English, a language you have to learn?
By Amy Shi (That's Shanghai)
Updated: 2004-04-01 14:52

A casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that the first English phrase learners are taught in Shanghai is, "My English is poor." But as Shanghai is forced into contact with the English-speaking world, fluency in English is perceived to be not just advantageous but even necessary for a lucrative career. No surprise then that with demand growing faster than supply, English language training means big money for the trainers as well as the students.

Last year, compulsory English tuition was implemented from primary grade one and there are plans to establish 100 bilingual schools throughout the city. But where the serious money is being made is in private training centres. It is estimated that the market for English lessons outside the formal school curriculum is growing at 60 per cent per year and determined learners are spending thousands of RMB each year on courses to develop their English skills.

Along with the cash injection, overall standards of teaching have risen. Ten years ago the industry might have been characterised by the image of fresh-faced foreign teachers taking time off from backpacking, crammed into classrooms after a minimum of training. That phenomenon has not gone away, as one ex-teacher admits: "I wanted to travel and teaching was just a means for me to get a free ticket out here and work for three or four months to make enough money so that I could continue on to Southeast Asia."

Fortunately for English learners, if not for the schools, the situation is changing. With some 1,000 schools providing English training in Shanghai, there's fierce competition between institutions. "All out war in fact," says Ken Carroll of Kai En English Training Centre. It's an apt metaphor. Schools spy on each other, sign up for courses at rival institutions in order to sabotage classes, and use guerilla tactics to grab students.

Aggressive discounting is also common. At press time, Wall Street is publishing RMB 2,900 coupons in newspapers, to be used against a 15-month English-learning programme. They'll even throw in a free course in business English. Meanwhile, ABC offered two weeks of free lectures to lure students. Buy-one-get-one-free, get three free months when you sign up for a year, second course half price - all these are offers made by English training centres in the last year. Not the kind of marketing you would expect from an educational institution, perhaps, but a mark of how intense the competition has become.

While bigger brands are anxious to maintain their reputation, smaller concerns are just struggling to survive. "We advertised in the newspaper," says a spokeswoman for a traditional English training centre quoted in China Youth Daily, "but found that the ads of another organisation took up almost the whole page, while ours was squeezed into a corner."

Smaller schools like this one face enormous pressure from big international organisations with huge advertising budgets - between RMB 1-2 million in some cases.

A mastery of English can be a pusher on one's career ladders in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an. With the number of English learners expands, The English training has grown into a promising business in China. [file photo]

Another way organisations can fight the competition is by specialising. Schools now offer courses as diverse as business and baby English, and even TEFL and TESOL teaching certification for English native speakers. Broadly, though, the market has divided itself into three sectors, catering to different students' needs and income brackets.

Traditional language centres - teachers and students in classrooms, complete with blackboards, pads and pencil cases - are still popular, particularly with middle manager types in their twenties who need to function in an English speaking workplace or aspire to join joint venture companies. University students eager for more speaking practice can also find these kind of language centres attractive, as can bored housewives looking for ways to boost their social circle or burn some of their copious spare time. In Shanghai, schools like English First and Kai En offer fluency-focussed learning for groups of up to 16 pupils. Teachers employ a variety of resources to create their own lesson plans, typical TEFL style, with textbooks, film, television, roleplay and game simulations used to encourage student participation. The prices at these centres could not be described as cheap - a course could cost as much as a month's salary - but compared with trendier options, they begin to look almost affordable.

One trendier sector of the industry which is becoming increasingly dominant is assisted learning. This combines interactive multimedia software with native speaker encounters. Students must first complete modules in multimedia labs and then practice and revise the content in small groups with a foreign teacher. Global heavyweight Wall Street is one such enterprise, boasting 440 centres in 22 countries around the world. They entered the Shanghai market with an initial investment of RMB 40 million, setting up plush offices in grade A space like Jinmao Tower, Westgate Mall and Xintiandi. Charging up to RMB 124,100 for a complete set of courses, Wall Street pays its teachers five-figure monthly salaries and targets top-end executives with convenient, first-rate facilities and modules that can be completed at the student's own pace. Not only that but "you get to know many rich people here, successful businessmen in particular," says one Wall Street student, Chen, quoted in People's Daily. "They might be of help to you in the long run."

The third market is not so much English teaching as test preparation. This method is dominated by local operators and is geared toward students preparing for English proficiency tests like GRE, TOEFL and IELTS, which qualify them for further studies abroad. The Beijing-based New Oriental Education Group hit the industry a decade ago and has achieved almost cult status in this sector. It branched out to Shanghai in September 2000 and over 200,000 students have been through the school here in the past four years. Test preparation is not focussed on reading English so much as reading between the lines, learning what to expect in various exams and mastering the systems, patterns and probabilities of specific test papers. It's the ultimate antithesis to learning English for its own sake. "Some teachers would have almost ethical problems with this," points out Ken Carroll.

The Beijing No 1 Intermediate Peoples' Court had ethical problems with it too. After a trial that lasted two years, New Oriental was fined RMB 10 million in compensation for copyright and trademark infringement and ordered by the court to stop copying TOEFL, GRE and GMAT exam papers developed by the US-based Education Testing Service (ETS) and Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC).

Though the industry still has its seamier side, it also boasts world-class training institutions and cutting edge teaching methods. Naturally, students are well advised to carefully research the market in order to find a reputable institution that suits their individual needs, capabilities and interests. After all, ABC isn't as easy as 123. It is also, believe it or not, about communicating and sharing different cultures and opinions. Maybe one day Shanghai's proud English speakers will greet visitors with a confident, "My English is poor, but do you want to go back to my place and talk about grammar?"

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