A relative of mine was to graduate from college this summer. He was eyeing a job in international trade. But one day he asked me: "Why should a Chinese take time to learn a language that is not his own?"

No wonder he has difficulties. He is mentally against it in the first place.

"That is the stupidest comment I've ever heard," I thought of telling him. "It could have been propagated by those who want all the good jobs for themselves and would love to keep their competition at bay."

Of course, that would be using the same conspiracy theory that college kids are so often enamoured with. Truth is, in this era of globalisation, the ability to use English fluently significantly enhances one's job prospects. It is a skill just like any other.

It would be foolish to ask your suppliers, clients or people you come into contact with to learn Chinese because your competitors would gladly talk to them in their language. But on their part, the foreigners would certainly take the trouble to learn Chinese if the need warranted it.

It is a business decision based on cost-benefit analysis, not one of national pride. The waves of Chinese learning English and outsiders learning Chinese attest to the ever-growing integration of China with the rest of the world.

Yet, it is undeniable that there are people in China who detest English-learning. Nationalism is only an excuse.

The real reason, as I suspect, is the way English is taught. The emphasis on memorization is such that no joy is left in the process, only endless irritation.

What students are presented in the classroom is not the language as it is used in real-life situations, but a dissection for anatomical study as if it were a corpse, grammatical niceties and all.

The purpose is not to use the language in real-world communication, but to pass tests that prove you have this ability. Under normal circumstances, these two should mean the same. But it could be otherwise as shown in the following story.

A Chinese student with extremely high scores for American standardized tests was admitted into one of the Ivy League universities. But his professors soon found out that he could hardly understand them in the classroom. Suspecting that he cheated in the tests, school administrators demanded he repeat them. Again, he passed with flying colours. Not till then did they awaken to the reality that the student had mastered the techniques for acing the tests, not necessarily the skills demonstrated in them.

Come to think of it, there are special schools in China that promise to impart all the knowledge for attaining stratospheric scores in TOEFL, IELTS, GRE and others.

The much-maligned annual Band 4 and Band 6 exams have become a hotbed for cheating because many test-takers do not work in areas where English is a necessary tool yet they have to do it for job promotion or for enrolment in certain programmes.

Must English learning be such a pain in the neck?

On a recent trip to Copenhagen, I found most urban Danes spoke fluent English, with idiomatic word choices and little accent. Surprisingly, as I was told, they do not start their ABCs until the third grade, and in college only the English class is taught in English.

It is not a bilingual environment as I had thought. So, what has made them such good language learners? (Many of them speak German and other Scandinavian languages as well.)

"It is pop culture that has enabled us to pick up English in natural settings. We have many films, television shows and pop songs from English-language countries, and we don't dub them but only add Danish caption. That's the easiest way to learn," many of them explained to me.

China has a strong indigenous pop scene that demands most imports be dubbed, thus depriving us of the best resources of language teaching. But leaving a few channels of native-tongue programming would be feasible.

Yet we would spend tens of billions of yuan and years of exertions on questionable pedagogy rather than simulating the most natural language platform short of moving to an English-speaking country.

And some of us would go so far as to devise a grand-sounding rationale for resistance.

Create an environment where learning English is natural and painless. Don't make it mandatory for people whose line of work does not require it. China will not become more international by adding millions of dabblers whose English proficiency amounts to a simple "Hello."

E-mail: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/01/2006 page4)