COMPARISON OF 4TH TIER VOCATIONAL COLLEGE, 3RD TIER COLLEGE, 2ND TIER UNIVERSITY, 1ST 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 4th 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.
Before taking this class, my English learning seems to be a chaos: no I/O process, no motivation and no hope. It seems stagnant and wandering around. To tell the truth, after taking the first class, I wonder if watching a movie every week can be called learning English. If I tell this to my mother, I’m quite sure she won’t believe that. However, after a whole semester’s practice, my wonder disappears naturally. I’ve found a totally new way to continue my English study. My view of live has been boarded. My mind was open. Furthermore, I’ve known the importance of English and get the right attitude to go on, which is “Don’t delay, do it today”. This is the most interesting and important English learning experience of my life, which will affect my life permanently.
You remind me of Coach Carter, the man who guides and changes people’s lives. Here are the words of it:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t insecure around you.
We were all meant to shine, as children do. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
I’m proud to be one of your students. I really appreciate your great effort and leniency.
It can be seen from the data that Holistic English helps most students to improve their English in Listening, Reading, Oral. The trend of the curves is similar. The most students get greater benefit but smaller students get greatest benefit. I know that the Holistic English plays an important role in improve my oral and listening. I was afraid to speak when I had my first class. But after a few classes, I feel better and speak loudly. Listening is my weakness and I have to say that it helps me. Watching English movie is a good way to study English.