After reading the following, post your plan to create an ESE at SYSU.
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ENGLISH SPEAKING ENVIRONMENT
Martin Wolff
Sun Yat-sen University
The SYSU south campus does not lend itself to the creation of an English speaking environment. With 30,000 plus students[1] and a campus encompassing 1.17 square kilometers, with the English Department administrative offices and classrooms scattered across the expanse of the campus; of necessity, the students are provided English speaking opportunities such as a regularly scheduled English Corner and other similar activities.
Additionally, the English Department and Japanese Language Departments share an administrative office which complicates matters further since each should have their own 2nd language acquisition environment.
For the proper creation of a true English speaking environment,[2] all English Department facilities would need to be located exclusively in one building that is not shared with other departments.
This does not totally foreclose implementation of certain strategies to prompt the English mental lexicon. For instance, the Chinese calligraphy hanging over the entrance to the English Department could be replaced with an English sign. The administration was presented with an English sign in the colors of the Chinese National flag, (red background with yellow lettering) which reads: “WELCOME TO CHINGLAND.”
The Chinese staff was provided black baseball caps which read: ENGLISH POLICE. Six hundred students were provided red baseball caps that read: SPEAK ENGLISH. The English Department was encouraged to make English its official language of communication.
A further complication is the administrative desire that the students develop their second language capabilities and their Chinese language capabilities simultaneously. There is an unfounded fear that creating a 2nd language acquisition environment will somehow disadvantage the students in the further development of their mother tongue (Putonghua).
The students enter the 2nd language acquisition program with a tremendous Chinese language advantage through the ubiquitous and comprehensive mother tongue environment. The creation of a 2nd language acquisition environment would not even level the playing field, Putonghua would still provide the most prominent and overwhelming influence in the student’s daily life, unless there was not only a 2nd language speaking environment but also an intensive immersion program where the students were isolated in a 2nd language living environment. The reality is that this is just another excuse for not creating an English speaking environment; but unlike previous excuses, this one is cloaked in academic validity.
Under such circumstances the creation of an English speaking environment could be initiated with an outdoor video wall in the central part of the campus. In furtherance of this idea, 487 students were sent an email asking:
What do you think of erecting a double sided outdoor video wall on the north central lawn for the nightly playing of English movies?
Your opinion is important.
(Note: 92% of the students responded indicating a high degree of interest. The students’ responses are not edited.)
85% are solidly in favor with comments such as –
1. I think it’s wonderful idea to watch a movie outside on the lawn. Hoping for this kind of activity.
2. yes, i think its a good idea, and will attract more people, and a fun time, in addition to, we can communicate in English with each other as a little English Corner. Watching movies outside is a good enjoyment.
3. It’s really a good idea. By doing this, students can communicate with each other while seeing the film. It also can be another English corner for us.
4. This is a very creative idea. I totally support your suggestion.
5. I think that would be a terrific idea, for in fact, it has all the key elements to make you a fantastic night: 1. beautiful girls sitting next to you (come on boys, you don’t deny that’s an important driving force behind); 2, beers or cokes(cold and refreshing); 3. Early summer breeze; 4. Cool movie chosen just for you by ******, that’s you will sure regret if you miss it.
10% have reservations such as –
1, I love this new form ~~ but there is a serious problem that during the night, there are a lot of mosquitoes. Actually, the auditorium has a lot of mosquitoes too!
2. It is a very good idea! I like it very much, when I was a student in Northwest University in Xi’an, our university would give us a movie on the playground every Saturday night, it’s a beautiful memory to me.
3. I think it’s a good idea. It will be of great help to create an English-learning atmosphere everywhere on the campus. However, I think the place is not suitable coz the library and classrooms are near the north central lawn; maybe the sound would influence the normal operations. The central lawn near the auditorium may be suitable. I really appreciate your idea and your contribution to our English-learning. Thank you, dear *****
4. I believe it is a great idea that a double sided outdoor video wall is erected on the north central lawn for the nightly plaLYying of English movies. However, the tough environment outdoor, such as mosquitoes, should be considered.
5. But I am afraid the lawn will be destroyed by us. So I don’t agree.
6. I partly agree with your idea. I think erecting a double sided outdoor video wall on the north central lawn is a good idea, but I think it would be better if the movie is playing on every weekend, particular on Friday. Because I think if the movie is playing on every night, I’m worry that few students will go to see the movie, as we have so homework many to do.
5% are opposed with comments like –
1. In my opinion, it’s not a good idea. The north central lawn is already very bustling every night, and it’s very harmonious. It has already been one of the symbols of our school. I like it as it is now. On the other hand, movies are more appropriate to be played indoors.
2. I prefer watching movies indoor not outdoor, because indoor can provide us comfortable seats. What’s more, it won’t attract strangers nearby coming into the campus. Too many strangers will increase the insecurity of our campus.
3. Actually I don’t think it’s a good idea to erect a double sided outdoor video wall on the north central lawn for the nightly playing of English movies. Two reasons may account for it. First, it’s summer now. There are too many mosquitoes outside at night, especially on lawn; Second, stools will be necessary, but you know it’s hard to get so many stools.
4. I don’t think it is a good idea. Because I think it will damage the atmosphere of free relax. Besides, little people have enough time to watch the whole movie
5. It costs to much and doesn’t worth.
6. I would NOT support a proposal to erect a double sided outdoor video
wall on the north central lawn for the nightly playing of English movies. My reason:
a. Entertainment equipment would bring some disadvantages to the campus
such as increased traffic and noise.
b. Playing movies nightly would increase electricity costs.
c. The fixed architecture would break the environment.
d. Students and teachers could watch movies on their computers or in the
movie theater. Therefore, the outdoor video wall was not necessary.
The outdoor video wall (OVW) technology is utilized throughout China. In the north of China OVWs are found in most public parks. Chinese people gather in the parks just to watch the show. OVWs are also found on Shanghai’s Nanjing Rd, a major pedestrian street, and people gather to watch the show. OVWs are used on many buildings in southern China for advertising purposes. One block south of the SYSU south gate there is an OVW on a building.
And just outside the SYSU north gate there is a river cruise ship with an OVW on its port side and its stern side.
Sun Yat-sen University is surrounded by this OVW technology but the University itself does not make use of it. “The Ministry of Education launched a new campaign to reform EFL education at the turn of the 21st century. The reform aims to modernize EFL teaching on campuses, pushing it out of its traditional track and equipping it with better technology.”[3] Although the Ministry of Education mandated reform to include this type of modern OVW technology, the University is only interested in promoting Mute English.[4]
[1] At present, Sun Yat-sen University is a comprehensive university including the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, technical science, medical science, pharmacology and management science. There are 25 schools and colleges, including the School of Humanities, Lingnan College, School of Foreign Languages, School of Law, School Political Science and Public Administration, School of Business, School of Education, School of Communication and Design, School of mathematics and Computational Science, School of Physics and Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, School of Geology and Planning, School of Environmental Science and Project, School of Life Science, School of Information Science and Technology, School of Engineering, School of Oversea Education Exchange, Sun Yat-sen Medical College, School of Fundamental Medicine, School of Public Health, Guanghua School of Stomatology, Nursing School, School of Pharmacology, as well as the Department of Earth Science, the Graduate School, School of Software, School of Network Education, College of Continuing Education, etc.
Sun Yat-sen University offers a wide variety of subject areas and complete disciplines. In the programs of graduate studies, there are 22 disciplines leading to Doctorate degrees and 32 to Master degrees, of which 171 specialties lead to Doctorate degree, 236 specialties lead to Master degree; in addition, there are 17 branches of studies leading to professional degrees, which are: Doctorate degree in clinical medicine, Master of business administration (MBA), Master of public administration (MPA), Master of judicial studies (JD), Master of computer technology, Master of environmental project, Master of software engineering, Master of electronic and communication engineering. and Master of biology engineering . The University has 12 post-doctorate research floating stations of Chinese language and literature, history, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, fundamental medical science, clinical medical science, management, public management, philosophy, environmental science and engineering; 20 key disciplines at the national level and 43 key disciplines at Guangdong provincial level. In undergraduate education, there are 89 specialties in undergraduate programs, with 6 national bases of fundamental sciences research and training, such as philosophy, Chinese language and literature, history, physics, chemistry and biology, 25 undergraduate specialties of name-brand specialties at the provincial-level. There are also the national bases of education in cultural qualities for college students and the first athletic training base for college student in China. In this year, the number of students of all types amounts to 70000,of which 3800 are doctorate candidates, 13000 are graduate students, 28000 are undergraduate students, and 1100 are international students. Sun Yat-sen University has abundant qualified faculty members. The university has the right to evaluate and confer the titles of full professor and associate professor. There are 12000 faculty and staff members, of which 805 are Ph D candidate supervisors, over 860 are full professors, 1500 are associate professors. Outstanding talented persons keep coming forth from the faculties, there are 13 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and 4 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 15 young and middle-aged experts with outstanding contributions at the national level, 37 recipients of national fund for outstanding young scientists, 19 persons selected in the first and second rounds of the “project of talent selection” by the Ministry of Personnel, 19 candidates chosen for the “plan of training excellent scholars for the new century” by the Ministry of Education, 16 professors specially accredited with the “Yangtze Scholar Scheme” of the Ministry of Education, and 16 experts with outstanding contributions selected by the Department of Health. http://www.sysu.edu.cn (accessed March 1, 2009)
[2] Wolff (2009) “Why Chinese Universities Do Not Provide An English Speaking Environment”, , Chapter 6, TEACHING EFL IN CHINA: What every foreign teacher should know before they go! Nova Science Publications, New York
[3] A Recent History of Teaching EFL in China, http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/sec_document.asp?CID=1901&DID=11103 (accessed July 16, 2009)
[4] Yiqing/Wolff (2009) Mute English – China’s New Latin, Nova Science Publishers
Everyone speak English in the university which is really a good idea, but I don’t think it can be success! Because most of students are forced to learn English, they are not pleased to do this! If they can pass English at the same time do not need to learn English, why they do this? You know, speak English is very hard to us who are not major in English! Go a step further, we do this, but there are so many people who are not students, they have work and do not speak English ,so when we communicate with them in English ,which is not impossible!
I think we have to take some other measures to change it that we have not a English speaking environment!
English is more and more important with the development of this society.so how to learn english well is important,and nice envirment is inevitable.Lukyly,nNowadays the students plane themselves more efficiently that we won’t spend an hour outside, standing in the wind ,watching something we may not interested in and with nothing else to do. Instead of OVW, I suppose we can do something more practical for English learning ,such as to expand and pay more attention to the English corner: It is just a expecially useful way to practice our oral English . And moreover we can change dining hall into an English environment, that’s the place we have to face everyday, where we can absorb the use of an English step by step.
http://www.seriousteachers.com/Job_details.asp?idemployer=5937&idjob=170808&pag=23
Baoding University is a third tier institution with a program tailored to provide three and four
year degrees to students who, in the majority, come from the surrounding rural villages. Our
English Department has developed some programs that are uncommon in China. They
include a decision to restrict the English Building to the use of English by administrators,
faculty and students, a dedicated �English Lounge� which is a large room containing
comfortable chairs, a collection of English language books and periodicals, a computer
operating in English and connected to the Internet, and a satellite TV system that receives
many English language channels. We also provide nightly free showings of first run films in
English for anyone who wants to watch.
Ours is a serious effort to provide an interesting and productive integrated program for
developing oral and written skills among our students.
As we all known ,Learning English is very universal in china, particularly some coastal city which are open-ended. It is very comment to study English in school. Studying English is a compulsory courses , so all of the students have to take it seriously no matter what we like. I think the radical way of creating an atmosphere of learning English is to inspire the interest of English of student in campus. Interest is the best teacher, cultivating the students’ interest to learn it can get an unexpected result in my opinion. What’s more ,we can learn English through watching movies and listening radio and so on. We can also create the chances for ourselves of speaking .Just as martin advise, we can talk with friends in English ,trying to speak it frequently, doing more ABC days. I believe that we can create an environment of learning English.
How to improve our English and why we should create an ESE? What I ever thought is that adding oral English test and writing test to encourage students practicing more. But for some students who are neither adore English nor hate English, it will be a additional burden, resulting that they resent English, that is what all of us don’t want to see.
As for me, I have a small suggestion. I hope that teacher can speak English slower, if I could hear clearly and understand most of what he or she said, I feel happy and love English lesson. It will be a virtuous circle. But most of the time, our teacher’s speed is a bit quick, some important information slip from my mind, that’s too bad. Of course it needs efforts of both sides.
How to create ESE at SYSU? Like what refers in the article, erecting a double sided outdoor vide wall on the north central lawn for the nightly playing of English movies, I think it’s an appealing idea, maybe it will suffer some problems in the actual process.
In a word, ESE at SYSU is essential, we students are willing to make a small contribution.
It’s easy to make an ESE in SYSU, but it’s hard to make people agree with us and join in the program. Change the environment is easy, but change one mind is hard. For many people consider learning English by their own way or other ways and many people needn’t to learn English at all, that’s china. Everything here is in Chinese. But if we want to prove our English, we can make a little ESE in our life. With our classmates, lab mates, roommates. That’s enough. It’s no need to make the campus to be an ESE.
I think it is very important to creat a good english study environment if we really want to leanr it well. Now at SYSU here we have nothing condition except English corner. Sometimes we do have many advantages but we miss for purpose not only because we are a little negative but we are less of confidence. For example, we can go for the foreign students to improve our English and we can also help them to make their Chinese better. We can also ask the school to do more on the forums in English. We may have a lot more movies in English in our cinema and so on. In fact, the school can provide a lot good measures to creat a good english study environment. What we should is to suggest and to accelerate all these to be true.
It is beyond dispute that erecting a double sided outdoor video wall on the north central lawn playing English movie is a good ideal. Martin has provided much measure to create an ESE. In my opinion, unless English become prominent and overwhelming, we will not have an ESE eventual. It is not doubt that it is arduous to create an ESE. But in some case it is easy to create an ESE. If each of us speaks English only, if we take English serious, if we make our resolution to make our English better, the day is in sight. We can’t expect the school have an ESE immediately, we can’t expect the administrative office to create an ESE for us. It is our business to make an ESE.
To learn English well there really needs an English Speaking Environment to make it nature even it is manual work. English in China has become the second language for many years and there are millions of English speakers, but maybe few of them can speak fluency just like native speakers. We have been learning words grammars and pronunciations since elementary school. This may be much earlier these days, almost since they can speak. But the result is not gratified that much. The key just like Martin said is the ESE. How can we provide an ESE for English learners? In my opinion, the point is that they should be forced to speak out from their mouse. So the movies and music do a little work to their oral English. What we should do I think is that we group couples of people who are really interested in English and willing to exert themselves to achieve the goal that we can speak just like the native ones.
It is certainly necessary to create an English learning environment at SYSU for the adherents. The 30,000 plus students would be the beneficiary. As a school, especially a public university, students’ interest should be considered and protected first. Thus, a campus full of English signal is dreamed to be fabricated. I think, learning English is a long-rang process, and people should be inspired even forced to use it time and time again, maybe just like no matter that you are walking, talking, eating, singing or sleeping, you should take English in you mind. It is the best shortcut to success. However, much of our Chinese just use a little English in class or assignment, we do something else in the rest time. As a result, we actually spend not much time in English. It is hence that after ten years since we get to study English, we are still doing weak in it. Therefore, an English speaking environment is really needed.
We should put banners on the wall as much as possible, such as the basketball court, tennis court, and the football court. I also wish there is a public outdoor English movie; we may express ourselves best after it. It should be popular if there is an English radio broadcasting some news. And maybe what’s important is that a league should be set and it will promote much to the creating of the English speaking environment. There maybe one thing to be taken considers, do not damage the primary classical atmosphere in the school, I like the feeling full of history.
After reading the article, I agree with Professor Martin’s viewpoint that ESE at SYSU is very important. If there is an ESE at SYSU, we can communicate with each other in English freely. Now that ESE is helpful, so we should try our best to create an ESE at SYSU. Firstly, we should build campus radio station which broadcasts English programmes every day. In that case, all students can listen English everywhere. Of course, only listening is not enough. Meanwhile, we should set up English Funny Stage where all students can speak in English freely. All of us can benefit from listening and speaking freely. Further more, we can make classrooms anglicized, we can stick English labels on the walls, so all students can read English with freedom. In a word, ESE can provide a stage where we can taste and practise English, so let us work hard to create an ESE to improve our English.
Honestly speaking, we have a lot about the speaking english or english learning for we are learning english now and the environment of learning english is bad all over china not only SYSU. It is a great idea to develop an better environment of speaking english, but I do not think it is a good idea to erect a double sided outdoor video wall on the north central lawn for the nightly playing of English movies. We can do other efforts to make the environment better, take English corner for example. The english movie? Oh, there are a lot of english movies in the BOJI Web-side, we can download anyone we like and enjoy it.
It is lucky for us still has the choice to learn English in the SYSU university which has the best environment for students. As a common student form the country, it is in heaven for me to learn English in here. Both students and the teachers here are take serious with English. They try to make the English atmosphere in every where, it have more 3000 foreign students in the campus, you can see them in the road at any time. The English classroom is not just a traditional class, it become a stage of the students express themselves by prepareing for the presentation. The oral English is not just two hours in class, it practice in everywhere and any time. Learning English ways are varieties, watching movies, making friends with foreigners, listen to the radio, make comments in English web site, go to the English corner and salon, cerebrated in the Foreign language culture festival is OK, and the library is provided many resources for us. I think if we continue to do as this, we can benefit a lot form it.
english enviorment is important for english studying especially for spoken english improvement,but setting the enviorment is very difficult,because we are chinese and our mother language is not english,so we always think things in the chinese methods,so we should set english enviorment for ourself,and we can speak english to ourself and think in a english mothod,maybe that is good for our english studying!
There is no doubt that creating an English speaking environment is important for all of the college students. I think the suggestion is very useful, but some may be different to achieve. In my opinion, an OVW is used more easily on commercial than in the university. Maybe the university doesn’t pay so much attention on creating an English speaking environment. Providing more English signs is useful and easy to us. We can pay more attention on creating an English speaking environment in our daily life.
I agree that creating an English Environment is necessary in our university.But I won’t suggest to build a double sided outdoor vedeo wall on the north center lawn.
First,to be honest,I always hold that the best place to learn an English movie is not in public places such as cinemas,which is different from what Professor Martin taught us.Because the cinema is not a quite place and sometimes it is hard for you to concentrate.That kind of place(like the cinema) is a place for lovers to express love to each other and for friends to have fun together,not a perfect place for studying oral English.
Second, as we can see, there is no place to build such a vedeo wall.If the wall is to be built, it will definitely ruin the beautiful scene of the north lawn.
Third, some people may not like the idea of playing an movie at evening time because it will make noisy sounds on campus and make their walk on campus after dinner impossible.
But there are still some solutions.English corner and being an ABC are beneficial. And I think if the university make the textbooks all in English version, that will be most useful.
It is really important for us to create an English learning environment. I like Mr. Martin’s English classroom very much. Inside, regardless of right and wrong, we can free to speak English. I am in favor of learning English and communicate with English through watching movies. It is a good idea to set up an English corner on the lawn in the school. When we enjoy the nature, we can also learn English.