This page contains links to books dealing with China’s English language policy.
CHINA EFL Curriculum Reform
Authors / Editors: Martin Wolff (China Foreign Expert)
Pub. Date: 2009, 3rd quarter
Binding: Hardcover
Book Description:
This book is a compilation of articles arising from the author’s seven years of personal experiences, study, research and analysis of EFL teaching in China between 2002 and 2008. It is an attempt to document deficiencies and suggest improvements for EFL teaching in China.. The authors began with the assumption that identifying the existing problems, analysing them and suggesting corrective action, would be beneficial to bringing about much needed curriculum reform.
In the past twenty years English language has reached fever pitch in some economic free zones of China and has spread across the vast continent of China impacting on primary schools, middle schools, universities and colleges of higher education. Everyone in China is being exposed to the English language in one form or another. At any given moment at least 600 million Chinese citizens are studying English, which is more than twice the number of people living in the United States of America.
China produces college graduates who have learned English for 16 years and are able to pass the national English knowledge examinations, but are unable to produce comprehensible oral or written English. They have memorized thousands of English words and set phrases. But when it comes to speaking or writing comprehensible English, they are like the parrot who can “talk” by saying “Poly want a cracker.”
China has invested heavily in its English language teaching programs that feature English learning to the exclusion of English acquisition. Famous Chinese professors write text books in conjunction with recognized foreign scholars. The State owned publishing houses, who have an exclusive monopoly on publishing in China, invest heavily in publishing these English learning texts to the exclusion of English acquisition texts. Chinese schools are not allowed to purchase texts on line or from western sources.
There has been a quantum of second language acquisition knowledge discovered over the past twenty years by researchers in Europe and America. However, the resulting new teaching methodology and pedagogy currently dominating Western countries is facing resistance from the mainstream Chinese educational system. Whether this resistance is a forerunner to a “clash of cultures” is yet to be realized. It may be as simple as a case of economic protectionism by those with vested interests in the current EFL learning teaching methodology.
This book includes an English acquisition program (Holistic English) which the authors developed, tested and proved successful at various levels within the Chinese higher education system. The Holistic English Program produces a higher pass rate on the national English knowledge exams and it produces speakers and writers of comprehensible English. Yet, this language acquisition program is met with apathy, indifference, incompetence, opposition and outright hostility.
This compilation of articles makes a compelling case for the need for EFL curriculum reform.
SECTION I – LANGUAGE POLICY IN CHINA
1. Linguistic Failures (Niu/Wolff)
2. China or Chingland (Niu/Wolff)
3. English or Chinglish (Niu/Wolff)
4. China’s EFL/ESL Goals and Objectives (Teng/Niu, Wolff)
5. EFL/ESL Teaching in China: Unanswered Questions (Niu/Wolff)
6. English as a Foreign Language: The Modern Day Trojan Horse? (Niu/Wolff)
China or Chingland
This article does not pretend to provide a solution to any pressing social, economic or political issue, nor does it rely upon any prior academic research for its suppositions. Instead, it is an attempt to spark public interest, analysis and debate on what may be the defining moment in the shaping and development of the new China as “Chingland,” with “Chinglish” as its national language. “Modernization” was one of the buzzwords of the recent 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. However, use of this term appeared to consistently imply “Westernization”; there appeared to be a lack of clear differentiation (and appreciation of the difference) between the two terms. It is the perception of this lack that sparked the authors’ interest in the subject matter of this article.
English Today, Volume 19, Issue 02, Apr 2003
English or Chinglish?
A great deal has been written and said about various approaches to the successful methodology for teaching English as a foreign/second language in China. Entire professional Journals are devoted to the subject, such as Teaching English In China, and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, to name a couple. But no matter how much is written, and no matter what teaching method is employed; the bottom line is that the average Chinese student learns to orally communicate in Chinglish i.e. Mandarin sprinkled with English or English with Mandarin induced syntax.
English Today, Volume 19, Issue 04, Oct 2003
China’s EFL/ESL Goals and Objectives
Most of us begin studying English at 12 or even younger. By the time we graduate from the university, we have studied English for over 10 years. However, the result is awful. Many students can say nothing but some simple phrases. Even for some English majors, writing an article in English also means nothing other than making countless mistakes.
English Today, Volume 20, Issue 03, Jul 2004
EFL/ESL Teaching in China: Questions – Questions – Questions
This article raises numerous fundamental issues which appear to have been overlooked by China in its exuberance to embrace EFL/ESL teaching as China rushes to join the new world order and partake of its share of the global economic pie. This article establishes a solid and fundamental legitimization for asking the politically incorrect, controversial and sensitive questions but leaves their final resolution to the language teachers, graduate students and linguists who have the inherent fundamental duty to seek the answers.
(2007) Frontiers in Higher Education, Ch. 10, Nova Publications
Linguistic Failures
It is undeniable that England has given the modern global community – English as the international language of commerce, British common law, contract law and maritime (Admiralty) law. Whether by accident or design, the effect of these contributions on the world is a fundamental destruction of individual ethnic customs, social structure and culture. There appears little or no dissent amongst linguists for the proposition that language and culture are inseparable.
English Today, Volume 23, Issue 01, (2007)
The Modern Day Trojan Horse?
Throughout China, the National language, Mandarin, is spoken by only 53% (Yan 2005) of the Chinese population while most primary schools, all middle and senior-middle schools, colleges and universities have mandatory English instruction.
English Today, Volume 21, Issue 04, Oct 2005
British English or Chinglish English? – Martin Wolff and Niu Qian
Teaching English in China Vol 30 No 5 (2007) Journal of China English Language Education Association
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