INTRODUCTION
In 2009 China expects 10 million1 new college students to attend its +2,2362 public colleges and more than 1,300 private colleges. 3
“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.”4
From a western perspective the mandate from the Ministry of Education evokes visions of full scale implementation of current 2nd language acquisition pedagogy and methodology, multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs, English acquisition libraries and the creation of English speaking environments.
A 2009 survey of Chinese colleges and universities failed to yield evidence of the mandated reforms.
MULTI-MEDIA CLASSROOMS
DEFINITION: A theater style tiered seating classroom with audio-visual equipment programmed in English, sound equipment, projection screen and blackout curtains.
COLLEGE SURVEY: In the rich coastal cities of Dalian, Shanghai, Qingdao, and Xiamen, the 1st tier, 2nd tier 3rd tier and even 4th tier colleges and universities visited had the requisite facilities for English teaching. All of the multi-media equipment had Chinese programming as opposed to English programming. 50% of the multi-media classrooms had flat floors instead of tiered floors. One Shanghai 2nd tier Joint Venture University actively discouraged actual use of the multi-media equipment because of the high cost of electricity and the 3,000 rmb cost to replace the projector bulb.
In Central China and Western China a completely different situation was observed. 2nd tier universities, 3rd tier and 4th tier colleges claim to have numerous multi-media classrooms for English instruction. But the observed reality is that only 1 in 10 has operable equipment, some inoperable for as long at 5 years, (all with Chinese programming), most lacking blackout curtains and most with flat floors. No 1st tier university was visited.
In Southern China 1st tier and 2nd tier universities were observed to have an ample number of operable multi-media classrooms for English instruction. The equipment was programmed in Chinese and the floors were primarily flat, although a few exceptions for tiered floors were noted.
The 3rd and 4th tier colleges appeared to suffer from the same deficiencies as were observed in Central and Western China.
COMPUTER LABS AND SOUND LABS
DEFINITIONS:
A computer lab for English instruction should be a room with English programmed and networked computers with at least one printer, sufficient in quantity to meet the needs of the number of students, and available not only for class assignments but also for research and free choice reading, which requires access to the World Wide Web.
A sound lab for English instruction should be a room with English programmed equipment designed for English audio and visual input in individual stations in sufficient quantity as to meet the needs of the number of students.
COLLEGE SURVEY: Throughout Eastern and Southern China it was observed that an adequate number of computer labs and sound labs exist with an adequate number of computers or stations to meet the students’ needs. Maintenance programs kept the equipment in proper operable condition. None of the labs were programmed in English. None of the computer labs had access to the World Wide Web. Only one computer lab had a printer. Two of the 1st tier universities visited provided a computer in every student dormitory room with access to the school intranet. For an extra fee, the students can obtain access to the World Wide Web but filtered through the school intranet firewall.
In Central and Western China there was a paucity of both computer labs and sound labs.
The labs that did exist were programmed in Chinese, could not meet student needs and were in various states of inoperability. Some labs had as high as a 65% inoperability factor. At one college the computer science majors learned the computer via a PPT lecture. They never received any hands on instruction or experience.
At one school all 8 sound labs were 100% inoperable for an entire semester.
At another school there was a computer lab with 40 computers for 10,000 students. 18 of the computers were inoperable and too old to repair.
ENGLISH ACQUISITION LIBRARIES
DEFINITION: A collection of English books and magazines covering a multitude of subjects and interests, written at varying degrees of difficulty, that can be freely accessed by all students wishing to engage in free choice reading.
COLLEGE SURVEY: A random selection of 3 – 1st tier, 3 – 2nd tier and 2 – 3rd tier colleges and universities in Shanghai revealed that no such 2nd language acquisition English library existed even though each school boasted a School of Foreign Languages with an English Department. A 2nd tier university had an English research library but students were not allowed entry because they would “wear out the books.” A 1st tier university had an English research library but students had to pay an entrance fee each time they entered.
In Central China, a visit to 2 – 2nd tier, 2 – 3rd tier and 2 – 4th tier colleges and universities revealed that no such 2nd language acquisition English library existed even though each school boasted a School of Foreign Languages with an English Department. A 3rd tier college recently constructed a US$5 mil. library for its 10,000 students. The college has 1,100 English majors but not one single English book in its 4 year old library.
In Beijing, a visit to 4 randomly selected 1st tier universities revealed that no such 2nd language acquisition English library existed even though each school boasted a School of Foreign Languages with an English Department. English research libraries were the norm.
In western China a visit to 4 randomly selected 2nd tier universities revealed that no such 2nd language acquisition English library existed even though each school boasted a School of Foreign Languages with an English Department.
In Southern China a visit to 2 – 1st tier, 2 – 2nd tier and 3 – 3rd tier randomly selected colleges and universities revealed that no such 2nd language acquisition English language library existed even though each school boasted a School of Foreign Languages with an English Department. 1 – 1st tier university had a freely accessible English research library. And 1 – 1st tier university had a small English acquisition library within the School of Foreign Languages.
A visit to 5 Joint Venture universities; 1 in Beijing, 1 in Dalian, 1 in Guangzhou, 1 in Shanghai, and 1 in Shenyang, revealed that each school had a 2nd language English acquisition library. These libraries are primarily used for assigned reading and only available for free choice reading one hour each day. Books may not be checked out.
The survey results are not surprising since China teaches English learning for test taking to the exclusion of English acquisition. The communicative approach to English learning concentrates on memorizing set phrases and parroting them back in oral English class.
There are also monetary policy impediments to the acquisition of English books from abroad. When the strict policy hurdles can be overcome, it is usually for the acquisition of science and technology books.
ENGLISH SPEAKING ENVIRONMENT
DEFINITITION: There are two required elements to a proper ESE. A proper ESE is one where the students are inundated with comprehensible English input and where it is easier to communicate in English rather than in the native Putonghua. An English speaking environment is defined as: “An environment where English is the dominant language.” Or, “an environment where people are compelled to speak English”. 5
COLLEGE SURVEY: Speak with any Chinese university foreign language department administrator and they will extol the virtues of creating an English-speaking environment (ESE) for the English majors. But take a close look and you will quickly discover that there is no ESE on campus.
The hiring of some foreign native English speakers and holding weekly English Corners is the total extent of efforts to create an English speaking environment. These English speaking opportunities contribute little or nothing to the creation of an ESE.
An ESE is all about comprehensible input, i.e. immersion. Almost all of China’s colleges and universities hire foreign English speakers and hold weekly English Corner. But finding a single university with an ESE was impossible.
CONCLUSION
Very clearly there is a complete failure of the western “vision” of the Ministry of Education’s mandate to “modernize” the teaching of English as a foreign language in China. Possibly something is lost in translation.
It was noted that the Administration of each college and university surveyed possessed numerous late model luxury sedans while student facilities languished in an inoperable state of disrepair or nonexistence.
- China expects drop in number seeking college degree, http://en.ce.cn/National/Education/200905/31/t20090531_19211543.shtml (accessed July 1, 2009) ↩
- List of universities in the People’s Republic of China, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_the_People’s_Republic_of_China (accessed July 5, 2009) ↩
- Non-government Colleges Seek Help, http://service.china.org.cn/link/wcm/Show_Text?info_id=100414&p_qry=university%20and%20enrollment (accessed July 1, 2009) ↩
- 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) ↩
- Creating Authentic Dialog: ESL Students as Recipients of Service Learning, Stephanie Marlow, Boise State University (Boise, Idaho, USA) “An environment where authentic dialog with native English speakers occurs on a regular basis presents ESL students with the possibility to grow both linguistically and socially” . http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Marlow-ServiceLearning.html ↩
Generally,It will be many problems in the process of reform, and we should have enough patience when we face much difficulties, besides, we should bear in mind that there is nothing which can go on with obstacles and be full of confidence .
As we all know, China has developed fast in these years, and the too-fast economic development give birth to many troubles ,especially in education. The education system seems to emphasize the scores and degrees slim in compositive ability, as a result, there exists a increasingly distinct gap between the demand in career market and the supply in most graduates or post-graduates .
Because of this , the reform is reasonable on the calendar, and this process is not prompt .
The problems that Professor Martin points out are ture in China. At present there are also have mang problem in China’s education,but chinese people and government have been working to improve.
As we all know,Chinese is a developing country and have largest population in the world whereas it is not the greatest. Education reform should be take a lot time and money, It is a hard work.I think it is impossible to improve China”s educatio rely solely on the reform,we should change chinese people”s traditional concepts of education.People has always attached great importance to education in China,I believe with the development of china ,the education will be better.
Actually, leaning English doesn’t necessarily mean that we should build multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs. Neither is it necessary to hire foreign teachers whose mother tongue is English. As the four great lies and the encouraging movie “Terminal” tell us, what does matter is the strong will to improve our English. Equally important is the “dare to speak” spirit. Only in this way can we improve our nation’s level of English. As a famous pedagogue once said, and I paraphrase, the meaning of education is not filling a bucket, but rather igniting a torch. Let’s kindle our passion in learning English!
There are many reforms in terms of educational system,health and medical system and housing policy,which are so-called the three major problems in China.What do these reforms mean?I think,the purpose is to provide better life for people.Unfortunately,as far as I am concerned,it fails to expectations.It is not enough to put forward a slogan of reform only,what important is action,trying our best to make it.Allround efforts have to be done,including lawmaking,public participation,serious implementation and so on.In addition,it is a long and hard task to achieve tested by time.
This article tell us that first, there are not enough or inoperable equipment for student, second, there are no such language acquisition English library third , there is no real ESE on campus. This situation we faced many years actually has improved a lot with the development of economy, and I believe with change of attitude of people, the situation will change .for another aspect I think the most important is the construction of the ESE it will be easy with no tool, if we want to do it ,so in many situation people just be afraid of lose face. In a word ,the key of reform ,I think, is not if the equipment can go with the education or not ,but the attitude of learning English .
When I was a primary and junior student, my English was taught by traditional way not by the modernized EFL teaching technology. It was the first time I was taught in English and impressed in the multi-media classroom and computer labs and sound labs when I became a senior student. But we could not use it frequently due to the limited resource (too many students for the number of labs). When I went to the college I always found that a lot of teaching devices and labs didn’t work in their place and felt that it should be greatly wasted if building them and not using them. Sometimes I’m confused by that way and wonder that whether doing this is foolish and wasted of money and the roles the labs play have been evaluated correctly according to the necessities of the students.
As the old saying：each coin has two sides. Our fast developing improved people’s life, but also gave birth to many society problems, such as the education problem. It’s not enough just to reform the infrastructure of education, the system of our education do need to reform. Maybe it’s hard for our government to do it well in a short time, but I believe they will try their best to do. We will wait and support.
Obviously , we have to acknowledge that there are still a lot of defects in English education , such as hardware insufficiency and weak speaking environment , as the article said . Here I am in high agreement with computer programmed in Chinese . This phenomenon should be taken seriously . Many universities aren’t capable to set up English computer labs , when one has the ability to do it , we should run the lab really for the purpose —English learning . But the computer is programmed in Chinese , which sounds ridiculous. If we do it in this way , then why we set up the lab ? Just for fun ? I guess not . Hence , we should change this strange condition .
However , in my opinion , solving problems is more important and worthful than complainting problems . Sometimes we can give more tolerance and understanding , try our best to make things better . That’s all I want to say . Thank you !
How sad when I know the current situation of english reform.No wonder we chinese students all hold poor english speaking.Many educational resourses are wasted when there are special room for english aquisition not being used efficiently.But think of it further.What is the real reason causing the problem?I think it can be mostly ascribed to the ecomomy development limitation.As a developing country,we lack money of technological equipping for english reform.We can see it from that the more advanced districts are better equipped than poorer districts. And to the well equipped collages,we can not expect that every student has enough resourses to train their english.Compareing to vast number of students,the money that chinese government spend in english improving process is unimaginally less then needed.
There are a lot of obstacles to overcome in order to reform EFL education in China. Two important factors are adequate funding and qualified personnel, but the most important one is that the whole society, including the government and the educational system, really pay great attention to modernize EFL teaching on campus. Only then can we improve the EFL teaching condition little by little. We should regularly review what we have done and try to do it better.
I know that it is not easy for the whole country to accomplish the reform in just a few years. But things are getting better and better. Sometimes we should be optimistic.
As far as I know, when it is really hard to solve a problem, the reform is followed. In China, there are indeed many problems in the Education System. But the main problem is to transform the examination-oriented education system to quality education system. The reforms mentioned in the above article show the determination of the government to foster more quality people who can acquire English or other foreign language, so many methods are carried out and advanced devices are ordered to equip with in the Universities. It should be a good thing to us students, but it didn’t, according to these years’ implementation. Why? The important reason is that the reform is just like a order but not the Universities’, the teachers’ or the students’ desire to do so. In this circumstance, the teachers are not willing to teach and the students are not willing to learn, because they all think their facilities are not advanced as required and their teaching materials are not enough. However, to learn English well is not simply related to how advance the device or how abundant the materials are. It’s people’s enthusiasm that counts. So, the reform should accord to the teachers’ and the students’ demands and a real English Learning environment in China is most in need. If we get the attitude right, we can acquire English in the near future.
To reform the EFL education, we still have a long way to go. China has the largest population over the world. There are not enough resources for every student, both human resources and hardware resources. The economic state is different in different part of China which directly affects the situation of hardware equipments in the local universities. But as the economy of the less developed cities is improved, I am sure more students will have a good environment to learn English. At the same time, we should do our best to create a better English speaking environment. It is also important.
These problems really exist now. But I think The Ministry of Education is trying their best to improve it. As is known, China is not as rich as the developed countries, we should develop economy, education, technology and so on at the same time. Therefore we can only make it this but not want to make it this. On the other hand, I think the most necessary reform is our attitude to learning English. If we learn English with interest and perseverance, instead of thinking of passing the examinations, we won’t be embarrassed by the equipments.
After reading the article , I feel very sad . The appliances provided by schools can not meet the stand . Today our country is stronger and more wealth , so I think she should pour more money to improve them . With high quality appliances , we can learn English better .
Maybe we can tolerance the short of appliance in some way , but lack of English learning environment is really a big problem . And this will bring a great influence in learning English . From the person who match English very well , we can see , once they put themselves into an pure English environment , they make progress quickly . The environment not only give us opportunity to practice what we have learned , but also make us to think in an new way . As the environment is so important , the school should do more such as put some English programs in TV , and require us to watch it in a limited time . By the same time , we can make full use of the great wealthy of foreign teachers , invite them to give us English lecture or participate English corner usually .
In my opinion ,it’s not the “morden equipment” that result in my poor English although “morden equipment”will make studying English more conveniently and easily.”Reform”should put more emphasis on how to motivate students’ interests and activity to learn English,not wasting money on the physical things.”Morden equiment” is not the main point and won’t make studying English more efficiently.
As we know, China”s educational problem is time-honoured.From the ancient period to now,our government is do their best to change this situation.But everything can not transformed immediately,and futhermore our country is an developing country ,our economy and cultural quality are not coordinate with society request. educational problem is deep-rooted,we must mobilize all the people to change such state. Our education emphasized scores overly and do not pay attention to student”s integrated development and ignore their integrated development.Colege enterance exam is an representative example.So we must have persistence and confidence to confront this reform .We believe only if we make concerted efforts ,any difficulties can we overcome.
Those reforms mean that with the development of China’s economy, there are some troubles especially on the education. Maybe they just want to change the China’s present situation, but in the wrong way. Facing these, I don’t know what to do is much more better. But I’ll learn English and do everything in my own way.
Two days ago, I had a Hallowine Party with my foreign friends. To my surprise, they could not only sing a Mandarin song well, but a Cantonese song. As I know, they are just the home-schoolers, so of course, they don’t have any advanced equipments, such as muti-media classroom and sound labs, ect. So how could they do it? It’s their interest! Sometimes, hardware is not as important as software. I would prefer the ministry focus on how to arose the students’ interest and create a real English environment for them out of class.
Obviously, our universities have spend a lot in reform but the result is not satisfactory. We have a long way to go. The ministry of education starting is good, but the problems come out of the course of implementation. With the university increased enrollment, there are so many students in China. The contradictory of the limited hardware facility and English learning environment with the amount of students is incisive. And the resource of the east and west, and the 1st tier, 2nd tier, 3rd tier and 4th tier is not faired. So in the road of reform we should pay more attention to the full use and the proper attention to both are fair. Though the reform is not have a perfect result, we should still have to go on!
With the development of economy, the Educational institutions have more money to build the multi-media classrooms, computer labs, sound labs and another facilities which are built to supply English speaking environments to the students. As the article said, the utilization ratio is low. In my opinion, the reason is that the reform is not only to provide these facilities, but also change people’s attitude of learning English. Only in that way, the people can pay more attention to the facilities, and use these facilities to improve themselves. Reform is not to pay attention to the superficial things, but to solve the problem fundamentally.
The word “reform” is always appear in our life , in the newspaper, on the advertising ,in the speech and so on. Just like the schools ,they provide equipment for the students to improve their English, which is also a process of reform. The word “reform” means making some change to make the relative thing better. So respecting our schools’ reform is necessary for us. Our school have do so many things to promote our English ,Then the only we should do is making good use of this equipments. we also should have a reform in our mind, we can learn English well even without this equipments. That is means we can’t just depend on the equipments, we should depend on ourselves
Reform.There is no doubt that the initiator’s original intention is to improve the situation. However the executants are usually more concerned about their own interests and conditions. So it is common phenomenon that the leaders are ordering ambitiously, while the subordinates’ implement are so different. Maybe this is the so-called“Whenever there is a rule, there is a way to get around it.” So, I am not surprised about what have happened in the process of English education reforming.
MULTI-MEDIA CLASSROOMS & COMPUTER LABS AND SOUND LABS
Often, there are no advanced equipments and more outstanding teachers in poor areas. While in schools with advanced equipments,these are not usually fully used of. Take Sun Yat-sen University for example,the classroom in which we have our Comprehensive English and listening lessons is equiped with good equipments (PS: Notes on the device are not English … …), but most of them are left unused.
ENGLISH ACQUISITION LIBRARIES
Obviously, we do not have this one. Or at least, everyone around me had not got information about it. We are only getting English newspapers downstairs our dormitory or searching foreign literatures in the library.
ENGLISH SPEAKING ENVIRONMENT
It seems that, we do not have such an environment except the Holistic English classroom. And thanks to Pro.Martin. Otherwise, we may not have this,either. And I think without coordinate from the school authorities, opportunities created by ourselves seems to be stuffless.
Reform, we still have a long way to go
In my opinion these multi-media classrooms, computer labs or sound labs are not the most important thing during the process of one’s English learning. It is known to all that interest is the best teacher. Then teachers should make students love English not afraid of it because of difficulties in tests. Besides, language environment is needed to learn a foreign language and the lack of it in Chinese universities has hindered the students’ English learning. In addition, I think Chinese students are generally reluctant to practice speaking. This has greatly contributed to the “Dump English” of Chinese students.
Before I graduate from my my alma school, I aways think english speaking environment is not abe to be provided for us to make our poor english more perfect. I come from a western province where, as we known, the local government don’t offer enough money to enhance the education for lacking in financial resource. So it is not unbelievable that we don’t have any multi-media classrooms, computerlabs, sound labs, english acquisition libraries and so on. However this paper give me a big surprise. It seems that almost most of educational input has been wasted or used in a wrong way. China is also a developing country and many more problems, especially exesited in our educational system, need to be solved, although our country has beome more and more powerful and even influence the globe process. From my viewpoint, reform means whatever measure should be adopted to make full use of ourown exesting installations and our financial support must be provided for the western people and education in the countryside.
It is obviously that the Ministry of Education believes that good equipments suppose good result of learning. So they just ask the school to buy equipments which they can’t afford to use. Even the ministry gave money to build the labs and classrooms, not every school has enough income to afford the maintenance of these “modernized” equipments. As a result, it becomes a huge waste of money to reform the EFL system. Besides this, because the way of teaching English or other foreign language has never changed in this reformation, I wonder how it can improve students’ English ability. The only thing must be reformed is not the hardware environment but the way of thinking, both the teachers’ and the students’.
The reform aims to modernize EFL teaching on campuses, pushing it out of its traditional track and equipping it with better technology. That is true, but the Chinese colleges and universities failed to yield evidence of the mandated reforms. The survey revealed that all of the multi-media equipment had Chinese programming as opposed to English programming. Most of the multi-media classrooms had flat floors instead of tiered floors, what is worse , most colleges and universities even not have multi-media equipment . It certainly depends on the economic of our country, but it also depends on the awful educational system. So it is necessary to reform it.
The biggest problem is that we have no English speaking environment. There is no an environment where people are compelled to speak English in China. The English corner cannot solve the problem, So we must create one.
Actually,my undergraduate university,a 2nd tier university in Anhui,has no computer labs,no sound labs,no English acquisition libraries for none-English major students and no English speaking environments for all students.We learn English by reciting articles and words;remembering grammars and reading comprehensions.We use the fossil methods to learn English,we don’t communicate,we don’t know how the others learn English outside.We never thought of reform.Reform the way we learn English and the attitude of the concerned authorities about English.It’s urgent to reform.
In my opinion ,it’s not the “morden equipment” that result in my poor English although “morden equipment”will make studying English more conveniently and easily.”Reform”should put more emphasis on how to motivate students’ interests and activity to learn English,not wasting money on the physical things.”Morden equiment” is not the main point and won’t make studying English more efficient.Besides,”reform” isn’t easy in China because there’re some “hidden principle” for Chinese politics.To constitute a policy is one thing,to carry out it is another thing.Because “exam scores” is the most important thing that everyone cares about.
Look at the history of Hongkong,the Hongkong peole can master English better than us.Both of us are Chinese,both of us speak Chinese at home.Why? In my opinion,the EFL reform of China have failed.All of the students learn English only by Englishbook, read English only from English textbook,use English only to do English homework.To us,English is no use for our ordinary times.I think it was unimportant whether modernized machine which can help teachers improve the students’ English.If some of our subject can be teached in English,the subject book is in English , the teacher speaks English on class and the students should do homework in English too,I think the students’ English will be improved so easy,Because they should try to think all such subject problems in English,they should use English to learn their lessons.But now, all of our subjects expect English subject should use English.I don’t know what the education reformer have think about our English education.And if we can learn all the other things in Chinese,why we learn English if we did not decide to go abroad.
First of all, we should notice that it is a positive signal for the country to reform TEFL although the method may be not perfect. The minister of Ministry of Education puts forward this solution for our good but in the process of executing this mandate there are some problems which make the solution meaningless. This phenomenon is common country-wide and the municipal government should solve the educational corruption firstly and purity the circumstance of school reformation.
There are many advanced equipments, like multi-media classroom, computer labs, sound labs and so on in almost every university. Administrators usually don’t teach students how to use them, so these equipments just like ornaments and lost their functions. Some facilities are so expensive that we aren’t allowed to use. In my opinion, owning these facilities is not the reform of EFL education. Only that students can use them to enhance their English is the progress of EFL education.
We have take great effort to refom our english education system, such as change the CET exam system, to improve our spoken english. But I think if we really want to improve our english, a computer connect to the internet is enough. What I think is that, what we really need, there are so many books in library, we can not all read them. So to the english, why not our teachers placing students in classes in major? We shuld learn specified English.
We appeal a reform in China EFL, just as Martin suggested on improve the equipment for English learning, including hardware and software equipment. I think it is difficult for China to achieve the goal, according the reality of our economy. And you know we have so many people in China and so it really will cost a big deal. So I think the reform will be hand back for some time.
Thus we must use equipment our school provided for English learning as we have the superiority. And we must create a English environment ,it is very important.
we can’t deny that there are many defects in the Education System in China now. But every country’s education system has its own problems.I think the examination-oriented education system is the most urgent part to reform.It is really a crucial process to transform it to a holistic education system. Just take the English examination as an example.In the past 20 years,English test is concentrated on grammar.Most of the students learn English through doing the exercises of the books.We don’t need to practice oral English.We can get high scores even though we can’t speak English.The reform should not only focus on the facilities but also the goals of the education. We should reform it according to the social demands.We don’t need the very high scorers. The real English speaking environment can not only rely on the improving of our facilities. The government is trying his best to improve it. But it is very difficult for China to accomplish the reform in just a few years. So there is still a long way to go.
In the past, a mount of work has been done to reform EFL education in China.The EFL education achieves some degree of success. But there is still many problems in it. The reform is inadequate. In addition, creating an English-speaking environment is the key of learning English well. But many places in China including university campus lack of the environment. So English education needs both the reform and the English-speaking environment.
Undeniably,the reform has greatly improved the teaching and learning facilities and aroused Chinese students’ interest of learing English.However,softwares are more important than hardwares.Unless the evaluation and testing system for English proficiency be adjusted to focus more on listening and speaking, rather than just writing,the students can really Master English.
The article “What Does Reform Mean” shows me that reforming EFL is much more difficult than I thought. Though the Ministry of Education has stated the policy, there’re still many problems to solve, including changing people’s mind and creating hardware. Obviously, most universities or colleges haven’t finished creating proper hardware. In my university, there are multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs that may be not good enough. But I seldom enter them except attending English classes. As I know, most of these classrooms are free for students. And I realize we should do much more to improve the English speaking environments when if we create ones.
The Ministry of Education want to reform EFL education indicate that the government is trying to improve the situation of English studying. the purpose of reform is good, but they are some problems when carry out the measures. The thing we expect is seeing amendment in measure rather then the high effective result.
We does need reform in our English teaching system, but it may meet lots of obstacle and it will take a long time to finish these goals.
As the large population in china, and the escalating students amount in university year by year, it is hard for the university to carry out the western mold in English teaching.
What’s more, the traditional characters inhered from our ancestry, make us a serene, uncreative nation. As for the reason, we students tend to just listen to the teacher’s instruction, without critical thinking and questioning.
But it doesn’t mean we don’t need to change or reform, to the contrary, we have to take an action inmediataly. It may take a long time, but I surely we will success at last.
We have to admit that there’re many drawbacks of chinese education.In the recent several years,China has been turning from examination-oriented education system to quality-oriented education.Whereas,education reform don’t like the reform and opening,so we can learn from foreign experiences.Although Chinese government is trying her best,the headlines of many newspapers are glutted with inside stories of education everyday. Such phenomenons,that there’s always something wrong with the multimedia classroom in many universities and sometimes students have to pay to enter the English acquisition libraries,do exist.The strategy of developing the country through science and education is China’s basic national policy.More manpower,material,financial resources and great responsibility should be devoted to education so as to help its development.Furthermore,as to the English speaking environment,I quite agree with Martin’s proposal.
When I was a middle school student.The schoolmaster told us “Our school has computer lab and sound lab now .What a great!” And I was allowed to the lab once per-month. When I was a high school student, I went to the lab once a week or once two weeks. Now I go to the lab once a week. Cmpare with the students , who are educated Central or western China, I should be rejoice, althoug those lab do not match the definition telling on the wed side.
The reform aims are the aims we want to achieve but we can not only see the current deficiency and how far away we are still from the goats. We should also know what we have already done for the education while in the past we had nothing. That is the improvement and that is the effort we have made. After all, China is a developing country and China is a big country. The situation is complicated. I believe it is coming better and better but it also needs time to achieve the aims. It is still a long and tough progress.
In my opinion,reform means great changes and the biggest problem is the gap between its large population and limited resource,so everything will not go as we expect.we should have much tolerance and patience.Our goverment has made great effort to provide a better evironment for us to live,learn and work,we can not ask more. as a college students, what we can do and always will do is to impove our spirits,the spirits to learn more,listening more,reaing more and writting more in order to imporve our english and this is the thing that really matters.we should depend on ourselves when the resouce is limited but we can not forgive wasting which the article report.
Obviously ,China is exerting all that he can do to change this situation.It seems,however,
that things are easier said than done!To completely reform not noly the establishment of english education but the system of whole english education,lots of price should be paid!And it can not bear fruit at short notice.China is a developping country whose economic and educational development are not balanceable in south and north,which evokes the difficulty of refoming!Numerous improvements have been acquired so far which worth all of us to praise,rather than complaining his defects all the time! I do believe that one day the reform in china can get there!It is a long time,tough work after all.
Reform will take a lot of trouble, so the administration in China are not willing to do it. If the administration implements the reform, it will face a lot of social debates, not only from students, but also from the critics and the like. It is difficult to utterly put the reform into practice. It needs time and patience. Not everybody accepts it. Besides, multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs, English acquisition libraries and English speaking environment all take a fortune. Huge amounts of schools, universities or institutes won’t pay the cost, they can’t afford them. In my view, ESE is the most important one. Universities and students both should make an effort together to create one. Universities can offer the stages and students have the determination to speak English as much as possible, just like the natives do. Practice more, and we will get what you expect.
The article reminds me one of my friends, Judy, who major English in Financial College, can’t well produce comprehensible English with the lack of the English environment and equipments after four years college study. On one hand, we may due it to the college; on the other hand, we are the key factors. In the senior, high school, we are lack of the equipment, we can’t learn English well; but when we most can surfer on the Internet in college, we mostly can’t self study English and use the numerous materials on net, neither. So, the decision is most important than the facilities.
As for china government, they made every effort to improve the level of the citizens, no only the economic, but also the residence, education, medicine etc. But problems in china are so complex that we can’t settle them in a time. Thanks the author for declaim the reforms situation of EFL in china, we should make response to the reform.
A reform is necessary for English education in China. But it doesn’t mean that only a good physical environment is provided to us that we could master the skill of English. If all the multi-media classrooms, computer labs, sound labs, English acquisition libraries and English speaking environment are prepared, all Chinese students could speak good English? I don’t think so. External factors only play a role through the internal factors. So the best reform to English education should be the stimulation to students’ learning interest.
Obviously, the situation of english education in china is just like the survey shows. Although the relevant department has tried their best to perfect the circumstances, there are still not enough resources for every student to meet their needs. But from a pratical point of view, our china is still a developing country, and the population of china is the largest in the world, so it is so hard for us to provide so much computers with printer to each student and the world wide web free.
The reform of education has been advocated for many years, and of course it has got some achievements, such as the Tuition-Waiver for the compulsory education and so on. The level of education is so important for the development of a country, but at the same time it is not a easy project to reform it to meet all the people’s need.
I think the problem of english education has got the governors’ attention. The reform is on the coming road. We just should believe our china has the ability to resolve the problem very well.
It is really that we failed the reform of EFL education. But we must admit the difficulties we faced. The reform of EFL education is a long-term task, it needs to take many years of efforts. The failure lies not only in the Ministry of Education, Universities, teachers or students, it is related to the long-term development pattern of China. After all, China is still a developing country. Another important point, many students who do not major in english would not take a long time to study english and speak english. They only want to get a job after graduation and they use english rarely. Perhaps, they will gradually forget english after working a few years. They would not expect the university to prepare very good English teaching facilities. As to me , I think the government should take measures step by step .To change the motivation of studying english is the most important.
Every time before we make a conclusion, we should bearing in mind the fact that China is a developing country. All we know that what we need is a reform, a change which aims to modernize EFL teaching on campuses. There are various kinds of standard to measure the results. There are also many suggestions and methods which are proposed by experts in various fields. All above are just something that exist on paper. We should face the truth of China’s society. What we should admit is that China has paid attention to this problem and China is making improvement day by day, maybe this improvement is so tiny that many western observers fail to see.All we need is time.