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 ↩
“Reform”, it’s a fashionable word in China these years. It also happened in education area. As all of us Chinese students know, English is the second language for us and we should learn English from primary school.
In recent years, we know that, more and more university to reform the way of teaching English. Multi-media classroom, computer labs and sound labs were built in most of university. But the reform for learning English has no harvest. As we known, there is a huge economic difference between west and east china, although the Ministry of Education advocated the reform. In the condition, our ministry is in a dilemma situation.
But we couldn’t complain for this, there are more and more Chinese know the importance of learning English, even in this way, people have awareness for learning English , the reform can be successed.
Through these actions, we can know that the Ministry of Education has determination on EFL reform.
The aspects this article mentioned is about hardware facilitates such as computers, floors, books and so on. We all know that these facilitate need considerable capital support. China as a developing country, it is normal that we cannot accomplish all of it within short time. The rich achieve the requirement earlier and others do it step by step.
When does the hardware facilitate requirement can achieve is not the key point, the determination on reform is more important. It is mean we realize the defect on English education, then we can improve this situation through many aspects, hardware is just one aspect of it.
Besides, English learning requires the public facilitate and our efforts. So if we want to learn English well, ourselves are also a important point.
China English education needs reform, but this reform can’t just rely on some audio-visual equipment. Of course, equipments will work, but more importantly, people who uses them should use properly. However, in some school in China, teachers don’t use them at all, they prefer to teach their students in Chinese. And these equipment become what they show to people how modernized their school is.
My hometown is a developed town,so when I was in primary school , I never learned the English and even in the middle school the implements in English classes droped hehind. I did not know what is the PPT and just in the collage I have classes in the multi-classroom. And in the middle school we never had oral classes and I had never see the foreign teachers even in the collage.While now in in primary shool has the English classes,it means that pupil need to learn English in the primary school and the multi-classrooms can be seen in the school. I think that it can help them to learn English well .So I think the reform is possible and useful.
In my opinion , the original purpose of the Ministry of Education to reform EFL education is to do some useful things , but there are really many problems in carring out successfully .
It will take time for a new thing to perfect itself and gradually replace the older one. In the process of the reform，the new problems will come out and be solved.
As to the reform of the EFL education , there is no doubt that it also exists a lot of problems. However, it is not enough to reform only on using more and more modern equipments , the most important and effective reform lies in the reform of thoughts.
The conditions you described really exist in chinese universities,which are more severe in some 2nd tier,3rd tier universities. Even in the 1st tier universities English progammed classrooms are rare, and only one old computer in one classroom without connected with internet; English libraries occupy a small area in the whole libraries, and the foreign books are not let to lend and check out; The English books are designed complicated and no more good to let us acquire English; Some administrators of universities are corrupt and so the school lack the fee to change the bad facilities of English teaching environment.
The real EFL reform should begin with the elimination of corrupt officals of education system.,and change the English teaching books to real English acquiring books, and improve the English teaching facilities and adjust the English teacher troops including both chinese English teachers and foreign English teachers, just the English teachers who really want students have the acquisition of English and care about the future of them authentically remain finally.
When we are talking about “reform”, we have to consider the money. Each school has lots of departments, and all of them want to improve themselves. But the money is limited, and in which way the school should distribute the money? I believe the Guangzhou University of Foreign Studies will have better equipments. So, if a school wants to improve its English teaching, it will reform easily.
I suppose the reformation which launched by the Ministry of education was put the cart before the horse. According to my education experience, where the most imperative of English education facilities are local middle schools, not universities and colleges. The English learning in post-graduate students is based on self-taught and self-conscious. I still remember my high school English teacher took a tape player with her when she entered classroom everyday and always up and down in PLAY and BACK. We could conclude from this reformation that the authority of Chinese education doesn’t acquire the basic and essential problems happened in regular schools.
Our education system put a lot of money on EFL teaching, we enjoy more and more teachers and high level quality of equipment, such as multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs, but with little effective. Take myself for example, the college which I attended before has a number of multi-media classrooms. But in fact we only had very few classes in them. Most of us had no opportunity to enjoy such equipment. What’s more, we did have classes in computer labs and sound labs, but what the problem is? We did not use the computers or sound equipment and had lessons as in traditional classrooms. For us the reform is just a method to achieve the assignment of education systerm but not for students. So if university want to reform, do something really good for its students.
What does reform mean, it is a very deep question. Maybe, reform means changing something at present and make better in future. It is a long process and need to correct and practice. Since 1978s, China has carried out social and economic reform, which makes China get a great progress. However, lots of questions have not resolved until now, at the same time, many new questions appear, such as great gap between western China and eastern China. It is fortunate for us to study in a well-equipped University, compared to other schools, especially Remote mountainous area schools.
For using English, Sometimes we communicate with foreigners, sometimes we do research to refer to foreign literature. So English studying is a long progress, which follows all my life. For English studying, there are two factors, one is teachers and another is English-studying students. Maybe teachers mean English education and English-studying students represent English practitioners. On the one hand, we follow teachers’ instructions to study, on the other hand, we should tell right from wrong. We should remember that our final purpose to study English is to communicate with others, including foreign culture and foreigners.
Afer having read the article,I find a little surprising. It’s a little diffrent from what I see.I come from HuBei ,a province not as rich as BeiJing ,ShangHai .From junior ,senior middle school and colleage ,I didn’t see things serious like that.So I think it’s beliving for me. In my eyes ,the reform is very rapid ,when I study in elementary school ,there’s not computer lab,but several years later ,it’s very normal.Many kids now known how to chat on QQ ,and searching on line.We can’t imagine what things will go on in ten years.Although there’s much problem in reform ,but I think there are much significent attempt.It will make more and more child benifit from it. Let us wait for it ,and do some change, I fell optimistic for it.
It is hard for you foreign teachers to accept the EFL situation here in China, but we are all used to it. I thought about it twice, maybe some of your standard is a little too Idealistic, but we do need investment on the facilities indeed.
We are told again and again so many times, that there are four kinds of skills in English learning, listening, speaking, reading, and writing, but till now, only the forth aspect satisfies students’ needs, because as long as there is a paper and pen, we can practice writing skills, that is simple. However, the speaking skills require not only the motivation to learn, but also to check it over and correct wrongs. That means we need computer labs and sound labs a lot. But as we know, our school, our whole country is not that rich, so, maybe we have to wait a long time to get these facilities.
After reading the text, I wonder when did this college survey take. I think the result was totally out-of-date. Most of the colleges in China have those requisite facilities, which were normally operatable.
The reform of EFL was not implemented perfetly, but both the government and colleges are making effort at it. I believe it will be easier for students to learn English as a foreign language in the near future.
EDITOR’S NOTE: THE SURVEY WAS CONDUCTED 2007 AND 2008
Firstly and most importantly, china is the biggest one of the developing country. The particular condition of our nation determines the economic development will have the features of regionality and sequence. So does the TEFL.
In the past several years, the coastal areas of china have been making great efforts for TEFL’s progress. As we all see, the developed areas own the most top class universities and the best educational resources of china. So I believe that they would produce a newly feasible and creative reform about TEFL with the highly favorable conditions, and then execute it successfully.
From the nationwide perspective, all the territories fulfilling the dream of reform do need more time. All Chinese have the confidence on the development of TEFL in our motherland everywhere, when all aspects of society such as economy get the complete advancement.
After reading ‘What does reform mean’, I am surprised to find that the modernized teaching of English as a foreign language is a complete failure in China. Before reading the article, I have not realized it because it’s too common in our life. The reforms contain the four parts: Multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs, English acquisition libraries and English speaking environment. They all are good ways to improve our English, but why they fail to meet their works? I think the main reasons are that: 1, the reforms don’t carry out from the students’ requirements. 2, the reforms don’t work well in some aspects.Such as: multi-media classrooms, we only can use them when we have the class; the computer labs, althought we can use them freely,but most of the computers have no access to the WWW and the labs don’t have the printers. It’s very inconvenient for the students. And in the English acquisition libraries, we are not allowed to borrow the books because the English books are expensive. English speaking environment, there are also Chinese.And so on. How the reforms can work well since these problems exist? And how can we solve these problems? Maybe not only the ministry of education should think about it,but all of us.
AS our country take open and refrom policy,our education also open to the world.More forgein come to china,and more chinese choose to go abord.Of course,EFL,become more and more popular.I have study English about 10 years ,what I have learned.Just reading simple articles,just have a little skill to listening few words.The worst is speaking.I merely can communicate an English speaker with comman words.It’s the most serously . We study communication ,but we cann’t communication.
For most of the opinions in the article “China EFL: What Dose Reform Mean?”, I cannot agree with more. Chinese education system does need to be reformed not only in English teaching and learning but also in other subjects. However, the reform does not just rely on equipments such as multi-media. Frankly speaking, equipments are important factors, but how to use them properly is more important. Some universities and colleges are full equipped, but the teachers and students do not use them at all so that these equipments all go to waste. Therefore, we should emphasis on the ways of teaching and acquisition instead of on the facilities.
Comparing with the past, the English environment has improved a lot, from no computer and multi-media classrooms to many ways for us to learn English. However, it is not the most suitable environment for English study, and there are plenty of disadvantages now. I think more emphasis should be given by the government and the school to EFL education
English teaching reform has attracted the attention of our country.Countries put forward a lot of measures to improve the teaching of English.Although you get the effect is not very significant,it laid as more people realize the importance of reform.This is a wonderful beginning,we can work hard, waiting for gradually achieving.All the people are to work hard, I believe that success is in the near future.Our country is a developing country,however, the reform measures adopted in recent years, we have developed very fast. Reforms can make our country rapid development,and similarly, it will make our education system has become more perfect.
We all know the importance of English, so we began to study English when we attended the primary school.
With the development of the economy, there are a lot of reforms in the teaching of English, for example, many universities have Multi-media classroom, computer labs and sound labs, but the student do not study English well. We are puzzled and want to know the reason. As we known, the way of studying English is becoming better, but we did not change our attitude to English and use them very well.
In my opinion, we should change our attitude firstly. The purpose of studying English is to master a language, not to get a good grade in the exam. The grade of the CET-4 and CET-6 show nothing. The importance is that we could use it. So I think , we should reform our attitude , not hardware.
China wish to present to the world an immaculate image of their nation, in whatever manner the product is achieved. The bottom line appears to be, so much effort is given to the preparation for the “Reform” itself, however, after the event, nothing will change in China. But, China has the largest population in the world. And as is stated in the article, China expects 10 million1 new college students to attend its +2,2362 public colleges and more than 1,300 private colleges. So the Ministry of Education is not easy to try and control such a vast lot of people by simply launching a “reform EFL education”
As the article writing“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.”
Reforming ELF education means ELF education will become better and better.The ELF education reform not only improve students reading,writing,but also improve their listening and speaking.Although government invest on multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs, English acquisition libraries and the creation of English speaking environments,most of them can’t be used.On such conditions,less multi-media,computer labs and sound labs,English acquisition libraries can be used by college or university students.The less they use,the less work.In other words,the ELF education is failure.
If multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs, English acquisition libraries are operatebale and students can use them,I think the ELF education reform will be suscessful.
I think the chinese education systems exist serious problems.Many schools establish Multi-media classrooms,computer labs,sound labs and some other facilites just want to meet the supervise but not think the students needs.Many facilites just for us to visit but not to use!There is anothher problem,that is,so many students,but so few facilites.The school’s administers are good at doing surface working,maybe they have not be aware of what they have done is not only a waste of money but also affect the students futures,they just breach of duty!
So I think the most important is to reform the school leaders’conceptions,they should be on their duties,and be responsibilities for the students-who are the futures of our country.
Reform means change the status of current English teaching methods. Today, most of Chinese teachers teach English in a wrong way, they train the students to pass varies of exams, but cannot speak correct English in reality. Pass varies of exams does not help us in communication which is the essence of a language. There are some persons who dedicate to change the status of English teacher in China. For example, Li Yang, who advocate “crazy English”. In his opinion, we shouldn’t be shy to speak English, and we should learn English by learn sentences and phrases, and we should use those sentences once we know them.
Teaching method is one aspect, and English environment is another aspect. One could learn English quickly if put him in an English environment, if lack the English environment, it hard to learn English well though we put a lot of effects on it. So we should create an English environment by ourselves.
The ‘hardware’ in EFL education is good enough in many universities in our country, I think. We have perfect multi-media classroom, sound lab, etc. But ‘reform’ doesn’t only mean embark a lot of money in this scheme to buy advanced equipment, it also suggests the change of education system in our country. Vocabulary and grammar are very important, indeed, but if we focus solely on these will lead to a bad ending—no surprise why so many students pass the CET-6 but can not express their meanings clearly to others. The ‘reform’ will take a long time in China and certainly, meet some obstructions. But it is necessary.Maybe, someday, everyone realize that our aim to study English is using it to communicate with English-speaker, not passing the CET, the reform is successful.
In my opinion, our country is trying to reform to provide a comfortable environment for us to improve our English. Using these equipments for teaching can arouse our interests and learning with fun. This is very helpful for us. However, reform asks for a large number of money. Even we have enough money and put the money into education, there are still some problems. For example, how to use these equipments efficiently. Sometimes we use them but do not get the result we want.
The reform is not worth the prise.Multi-media can include multiple informations for students ,but the outcoming is the student can not remember so much and high cost of electricity adds burden to these poor schools.
I consider the study pattern of our age is effective, reciting text ,listen to the tape, remember word and expressions.
In junior and senior schools, the reform should combine the old patten and the new one together.
For those guys who havn’t the original motivation of commanding the language,let him alone.
I think the equipments help a lot. We can learn English more easily in a new way. English is more popular now than in the past. During my middle school time, if we spoke English after English class, someone may see us in a strange way. Now it is common to find everybody speaking English, especially some English words between a whole Chinese sentence. That should partly owe to the multi-media equipments. English is hot now!
I remember one of my English who likes to use Multi-media classrooms very much.
She knows how to crab our attention by using some Multi-media contents.
In my opinion, introducing the Multi-media in English Teaching is for increase our interests in learning English, instead of improving the effects when teaching during the English class.
Obviously there lie so many problems in our national education system, what’s the solution to these problems? Reform is so necessary, for the outer condition is changing all the time, suitable adjustments should always go with the fact. But, in some occasions, it is a bit difficult for us to understand.
This is not strange, the only thing we need to do is concentrate on the effect of the reform. Then, we give our voice and make the authorities to make changes.
So, I think it make no sense to know what the reform means, it’ll be wise for us to see the result of the reform.
According to this article, the reforms contain the four parts: Multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs, English acquisition libraries and English speaking environment. But what I really want to say is that these are all external reasons why we cannot learn English well. As we all know, studying is a matter related with ourselves, so the crucial point is we should search for some subjective reasons from ourselves, since there are also lots of students learned English well. If we make decision to achieve our goal, if we could insist learning English, the result will be totally different.
This article referred to several different reform means which were efficient to the situation of the EFL education in china now. I think Chinese collages need these reforms. But in fact, not every school/university has such a good situation to do these under the current environment. For example, maybe some 1st universities have the Computer labs and sound labs. But most of time, it was operated for only one part of the students, not anybody. That means only a little labs or special classrooms for only a little person to use.
Improving the use of facilities in the collage would be good for the students’ English learning. But it still has a long way to make efforts to claim and improve the rights and the benefits for the students.
China is a developing country, and the unbalanced economic and social development among different areas continue to exist for a long period. With that result in some cities colleges and universities visited have the requisite facilities for English teaching, while others are in a completely different situation. But now our country become stronger and stronger, this situation will change. And by now we still have many misunderstandings in English pedagogy and methodology, so there is still a long way to go with our English reform.
Firstly,I admit that the equipment is important in English learning, the morden mult-media classroom to watch English movies, the walkman to practise listenning English, and so on. However this expensive equipment cann’t be afforded by every shool,especically in the west part of China. I am from the west of China, so I know the true conditions of education there.There are lots of gaps between the east and west.
Fortunantely, the studying is not only determinded by the hard condition, the students in the poor areas can study very well through spending more time on studying English. So I think in the education field,there will not be large change in the west of China, what we can do is that studying more hard, without any morden equipment.
What Does Reform Mean? It means multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs, English acquisition libraries or English speaking environment? We have owned all of them, no matter the 1st tier, 2nd tier 3rd tier or even 4th tier colleges and universities! Unfortunately, there is a paucity of students could speak and write comprehensible English, what a lamentable fact! Investigation reveals that Tools and methods mentioned above cost a lot but are noneffective! Well, simple reason, due to the irresponsible administrative staffs, student facilities languished in an inoperable state of disrepair or nonexistence, and the superiors are blind to that, what a joke! Who are the supervisors for the mandate? Are the supervisors appointed righteous? Hard puzzle! Problems won’t be solved before the puzzle unknoted!
China is rapidly developing ,so the achievements accompany by failures.The reform of Education is our country’s biggest defeat!Some days ago,the Minister of Education had been removed from office,this thing indicated that China will go on reforming Education.It is very good original intention and policy that the Ministry of Education launched a new campaign to reform EFL education at the turn of the 21st century.However,the policy is changed in practice by some people. For example,mutil-media classroom,computer labs and sound labs etc just get ready for inspection from the superiors,the students never be able to utilize these resources.How too defeated!I best wish that the future of Education will be more bright.
Reform is always difficult. It will be resisted by many people who benefit from the old system. Money is also in need, but corruption is also flooded. So a good reform needs a very long time.
I think most people had realized this problem. We found that we have to learn many things that we were not interested at all because we had to pass the exams. We learn things passively. Actually our government had realized this problem too. And many experts always consider the best policy for China. But to be fair, it is not easy to reform the policy for China is a large developing country. We must do this step by step. And the government had proposed some policies and that CET-4 certificate is no longer a requirement for graduating in many colleges. There is still a long way to go. But I believe that we will solve this problem one day.
The reform has completely lost its original objects. One reason of this could be the money thing, in some area of China, for example western China, the universities and colleges can’t afford the multi-media classrooms, computer labs, sound labs, English acquisition libraries and some other things. But I have a question: will we learn English well with these modern equipments but without any our own effort? I don’t think so. With the four great lies press on us, with a environment of learning for test, with attitude of mute English but no acquisition English, I don’t believe this reform will go far. It is set to fail because it don’t really change the essential thing such as the fact of learning for test, the creation of ESE. Reform is often a personal wises of officials of the ministry of education but no real action for changing the situation.
The situation you described is true in China .Although china has reformed and opened for many years ,and the economy of China has been greatly improved ,the facilities for English teaching is very poor now .Another problem is that the equipment of different areas differs .Compared to the central and west parts of China ,the rich coastal city`s facilities are head and shoulders above. But this is hard to change in a short time. In my opinion, the first our government should do is cut down the number of the college ,make serial 2nd tier or 3rd tier college unite into one. And then our government should increase the payout of the education ,especially on the facilities of English teaching .Beside the equipment to build a good English circumstance ,the reform include many other aspects .Only more and more people focus on the progress of the reform, can we reduce faults in our way .
With China’s accession to WTO, the social demands of English ability are highly increased.
How to make the graduate dominate in the increasingly fierce competition is an important task we have to face. I believe that the ultimate goal of learning a foreign language is to communicate in a foreign language, and the most effective way is communicative practice.
Foreign Language Teaching is an extremely complex task. How to coordinate the relationship among teachers, students, teaching materials and teaching environment, as well as the rational allocation of resources, is a realistic and urgent issue
placed in front of us.
College English teaching reform aims to improve student’s comprehensive English proficiency. In recent years, many schools made great efforts to reform the teaching of English, and got a lot of valuable experience. I think that as long as we follow certain rules of teaching, and the future of the reform is bright.
Our teacher always say that when they were students, there were no midia-classroom, computer and sound labs, the teacher wrote everything on the blackboard and the students wrote them down on their on notebooks. Reform means we will change the current teaching model, including equipments and methods. There is no chance to avoid talking about the money, becouse we can do none reform without necessary money. A funny phenomenon is that all administrators of college crying that they have no money while driving luxury cars. I do not want to say more about this, I do not know if this is the peculiar phenomenon in China, maybe oneday, when the Chinese economy increased and the reform will come along with it.
when i take the first glance at the title”what does the reform mean in china EFL”maybe it has claimed for many years,but the result turns out to be unsatisfactory ,actually in many colleges the hardware such as Multi-media classroom, computer labs and sound labs has been builted ,we have more chance to learn ,What is the real meaning of reform?The most important first and foremost is the educational system reformation ,We should not focus only on English language examinations, but more emphasis on the application of English,Hardware facilities and software reform should be well coordinated.only do this it may achieve a great success in EFL
I am looking forward to reforming in China ESL. However, I want to express some ideas different from the article. At present, multi-media classroom exist in every college and university, even in middle school. We also have computer labs and sound labs in most of high school. There is an English research library in our school, of course, free for students.
I think there two reasons for the failure of ESL in China.
Firstly, we must know that whether all of us is interested in learning English. Just as we know, interest is the best teacher. Not everyone of us needs English, so if someone is compelled to learn English, the result is obvious.
Secondly, a proper ESE is very important. I must say that life is the best teacher for learning language. If we can’t put English in practice, it is just mute English.
A new campaign to reform EFL education at the turn of the 21st century has been launched from Ministry of Education that means to modernize EFL teaching on campuses, pushing it out of its traditional track and equipping it with better technology.
So lots of new apparatuses appear in our classrooms, such as multi-media classrooms, computer labs and sound labs, English acquisition libraries. But if these really help us a lot or little? Yes, they help us improving our English skills in some way.
In my opinion, what we really need is not these ones, but to learn English just to joint with international step in order to strong our country.
Reform and opening up are ways to make china powerful. Reform is a hot word today as everything that does not work well need to change. As the time progress and society advances, reform has become the irresistible tide of day. So, we must change our original way of learning English, we do not want to see that many students , even postgraduates can only read English. Oral English and written English course must be considered to add. Method especially new and different should be introduced to English learners.
I was aware of the importance of EFL when I spent six days studying oral English in crazy English. The training institution created English speaking environments that we could communicate with each other in English. At the same time, we had self-awareness and perseverance of learning English. Obviously, I improved my level of spoken English over there.
However, back to school, we lacked this kind of environments which are paramount to EFL reform. Multi-media classroom, computer labs and sound labs were build in most university, but lacking studying environments, the reform for learning English has no harvest.
So the importance of reform for learning English is to improve the awareness for learning English and inform a environment of speaking English, the reform can be successed.
In our class, we have many equipments and many of them are not been used. Just as ENGLISH ACQUISITION LIBRARIES, computer labs and sound labs and multi-media classrooms, all of this is extremely well.
As the article mentioned, the effects are greatly disproportional with the pay, Chinese students’ English skills don’t improve so much as the ministry of education’s expectation.
What we should reform is the way that our teacher used to teach English, not the equipment. What we should do to learn English better is read more, listen more, write more, and speak more English.
Yes, we need reform. But what does this reform mean? Build more multi-media classrooms, more language labs and other infrastructure construction? We must admit that this can provide a better study environment for us but is it the whole meaning of reform? I suspect! In my opinion, reform still has another meaning. Along with updating our infrastructure construction we should reform our policy. Now the educational policy is not very good because it stress an education that cares only whether the students can pass the exam but the comprehensive ability of the students. The purpose of education is to cultivate people that can make contribution to our world but examination machines.
‘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.’ As a native Chinese, I feel quite ashamed that our society’s problems are so obvious that can be easily observed by foreigners but not the related departments of government. On this so-called ‘reform’, I figure out the problems of the methodology of resource distribution in China, which are becoming bigger and bigger obstacles of China’s moving forward. As a individual, there is very likely few things we can do. But, once we get together in some modern way such as Internet and start a healthy reaction way with central government, many things will be much more practical. Yes, we can! Set up to make a difference, it’s up to you!