Can you answer any of the questions?
EFL/ESL Teaching in China: Questions – Questions – Questions
This article raises numerous fundamental issues which appear to have been overlooked by China in its exuberance to embrace EFL/ESL teaching as China rushes to join the new world order and partake of its share of the global economic pie. This article establishes a solid and fundamental legitimization for asking the politically incorrect, controversial and sensitive questions but leaves their final resolution to the language teachers, graduate students and linguists who have the inherent fundamental duty to seek the answers. (2007) Frontiers in Higher Education, Ch. 10, Nova Science Publishers.
I found many articles are discussing the necessary of learning English to all people. There are many non-native English-speaking countries, and some of them is developing country, like Japan. In Japan, many elites’ English are poor. But this did not prevent Japan from becoming one of the advanced countries in world. Their experience is a good reference for us.
But at same time, as a general graduate, I do not have a good way to express my point of view to managers of education, and the men with stubborn are difficult to accept the views of non-mainstream.
In my eyes, I think EFL have not arrive the target in china. Every year our country spends a great number of money in EFL, and students must study English from primary. But it is pity, most of us can’t talk about with others fluently in English, even we have past CET6. I can’t help to thinking why. Perhaps there are a lot of reasons. For me, China’s education system and the conditions are the important keys. In china schools and teachers only pays attention to students’ test scores, don’t care about their use of English. In their eyes, the student who can get high scores is the best. China is still a developed country, we can’t create good enough learning conditions to all students such as multimedia classrooms and computers.
I enjoyed reading this article from which I could study the pure English. More important thing I got is the belief about ESL teaching in China. Men are blind in their own cause. I guess most Chinese students don’t realize this serious situation and they can’t answer these questions even they don’t think about them at all including me. It’s time to widen our horizons. We should listen to the other voices or different opinions. We should study English as a ultimate goal or interest rather than a tool or being going with the stream. Just like Mr. Martin said, if you do something for others not you would like to do, you will never succeed.
Questions – questions – questions, so many questions, before reading this article, I know that there have been many problems of the teaching EFL in China, for instance, we have learned English for many years, but we still can not use English well in our daily life, (although it has also been made a number of achievements) .But suddenly there are so many problems, so I am surprised and these questions which I had not thought about in depth.
As the article said “China in its exuberance to embrace EFL / ESL teaching as China rushes to join the new world order and partake of its share of the global economic pie.” More and more Chinese people began to learn English, not just students, government employees. But I do not think the 1.3 billion Chinese people should learn English, which is not possible. Is an old man who live in a remote mountain areas, has never seen a foreigner should learn English? EFL is only a tool for us, after all, is not our mother tongue. I am majoring in chemistry, we have to write papers in English, so we must learn English, but the students who in other major must learn English? Not necessarily, I think.
As “How can EFL / ESL teaching in China be called a success?” I think the student who major in business English in this article is a very sad example, perhaps have his own reasons, however, the teaching of EFL in China can not shirk its responsibility. I would like to say that after learning English for so many years, we must be able to use English in our daily life skillfully.
Of course, there are also a lot of questions may not only in this article, if we pay attention, we can find them. And the problem is not terrible, the most terrible thing is not to pay attention to solving it, as the article said “Until the euphoria of EFL / ESL teaching and the huge economic business sector it has spawned are put into proper perspective, China will continue to waste its
valuable resources producing more EFL / ESL failures than successes.”
We have learnt English for many years. But the question is that why we should do that? we should see this phenomenon in different aspects because one phenomenon always have different causes.
In my opinion ,recently many books, newspapers and information have the English as the dominant language around the world,and most advance technology information is published in English.So learn English is absolutely need for our postgraduate students.Language is just a tool for us to learn,maybe in the future English will become a dominant language and the most widely used language in the world.Whether EFL teaching in China a success? As you know,someone have spent so much time to learn enlish ,but when the begin to work a few years ,they will forget the enlish so quickly.What a pity!Bur others in the other hand,they learn enlish very will.In conlusion,we shouldn’t’ judge whether EFL teaching in China a success by only few exmples.In some place EFL is success and some is not. EFL teaching in China is developing,it need improve and change in the furture.
It is well known that most developed countries’ first language is English, so most publications and newspapers
are published in English all over the world. To learn from advanced publications and know the newest messages ,
we should learn English well. Now, English is a world language, if we want to communicate with foreigners, we
should learn English. In my opinion, one can’t get success if he remains in the old rut, so we should learn advanced
technologies from abroad, which demands our English well, in that case, we can communicate with foreigners freely.
To make our country become more powerful, learning from abroad advantages is a good way.
There are so many serious questions about English learning in China. I admit that it is not obvious improvement in Chinese education though there are more and more foreign teachers. Because in many conditions of hiring English teachers, the schools just want to expand their propagation by using the foreigners as a marketing tool, and then they can get high profits. So I think there should be some supervisory agency responsible for this!
My personal answeer to these question is that not all chinese should learn english;EFL/ESL teaching in china is far away from calling success ;EFL/ESL teaching in china if kind of blind leading the blind; we should learn english in a friendly environment .we should thought seconds before we make the polity of whole civils learning english .But what is the help ? we chinese are used to following the polity ,and the educational systems are made asking us to learn english to contribute ourself to economic development . Yes ,development is the most important issue for us ,but seeing the condition , our kids have been leading blindly and they are wasting their energy on a less meaning things .Maybe no country like us ungrudgingly spend so much money on EFL ,we can be proud of fostering the most ESL teachers among the world,can we?
I come here to share one of my own experience. First of all, I was born and raised in guangzhou city, guangdong province. Day back to one day when I was still a middle school or high school student. While I walked on a alley near my house, two kids appeared. In my eyes, they were primary school students. They were playing happily, and suddently they knocked into a passenger and made him dropped something. Then they picked it up, give it back to that passenger and said “sorry” in English. Passing by two kids, I heard they talking happily in English. I was shocked.
After that experience, I come to think about the English teaching on our generation and the generations later than ours. In my opinion, the English teaching on generations later than ours maybe requires more oral practice or something else. Then students in different generations can master English better and better while the generation pass.
It’s really hard for me to answer these questions. And in my point, it’s much better to give simple blame on such exams for CET. The authorities and language experts should take serious reflections on their attitudes towards English. What’s more, English Teachers, less criticized and more important, should change their teaching methods and inspire more students to become interested in English and gain confidence.
My personal experience confirms me that more actions and more measurements should be taken especially in college, where it’s free to express ideas and under less pressure. Half of my classmates had little interest about English, and just wanted to pass the English exams. Sometimes, no book and pencils was found in their desks. And some guys even slept in class.
And my English teacher had no sense about it, and read the long and ugly PPTs as usual. Of course, she did not give us much homework, or ideas about improving English. However, all of students were fond of her ways and gave her high mark. Then the students whose English are not so good did not connect her improper teaching with their bad English.
It’s not so easy to build up a better EFL environment with so-so culture.
When I saw the list of questions, I was puzzled by the word “wine”. What is relationship between “wine” and English? I got the idea after I saw the answer. Yes, Chinese students always complain English is so hard to study well while we forget practicing English every time and don’t persist when we have trouble. In other words, Chinese students don’t have consciousness about employing English in daily life. We just regard English as a mandatory tool to achieve the purpose. So we must to change downright. We must find the joy in English, and practice pleasurably every time.
I have been puzzled for a long time that we still couldn’t master English at all, although we started to learn English from primary school. It is unbelievable we spend 10 years and enormous money into our English learning. At least we still do not frequently use it. China introduces many foreigners to teach us every year, but this questions exits as usual. It is time for us to stop this stupid method to learn foreigner language. Maybe we are so blindly to do it at first. We emphasis too much on the words、grammars and pronunciation learning but ignored language just a tool. Chinglish is OK!
With the development of the economy and society, we do a lot communication with foreigners and most of them make the English the first choice. English is now the most used language in the world. To use it as a tool to make more advancement that is why should learn it. We learn English from grade school. But now seldom of us can speak fluent English.
Why? Maybe it is the concept of the use of English. Most of us look English just as a test school set or the entrance exam must to be conquered. In fact, I think the nost important role language plays is communication. So speak more and you can make that one day.
As a Chinese student,I have been so confused about English education in China. CET4/6 and some other English level exams make most of the students read, write and sometimes listen English quite well. Grammer of English is nothing difficults of many high score students. But sadly, just few of us can speak it pretty good. May be one of the reason is that English is not our first language. I never think that we can solve this problem by asking more and more EFL/ESL to China. If the English envioronment is necessary, we can just study or traval abroad for some while. There is no doubt that we have to aquire English, but we must not be a slave of it! EFL/ESL teachers and workers may help us, sort of. Nevertheless, aquisite English is our own business, nobody could help if we don’t trust our own selves.
This article has reminded me of my foreign friends ,who studies Chinese as his second language.”TCFL”(Teaching Chinese as a foreign language” is a hot majority now.How to teach foreigners Chinese or how to teach Chinese English?In my opinion ,there’s a common priciple:creating the language environment.Just imagine that we’re foreigners in China now .”English is not a sbujuect you study a couple of hours a week.It is something you live 24 hours a day,seven days a week.”
EFL in China is connected with lots of questions.About more than 20 years ago,when we were openning to the whole world,we found that if we didn’t learn English,we would lose.So we engaged in this project.Unfortunately,for this good wish,we have ran a little far.We students are told to learn English from the primary school,only for 2 reason:one,it is useful in your future.The other,it is a course that will have a exam at the end of the semester.
To the second reason,I have nothing to see,only follow it.But it will destroy our motivation to study English all by ourself—if no exam,no English study will be done.To the first reason,it seems so great.But the future is a so illegible thing,we always forget our future.Actually, “95% of Chinese college graduates will not use oral English in their whole lifetime nor will they read any English materials.”As the article said.
We need a revolution.Every one needs some English education,because you can see many English words even on the road.But for further study,it should be your free will.
As we all know, we can’t speak english in the way of an English speaking foreigner. Although EFL has greatly improve our way to English study, we remain to be chinese with many years’chinese speaking experience since we’ re born.I think that is why we could only speak chin-english.
Our thought are completely filled with chinese thought. our daily life are completely linked to chinese culture. We can not get a pure English speaking surrounding as long as we lead a chinese life in china because nearly all the people surrounding you communicate in chinese and think everything in a chinese way.
That is why ESE are so important in China. It can temporarily support us a environment of english speaking. ESE can lead us to get close to an relatively pure English speaking style.
BUT we will never get what we want in english speaking study unless we completely focus our life in stydy english. Just as Martin said:” English is not a subject you study a couple of hours a week…
It is something you live 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
After reading this article, I recognize these questions are really fundamental issues which are overlooked in our education system. “can we talk” why should 1.3 billion Chinese learn English? Almost all people tell us English is more and more important. Sometimes, a good English communication skill means more job opportunities. With the development of China, a growing number of foreigners come to China to do business, and we should learn from foreign advanced technology and cultural achievements. English provided a good bridge for us to exchange with foreign countries. China is multi-ethnic country, has hundreds of languages, so it is a great piece of work that everyone will say that the standard Mandarin, not to mention everyone learn English.
I think that learning English should be adapted to local conditions. Only are people interested in English, they will take the initiative to acquire English. As us if we want to have a more in-depth science study, we need to have the ability to read foreign literature. Good English communication skills will enable us to better communication with the outside world phase. So we need it, effort to master it.
This article points out the main questions in English teaching in China in some acute perspectives.As the article has mentioned,there is really a trend that more and more people in China are influenced by English,but as most of us who has learnt English for more than ten years,we still dare not say that we can use English very well.From kindergarten to college,we experience a lot kinds of English teaching methods,but most of these methods are not suitable for us.Our government want to use a new way to change this situation,so they ask a lot of foreign experts to teach English in China,but this also can do little effect on it,and according to my own experience,just like the problem mentioned by the author,in elementary school,we just treat the foreign English teacher as something strange to us,then in middle school,we can just always ask some easy questions such as“where are you from” “why you come to China”and so on,till now,we come to univerty,but as we have learnt years English,now we still find that we may also can not use English to write a good article or to make a good communication with some foreigners.
After finishing reading this article,I am agree with the author’s viewpoint that it is really necessary for us to build an ESE in China,it is more useful than just send our students to English training classes or even abroad.
As we known, English is a international communication tool.In other country people could not understand Chinese but they may understand English well. But the situation of EL in China still an important question. Nobady can say that he or she has the good way to re solve the question. The questions which is mentioned in the airticle is interesting and important for us .It may give us some ideas about resovle the question of English learning.
Should we learn English? It is true that someone will never speak to a foreigner in his whole life, but I don’t think it means that he doesn’t need to learn English at all. Just like math, we all have computers now, but it doesn’t mean that math is completely useless. It is just a tool, when you want it, you can find and use it immediately. You don’t have to use it perfectly, but you should know how to use it, that would be just fine.
Learning English is not a new thing in china, with the English education industry rapid inflation, many problems come out, and more and more arguments about it. We spend so much money and time in studying English. But the EFL/ESL teaching in China is not succeed. The first problem is most of them are mute English; the second is should we study English? And why we should study English? Different people have different opinions. It seems that there are so many reasons for us to study English, because we should connect with the world, learn advanced technology and introduce our culture to others, read the newest news of the world, add to the WTO and so on. But it means should everyone study well and speak well. It is useless that a person who never need to use any English. But the fact is that English is become a stepping-stone in everywhere, even it is useless or useful. It is not a useful tool for us but a symbol that means you have a high level in your field. so if you want to study it ,make sure that it is useful in the future.
After reading the article, I have a deep understanding about which why we should learn English. At present, communication between countries is becoming more and more popular. The sphere involves in the economic, science and so on. Such as , as my major is Chemistry, other countries in my research area do very well. Our institute often invite the foreigner researchers to give us their topic so that we can know something about their research and we could discuss with them.
It will not only widen our knowledge but also avoid some trouble. I really realize the importance of English. As your English is not well, you will not understand what they say. So we must master the importance language.
I think it is inevitable that although we are taught English, we will learn Chinglish.For one thing,most of English teacher are Chinese,they taught us in the way they were taught.They are good at grammar,not speaking.For another thing,we seldom have opportunity to use English as a communicate tool.In China,most people will not use English in their lives.To us college student,what is important is that we can read English.We think in Chinese,speak Chinese everyday,we inevitable learn Chinglish.
After reading the article “EFL/ESL Teaching in China: Questions-questions-questions”, I still remember the author said that, this is something terribly amiss whit EFL/ESL teaching in China at last. Yes, there are really many problems about English studying about us Chinese people, may be most us know some of this problems, included teachers and students, many times we complained for the condition, but how can we do for this. We students everyone should want to learn English like a language just like our mother-language. But we have the pressure about the exam. May be someone don’t need English in his jobs, but the school ask for you passing CET4.
From the article, I know the foreign experts’ hot seat when they taught English in China. And these problems have placed for so many years, and we students have studied English for so many years, but we still couldn’t use English like a communication language. It may be a sorrowful thing for our education.
I remember Martin once said in class that we learned English to please others, that we did not do it for ourselves, so we had learned it for so many years and still not good at it. I think he more or less got very close to the truth by saying that.
For so many years we were merely trained as parrots. We learnt most because we had to. Once again I insist that students’ interest in learing English is of great importance, that it is not necessary to force every student study English, that to judge English as a languge, not a complicate subject which requires student sit and repeat all day.
The teaching method in China should really be changed. One day, there will be not so heavy a burden to learn English and we will have great fun in praticing English. We are all looking forward for that.
Tell the truth ,for these 8 questions,I can not give the accurate answers.Sometimes the phenomenon of studying English for all the young people shocked me.I can not find the answer.In my experience,studying English takes me lots of time,especially before the period of postgraduating.If I chose a job,I would not use it most of my daily time.So just for some persons who have the intrest and needs to English,it is necessary to try their best to study it.However,for most persons it is not.For another question”Can anyone really be expected to acquire English in this hostile environment?”I want to say “no”.I think the environment of studying English is very important for students.If it is good,you can listen more,speak more,sometimes the environment can impact your interests.Of course the most important factor of studying English well is yourself,is your hardwork.The external factor may play a import role at most time.
I think, in china, maybe all of student should understand basic English, but now all people learn English and spend so much time for English is unnecessary. In fact, we lack a English environment. And create a real English environment is impossible in Chinese society. In usual life, we almost need not English. We just can talk with some classmates in nonstandard English. Indeed, we need some people to command English, but make all people into English, it is a wrong and impossible.
Whether we should learn English and how to learn it well, that is really a question.
Yes, our English teachers care more about the vocabularies and grammar but not the use of language. We have learnt English for 11 years but made little progress. It is really a long way to go for China’s English teaching system.
But we can’t say it is totally wrong for our English teaching system or we should not learn English. As China is becoming more and more globalization, we should know more about western culture and their language. Especially for us graduate students, English is a must for us to learn modern science and technology and read the newest papers.
I really can not give the accurate answer to how can we learn English well. But I think English environment is the main factor. We seldom use English except the English class once a week. So we must provide ourselves English environment by watching more English movies and use it frequently. If we made ourselves “eat, drink and dream English”, we will make better progress.
English is the most extensive language speaking in this world. But it doesn’t mean that every student in china needs to study English. English is a tool for communication. We may use it to talk with foreigners, read literatures, or write English documents in some circumstances. There are many people who don’t need to do these things at their work and daily life. It will save a lot of time for them if they are not required to study English. So I think it is not necessary to set up English courses in primary school and middle school. And I believe it won’t take much time if appropriate environment is given and you put your heart into studying it.
Generally, the policy made by Chinese government lack adequate public participation, so they may not deflect the reality. When learning English become mandatory thing, for example English as a compulsory course, it would upset substantial people, making them lose their interesting in English, even hate English. I always think if we can spare few months to learn English only, we may learn more than in the way we are doing. When we repeat one thing for a long time, it will become our custom. When learning English become our custom, we can acquire English soon.
Among 1.3 billion Chinese people, most of them especially the elders don’t grasp English well even have never learned English before. I think in elders’ bygone era, English was not as essential as bread. However, time is changing. Be able to speak English has become a survival capacity, which is the access to finding a job and getting a further education . In my opinion, it is the rapid development of China in recent decades that makes the significance of English prominent. China is quite a large developing country. In order to draw on the advanced experiences from other developed countries, English as a bridge and beginning is indispensable. Just as the well-known talker Yansong Bai said: if we want to learn America, we may need to begin with language. That quite true, witch can be clearly confirmed by my scientific experiments for the time being. If I cannot understand the progress of my research interest, most of which were published by paper in English, the whole research can hardly go on . However, several years experience of learning English make me deeply feel that to master a foreign language is not as easy as breeze especially for live in a non-English speaking surroundings. Although we make efforts to understand and think with English but actually it’s very difficult to reach that degree, including me to write this review. Therefore, there is a far far way of learning English for us.
There are so many people learn English,but how many people master English and use it fluently in China.I learned English more than 10 years,my knowledge about English only from my English teachers and English books(English textbooks) ,I knew some English words and also can say some English sentences,but I do not understand the culture.sometimes I can not understand why do they do that,very different form ours,I never want to learn the culture when I learn English,and ours teacher also did not emphasize. We need education reform, only this way can we better learn English.
As we all konw that English is one of the most improtant language in our country.I think that everyone has different ideas on learning English.Some one may be loving Englsih,of course,some one may be opposit. English as a tool for communication has a deep influence in our daily life.For my part,if you really love studying English,that is a good thing.But we should not be force to study English. Because there are few people who really need English to do daily things at work and life. It can save a lot of time for them to do other things. So I think setting up English courses in primary school and middle school should consider some excetions.
I don’t think it is possible or needed for all Chinese students to learn English.This potic has been discussed for many years.If you are studying Chinese,you have no need to learn English.But you have to,if you want to get your degree.A language is not to be learned,but you can practice in your daily life to get some skills.So you can find your English is becoming poor when you leave school.So,I suggest let those who need to learn English learn.So,much more money will be spent on a learner on average.It is possible for them to be good at English.
Having read the article”questions-questions”,I am aware of that as the author said that”There are many unanswered questions concerning China’s nationwide EFL/ESL teaching fever.” Many of this I cannot answer. What I would say is only the first question”Why should 1.3 billion Chinese learn English?” As a Chinese student, especilly having studied English for so many years, there are two aspects to explain. We all know that, every student who wants to have further study must pass the English examination. Not only the university entrance examination but also the junior and senior high school common entrance examination. So students have to come with these english examinations. Not other choice. In another hand, as the developent of the whole society, when you hunt for a job, although english is not use in that work field, the company asks for it. So the purpose of learning English is for a job just for a satisfied job.
There are really many problems of EFL/ESL teaching in China, but who don’t have in the development way? The main point is to the old topic—Education Revolution.
The first I want to say is no matter how hard we feel to have the holistic English lesson and do the homework, we have to admit our English level has been improved greatly, beside this , our thought to English education in China has been deepen. The second , from the beginning of this class, we knew there are question need to solve in English speaking in China ,but now the questions are still difficult questions. It is hard to work out. I don`t know the situation in other countries in learning a foreign language, it is very complicated. The third, we learn English for use it to communicate but not to write a novel or poem in English so we should focus less on the grammar . Last but not the least, I hope our offsprings will spend less time on learning English and do it better than us .
For these questions, I think students in EFL/ESL teaching systems have much more rights to seek the answers and require the resolution. But their opinions and feelings are always ignored by others for they’re thought to be naive and count for nothing. They would tell us directly how they think the english learning so hard and boring that would give some hints to make it better.
I don’t think 1.3 billion people should learn English. But the fact is not that. Every student must learn English from child. I don’t know why. Maybe our education system wants to give more choices fto each student. They think you can go abroad, read English book, and do business with foreigners if you learn English. So everybody learn it. Different people have different purposes, EFL/ESL teaches English in different ways based on the different person. Everyone gets his need. I think it is called a success. Maybe someone expected to acquire English in hostile environment, someone is not. I don’t know, because everyone is different.
There are 8 good questions asked in this article. Here, I just answer two of them in details.
For the first question: “WHY SHOULD 1.3 BILLION CHINESE LEARN ENGLISH?”, my answer is simple: for further development of China. English has been the international language and China has been an open countries. We cannot live on earth without interacting with foreigners. Yes, maybe we just need thousands of experts to help the rest communicate; I think, however, there are hundreds of thousands of field that should contact with others in English, which need a large amount of persons to accomplish this job. Also, most of the 1.3 billion are students, who are the future of China. If they can use English well, that is a good thing for our country.
The answer of the second one:” HOW CAN EFL/ESL TEACHING IN CHINA BE CALLED A SUCCESS?” is simple as well: only when the students are able to communicate with foreigners smoothly in English can we say that is a success. First, English is a language; the ultimate goal of a language is communication. The goal of our teaching English is also to help students use English well. Environment is significant for a language. And thus, I suggest teachers should give students such environment, whether it is compulsory or optional.
In summary, for those questions, they are indeed problems that should be solved quickly, good teachers, good environments and strict rules are needed.
When i take the english class, I always ask myself”what are you going to do with it” and always I find no answer.No purpose for the study,how can you make an advance?So just as what MW have said,”you do it for others not for yourself,you will hardly get success”.I find it wrong,when I go to the graduated study,my English is so poor that I can not understand what the paper mean,it takes me more time to learn it again.so when you have the opportunity you’d better try your best,don’t find any excuse.
After reading the article, some feelings come up in my mind. I have never thought these questions before, and I don’t know why I learn English. The only thing I know is that the first time I learn English was in the middle school. After reading these questions, I think for some time. I want to take one of my friends for example to explain why English is so important. His major was mathematics, but his maths was not very perfect. However, after he graduated from the university, he found a job in the bank in Ningbo city. Why? Because his English was so good that there were not many barriers to communicative with foreigners. He also often went abroad. In a addition, I want to take advantage of my study experience to show that English is too important. From the study, I learn that the textbooks in English are easier to understand than those in Chinese. Because my major is mathematics. Chinese mathematics are not as strong as western mathematics.
From the two examples, I think, although we should spend some money and a lot of time on learning English, it is worthwhile to learn some English.
This article has given me great inspiration. As far as I know, the Japanese and Koreans to learn English have never been like us that they often so effortlessly. However, they have achieved very good results. In essence, have we to learn English is too formal? Are we overlooking the most important thing to learn a language, say? Are not we not care too much what is the correct syntax, what is a long sentence? We should make us who know we have to say. ‘What is the Chinese English student’s favorite wine?’ I think each student has a foreign teacher, perhaps they will be happy to learn English. It’s funny, but we all know that is impossible.
As we know, not everyone needs to study student English. In China, there were 1.3 billion people, but only a few of us would have to deal with our work in English by ourselves. The other people, who don’t study English, when they encounter some matter done by English, could turn to the persons who know English. When the persons who have studied English could communicate with English speaker smoothly, I think the EFL/ESL teaching could be called success. Not everyone has to write articles, but that they could read, listen, speak and express themselves is the most important. I think the EFL/ESL teaching in China has made a great progress, the persons who could understand a few English are everywhere, and many of them are very good in English. Though there are still many problems in the EFL/ESL teaching, we should believe that the future is good. Some people just not enjoy studying English, but life is not easy for any of us. So they could also acquire English well if they have to do it.
After reading the article, I think there are a lot of problems about EFL/ESL teaching in China. I still can’t answer some questions in the article even after I read. But I think I would like to tell my opinion. First, I think English is a very useful tool. It shows us a wonderful world through books, songs and etc. If you know English, you always can learn more useful things from English. Second, interest plays a very important role when you are learning English. However, EFL/ESL teaching in China always tells students to study English only for a high score. It can only ruins students’ interest. Third, if EFL/ESL teaching in China does not reform, it can not improve students’ poor English skill. I hope reform would not be a way too long to go.
Unlike Europe in which many countries interacted and communicate with each other or America which was consisted by immigrant culture, China is a country that Han culture always stood in a dominated place. I believe no concept of EFL/ESL have ever been accepted in China 30 years ago. Less success can be seen in each level of education. I want to say that because we are in the way of exploring.
I do think that every student in primary schools and in middle schools should learn English. One can’t use English is limited in his or her development nowadays. But I have no idea about the questions and I am an unsuccessful example of Chinese English education as well. So I hope that someone could resolve and explain these questions earlier.
I felt worried when facing to these serious questions,not only for the questions themselves,but also for a small case changed to be a big one.,I was always puzzled to why we were forced to learn English even we didn’t use them.Maybe it was the governments ‘ false. I didn’t think there was any difference between English and other foreign languages,and English learning should be a free choice to students.I thought only when we solved the question that why English should be learned and who must acquire it,we could know how to teach or learn English,anyway,the reason and purpose for English learning must be reasonable,because the attitude decided everything.
I am too tied to discuss these questions. I have talked about this topic many times. There is nothing perfect. Maybe EFL is bad. But we have not found a better solution. We study English all over the China. And there are still many people who can’t speak in English. But we already have the ability to read, to listen, to write, which is useful. Because of owning the ability, we can get the newest information of our major. Because of owning the ability, we can watch English movie naturally. Because of owning the ability, we can enjoy the entertainment of English. There doesn’t exist a perfect thing. There are still many shortages in EFL. We can make it better.
So many questions! Actually they make me a little depressed . Why can’t most of us make ourselves understood easily after studying English for so many years? Is EFL/ESL teaching in China a case of the blind leading the blind? I think of course it is! The former blind is the teachers in our Middle schools ,but in fact the teachers are scapegoats. The real blind is the education system. We were taught how to read ,how to write, sometimes how to listen ,but the most part of a language acquisition ,speak ,is overlooked . what can we do that days? The teachers even couldn’t speak fluent English. The only way out is a revolution in the education system.
We have to commit that there are lots of problems in EFL/ESL teaching. Some phenomena like the foreign experts are used as a marketing tool to make higher profits are really impressive.And I agree that not everyone in China should learn English.
But EFL/ESL teaching has some advantage as well. Many students are not good at oral English, but they do better at reading. They can read the texts which are in English by themselves. Besides that, more and more people find the deficiency in oral English and they are willing to make progress. Actually, there are more and more students who are good at oral English.
As China is a developing country, there are many problems existing now. Problems are not always bad things if we are willing to face to. The most important thing is that how to solve the problems correctly. We need more discussions and advices.