it precludes articles written by the 250,000 foreign teachers working throughout China and it keeps the foreign teachers in the dark about developments in Chinese higher education.

The primary reason given for this “Chinese only” policy is that the readers are all Chinese. This is a self-fulfilling policy. Of course only Chinese, or those who know Mandarin, will read something written in Chinese. Articles about teaching English in China will primarily be read by Chinese teachers of English. If they are teaching English, they certainly should be able to read an article in English about teaching English. If not, they should not be teaching English.

However, a high English Department official claims that a person who can’t write good English can still be a good teacher of English writing. This coincides with the widely held opinion in China that anyone who can speak English can teach English. This is profoundly ignorant and demeaning to the teaching profession.

The language of communication of most, if not all, Chinese university English Departments is Chinese. The main reason given is that they want to be precise in the message conveyed and certain it is understood. In other words, the English staffs have poor English. These are the very people teaching English. In one study, only eight out of forty Chinese teachers of English have sufficient English skills to teach in the target language, ENGLISH.

Apparently Chinese teachers of English do not know enough about second language acquisition to realize that the only way their English is going to improve is by reading, listening, writing and speaking more English. This brings us back to the Foreign Studies Universities journals published in Chinese only. They could be part of the solution by publishing articles to be written and read by Chinese teachers of English, in English. This would force them to write and read more English. The journals are reflective of the school’s leadership who also communicate exclusively in Chinese.

The Chinese university journals do not reflect China’s opening up but continue the secretive closed door of years past. Instead of being part of any solution, they perpetuate the problem. English in China Today at Harbin Institute of Technology is the first Chinese university publication in English about Chinese teaching English in China. It gives our teachers a learning experience through the editing process and affords them an opportunity to write and read more English. This effort constitutes a paradigm shift from English learning to English acquisition and puts Harbin Institute of Technology on the cutting edge of effective and meaningful reform of English teaching in China.

Chinese university journals should refuse to publish articles about the English language or the teaching thereof, unless they are written in English. Anything else is as useless as lipstick on a pig.

A post-grad student adds:

Andy PG6 Harbin Institute of Technology January 1, 2012

In my opinion, many English teachers write the article is just for the leadership to see, so they can only write Chinese, China’s title appraisal system hurt them. They must publish a number of papers in core journals, which are closely related with their title and bonuses. Second, English teacher live a long life in Chinese atmosphere, so when they write the articles, the first response was not in English but Chinese. They have been used to the translate Chinese into English.

So the failure of the English education, English teacher is an important reason, if English teacher doesn’t change, China English teaching will not have the hope! I hope English teacher from the primary school began to require himself to write in English, to read English and recite English together with his students, so as to build an English learning atmosphere.

COMPARE

Theodore — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:01:42 +0000

COMPARISON OF 4^TH TIER VOCATIONAL COLLEGE, 3^RD TIER COLLEGE, 2^ND TIER UNIVERSITY, 1^ST TIER UNIVERSITY AND IVY LEAGUE UNIVERSITY

HOLISTIC ENGLISH PERCEIVED BENEFITS

The seed of discontent with China’s current English teaching pedagogy and methodology was planted in April 2002 at a Joint Venture Business Institute at the fourth tier Railroad College in the Wuchang District of Wuhan, Hebei Province. Subsequent germination began later in September 2002, in a Joint Venture Business Institute at a fourth tier college in Shanghai and was simultaneously watered at a Joint Venture program at another fourth tier college across town in Shanghai. The students lacked intrinsic motivation and the English programs were dull, boring and did not apply much in the way of extrinsic motivation. It was noted that both the Wuhan and Shanghai business institutes provided a free choice movie viewing room with an English movie library and large screen TV for viewing. It appeared that those few students who took advantage of this resource were making the most progress in their English development.

In November 2002, Holistic English began its incubation at a third tier Agricultural College in Henan Province. (Teng Hai, Martin Wolff and Liu Qiang, “Can You Get a First Class Education at a Third Tier College in China?” in Progress in Education Vol. 13 (Nova Science Publishers, 2004).

Refinement of the Holistic English program started at Tong ji University, Shanghai, a first tier university, in March 2003, Shanghai Normal University, a second tier university, in March 2003 and simultaneously at a Joint Venture Business Institute at Shanghai Normal University, and a Joint Venture Business Institute at Shanghai University (Martin Wolff and Niu Qiang, Dissatisfied Customers: Chinese Business Institute Students Speak Out (Frontiers in Higher Education, Nova Science Publishers, 2007)., a second tier university, in September 2003.

Further refinement occurred in 2004 in both the business department and the English department at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Jiangxi Province, a second tier university.

In 2005 the Holistic English program returned to its original incubator at the third tier agricultural college in Henan Province. From this base the program was initiated, on an experimental basis, at Guangxi University, a second tier university in Guangxi Province, Shenyang Normal University (Edwin Roessler and Peter Griggs, “Holistic English at a Joint Venture Institution,” in Of The Students, By The Students and For the Students (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010). , a second tier university in Liaoning Province, Yang En University, a second tier university in Fujian Province, Xinyang Normal University, a second tier university in Henan Province, and Xinyang Vocational College, a fourth tier college in Henan Province. ( Teng Hai, Martin Wolff and Niu Qiang, “China EFL: Holistic English, the revolution has begun,” in China EFL: Curriculum Reform (Nova Science Publishers, 2009).

Implementation of Holistic English at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province followed and subsequently also at a private language school and three IT Corporate Training Centers in Dalian, Liaoning Province. ( Martin Wolff, “Incompatibility of Holistic English with Corporate Training Centers,” in China EFL: Curriculum Reform, (Nova Science Publishers, 2009).

PetroChina, China’s largest corporation, brought the Holistic English program to its corporate training Center in Guangzhou, Guangdong in September 2007. (Martin Wolff, “Incompatibility of Corporate Training Centers and Holistic English,” in China EFL: Curriculum Reform (Nova Science Publishers, 2009).

In March 2008 the top tier Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou embraced the Holistic English program wholeheartedly. (Wang Zhe and Martin Wolff, “Holistic English: A Revolution Not An Evolution,” in Of The Students, By The Students and For the Students (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010); Martin Wolff, “Holistic English: The Revolution Continues,” in Of The Students, By The Students and For the Students (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010); Martin Wolff, “Holistic English: The Revolution Blooms in Spring 2010,” in Of The Students, By The Students and For the Students (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010).

Prior to the time of this writing, the Holistic English program had proven its efficacy with Chinese students (undergraduate English and non-English majors and post-graduate non-English majors) in the low fourth tier colleges, Joint Venture business institutes, third tier colleges, second and top tier universities ( Teng Hai, Martin Wolff and Niu Qiang, “Can You Get a First Class Education at a Third Tier College in China?” Progress in Education Vol. 13 (Nova Science Publishers, 2004); Martin Wolff and Stacy Meeking, “Student/Consumer Satisfaction Survey,” in Of The Students, By The Students and For the Students (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010). However, the program had not yet been tested at any of China’s top nine “Ivy League” Universities—Peking University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanjing University, University of Science and Technology of China, and Xi’an Jiao Tong University. (People’s Daily Online, “Formation of China’s Ivy League Hailed”: (accessed July 29, 2011)

Negotiations commenced in April 2010 to bring the Holistic English program to one of these universities^.(Martin Wolff, “HE Matriculates to the Ivy League” Ch. 8, “The Lowdown on China’s Higher Education” (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011).. On May 12, 2010 the negotiations culminated in an onsite inspection of facilities and a sit-down meeting with the English Department leadership. But it was not until September 2011 that Holistic English matriculated to China’s Ivy League at The Harbin Institute of Technology.

The eleven year odyssey has been chronicled in four books:

(2009) Martin Wolff, China EFL: Curriculum Reform, Nova Science Publishers, New York

(2010) Martin Wolff, Of The Students, By The Students and For The Students, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, London

(2011) Niu Qiang and Martin Wolff, The Lowdown on China’s Higher Education, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, London

(2012) Martin Wolff, Holistic English in China’s Ivy League, Cambridge Scholars Publishing

The following charts provide a comparison of the students’ self-evaluation of perveived benefits received from the Holistic English Program from the lowest 4^th tier vocational college to China’s Ivy league.

CHART ANALYSIS

Although most of the students claim to have received great benefits in the areas of vocabulary, reading, speaking, writing, listening, (Chart 1); confidence, motivation, self-discipline, creative thinking and autonomous learning (Chart 2) and world view (Chart 3 ) there are always the unreachable and unteachable whose negative attitudes about English are simply unchangeable.

Chart 1: Vocabulary, Reading, Listening, Writing and Conversation

The discrepencies of perceived benefits received must be understood in light of the varied beginning skills levels.

Chart 2: Confidence, Motivation, Self-discipline, Creative Thinking and Autonomous Learning

The more uniform perceived benefits received are due to most students starting with the same lack of any appreciable psychological development .

Chart 3: World View

The more uniform perceived benefits received are due to most students starting with the same base line lack of any appreciable world view.

Lucky PG 4 Harbin Institute of Technology December 25, 2011

As a post graduate student, I feel ashamed about myself, since I have no idea of IMF and WB. We are occupied with our perquisites class ignoring the outside world and our country’s policy. How we become our nations master if we have no idea about our nation. It is the time to extend our span of knowledge. You know what, what I have gained from the course is that we should have a wide horizon not only limited on the text book.

HE Baby

Theodore — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:44:21 +0000

Holistic English has been taught to its youngest ever student. Violet is 5 weeks from delivery and for the past 18 weeks she and her unborn baby have attended HE class every week.

I am so confident in HE, I am betting that her baby is going to be born bilingual.

Any betters in the crowd?

CHINA’S C-9

Theodore — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:10:12 +0000

The U.S. Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group. The eight institutions are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, The University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University. The term Ivy League also has connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism.

In the early 1930s, New York Herald Tribune reporter Stanley Woodward referred to these universities as the “Ivy League” for the first time. The “Ivy” part of Ivy League is a reference to the plants that climb all over many of the old campus buildings at each school. The term was inspired by a sarcastic comment from a sports writer assigned to cover a Columbia-Pennsylvania football game. When he received his assignment, he grumbled about “watching the ivy grow.” Another reporter overheard the comment and dubbed the prestigious group of schools “the Ivy League.”

China has recently named its Ivy League schools based solely on academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism. The campus buildings are mostly devoid of climbing ivy and they lack competitive sports teams that compete against each other. Although the Chinese Government does not approve of university ranking, there are many such services. At least one such ranking service has been rocked by scandal for selling positions on its list. Whether ethical or not, the C-9 universities have never appeared on any ranking as the top 9 universities in China. This now fuels discussions about the criteria used for their selection.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6794654.html

Formation of China’s Ivy League hailed 08:37, October 27, 2009

China’s Ministry of Education voiced on Monday its support for the formation of C9, an academic conference comprising nine domestic prestigious universities and referred to as China’s Ivy League by some experts.

Xu Mei, the ministry’s spokeswoman, said the establishment of the conference is a “helpful attempt that is conducive to the country’s construction of high-quality colleges, cultivation of top-notch innovative talents and enhanced cooperation and exchanges between Chinese universities and their foreign counterparts.”

On October 12, nine institutions of higher learning including the elite Peking University and Tsinghua Univerisity signed cooperative agreements that featured flexible student exchange programs, deepened cooperation on the training of postgraduates, and establishment of a credit system that allows students to win credits through attending classes in member universities of C9.

Other universities are Zhejiang University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanjing University, University of Science and Technology of China, and Xi’an Jiaotong University.

The Ivy League, which comprises eight oldest and finest institutions of higher learning in the United States including Yale University and Harvard University, is known to the world for its academic excellence. Source: China Daily

China does not approve of ranking its colleges and universities.

However, amongst the numerous university ranking systems, the Harbin Institute of Technology has never finished in the top 10.

Numerous people connected with HIT have stressed that although the University is one of China’s best, the School of Foreign Languages is one of the worst. Why? Has anyone subjected the school to a thorough review and analysis?

In the west we would identify the problem, analyze the root cause and propose solutions.

There are 8 key elements to the School of Foreign Languages:

Administration

Curriculum

Chinese teachers

Foreign teachers

Students

Facilities

Teaching Materials

Each element deserves strict scrutiny.

“It is necessary to investigate both the facts and the history of a problem in order to study and understand it.” Chairman Mao

LEARN TO SWIM

Theodore — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:11:20 +0000

LEARN TO SWIM

Throw a baby in the water. Watch them struggle to get to the surface. Watch them struggle to stay on the surface. Watch them figure out how to stay on the surface without struggling. No baby drowns. That is how we teach a baby to swim in the west.

You have been thrown into the immersion water of English. You may be scared, you may be struggling. BUT, you will figure it out and survive.

In 8 years no one has drowned in the Holistic English pool.

Do not use machine translations. They are not even as good as your Chinglish.

MENTAL LEXICON

Theodore — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 17:13:43 +0000

Psycholinguists (as opposed to psychos who happen to be linguists) are linguists or psychologists who study how the brain functions with respect to language intake, storage, access and output.

At this time I will deal only with one aspect of output and that is “Prompting the Mental Lexicon.”

Some computers are equipped with both Chinese and English operating programs. Each program is stored in a separate file. To open one of the systems, you prompt the computer by clicking the mouse on the desired file. To switch operating systems you must close the one that is open and prompt the other system. In other words both language systems cannot be open at the same time. By switching back and forth too fast or too frequently, the computer will suffer command overload and simply shut down.

The brain stores different languages in separate files called mental lexicons. These files can be opened intentionally by a conscious decision or unconsciously due to prompting. However, two language files cannot be open at the same time. If your Chinese language file is open and in use, it will be prompted to close when you read or hear a word from another language for which you already have a stored language file.

If you have more than one stored language file, switching mental lexicons too fast or too frequently causes command overload and the brain simply shuts down.

When a Chinese goes abroad to an English speaking country where their English mental lexicon is constantly prompted, they become fluent in English within four to six months. When foreign students come to China to learn Chinese, the Chinese speaking environment constantly prompts their Chinese mental lexicon and they speak fluent mandarin within four to six months. However, when Chinese students study English in China for up to 16 years, without any English speaking environment, they are generally unable to use what they have learned.

A perfect example is when a Chinese student watches an English movie with Chinese subtitles. It is simply impossible to read one language while listening to another. The two mental lexicons are competing, with one eventually shutting down. Usually the L1 mental lexicon, being more developed and dominant, will prevail. Hence the Chinese student receives absolutely no English language learning or acquisition benefit from watching an English movie with Chinese subtitles.

In most Chinese universities there is not even a modest attempt to create an English speaking environment. An English speaking environment begins with prompts such as English signs. The importance of such prompts is well known to Marketing experts engaged in product placement. To understand the importance of conspicuous placement of English signs we recommend the recent Morgan Sperla movie “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.” Properly placed product advertising prompts consumer buying and directs product choice.

The conspicuous placement of English signs on a Chinese university campus prompts the English mental lexicon. As soon as the sign is observed the English mental lexicon is opened and ready to produce English.

When a Chinese person is addressed by their Chinese name they are far more likely to respond in Chinese. However, address them by their English name and they are far more likely to respond in English. This is a function of prompting the mental lexicon.

Prior to the current semester (September 2011) at Harbin Institute of Technology there has been absolutely no attempt to create any English speaking environment notwithstanding that every student on campus is compelled to study English. Even the English Department offices are a sterile English environment with everything singularly in Chinese.

In the fourth week of the semester an effort was made to prompt the administration to take affirmative action to create an English speaking environment, at least in and around the English Department offices. “Speak English” bumper stickers were placed on the office doors. Rather than prompt the administration into action, the effort was criticized as not very “artistic.” The protagonist removed the bumper stickers. A group of post-graduate students designed a new campaign consisting of English signs with Chinese characteristics.

For those who would criticize this more “artistic” attempt, please consider the following:

It is easier to criticize than to create.
If you have worked at HIT for one year or more and done nothing to create an ESE, you have no voice in the matter.
If you think you could do a better job, why haven’t you?
If you think you can do a better job, just do it.
Put YOUR money where your mouth is and contribute to the creation of an ESE

If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.

For decades now the linguists have told us to teach in the target language. Use L2 to teach L2. Now, the psycholinguists have told us why this is so important. The raging debate about using L1 to teach L2 to beginners has no place here because we are talking about university students who have studied English for up to 12 years and have passed the college entrance examination with an English component. They hardly qualify as beginners. Using L1 to teach L2 at the university level is ignorance or laziness.