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.
Some students can pass the CET easily, but others need to try two or more times. In a sense the score of CET is equal to the capacity of studying English. Many students rely on the impetus of exam to study English, but many of them are not willing to study English if the exam is over. I think the educational institutions should provide better ways to teach students to study English. I hate the present way of teaching because I feel disappointed at my English studying.