English teachers call for diversified teaching in classroom

Yang Mingrong, 36, has been teaching English to non-English major students at Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine for more than a decade.

But he feels that many students have not been interested in the subject since day one.

"I'm really bothered because fewer students are taking the subject seriously," Yang said.

He attributes that apathy partly to the fact that passing the College English Test 4 or CET-4 is no longer required for graduation and that the English test requirement in the gaokao, or the National College Entrance Examination, has been relaxed.

Yang was in Beijing in late April for a two-day seminar with 800 other university teachers from across the country. The seminar included discussions on reforming English teaching in universities, with the focus on diversifying methods and making classes more attractive to students.

Many teachers felt that English classes in colleges face many challenges and need reform, especially with Chinese students' English proficiency becoming more diversified.

By 2013, there were 1,166 universities in China giving lessons to non-English major students.

Though whether the English score will be removed from the gaokao is still under discussion, it's likely that high school students will have more than one chance to take the English test, and use the best score for its gaokao result.

"Such changes may cause a brief decline in the English proficiency levels of university freshmen," said Yu Weishen, a professor from the foreign language school of Chongqing University.

"Students may take the examination in their first year in high school and get a good score, and they may just use that for their gaokao and focus on other subjects in the latter two years. Thus, when they enter university, they might need a longer time to adapt themselves to learning English in universities," Yu said.

Diversified teaching in English is now one of the focuses of English instruction in universities.

A recent demographic survey of first year students' English proficiency by Chongqing University showed that 36 percent of its freshmen students come from rural areas or migrant worker families. More than 67 percent of the students come from families in which neither parent graduated from high school.

"This mean that these students barely get the chance to receive extra English instruction before they enter college, and they need to improve their basic skills for learning English," Xiong said.

"Part of the reason for this is because Chongqing University is located in southwestern China, which is economically underdeveloped. But for students who come from the big cities, they have been learning English since primary school and have a good grasp of the language."

Yu has also been researching university student satisfaction in English classes. Up to now, a high percentage of students consider their present English ability far from enough to communicate in general, academic or professional settings. Some of them are also not satisfied with English classes on campus.

Wang Shouren, director of the Advisory Board for College Foreign Language Teaching under the Ministry of Education, believes that teaching English to non-English majors needs to move away from looking at the language as merely a tool.

"We are considering offering more diversified courses for students of different English levels," he said.

"For example, design courses for English for academic purposes and English for occupational purposes for non-English major students."