Kids being asked to speak putonghua
By Zheng Caixiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-04-26 08:44

Students here have been warned to quit speaking their Cantonese dialect and try to use putonghua, known as Mandarin in the West, in their classes.

"Or they will become worse and worse in using the nationally used speech," according to Cai Xiaoyue, deputy president of the Educational College at Guangzhou University.

Cai's worries come with news from a recent survey which indicates that Guangzhou students' language abilities have been dropping lower than the country's average.

The senior educational specialist is also urging local schools to increase training courses both in putonghua writing and speaking so as to further improve students' ability in using their putonghua in their schooling.

According to the survey conducted by Cai's college, many students in the Guangzhou region can do a good job in many respects when they graduate, but they do not do well speaking it.

The survey showed the language intelligence quotient (IQ) of Guangzhou residents is much lower than their non-language IQ.

The survey questioned 3,435 students in 12 major primary and high schools in Guangzhou's Yuexiu, Dongshan, Fangcun and Tianhe districts earlier this month.

"When compared with the students in Beijing and other regions in North China, Guangzhou students do not socialize well," Cai told China Daily.

"It is likely that it is because most of the students have gotten used to thinking in Cantonese rather than putonghua," Cai said.

Guangzhou residents, of course, have difficulty when they are communicating with people from outside their province, Cai added.

Cai admits it will be difficult to popularize putonghua in classes in which Cantonese has been spoken for ages.

Chen Xiaolan, a teacher from Guangzhou's Huanghua Primary School, said many parents of students in her classes refuse to speak putonghua, favouring the Cantonese dialect, which is spoken in Guangdong Province, parts of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Hainan Province, Hong Kong and Macao.

Affected by bordering Hong Kong and Macao, many Guangzhou students use Cantonese dialect characters when they write letters, essays and even resumes.

More than 90 per cent of local students use Cantonese dialect characters in writing mobile phone short messages.

Currently, students who can speak Cantonese usually have the advantage of being employed in Guangdong Province, particularly in many Hong Kong-funded companies and joint ventures where bosses speak only Cantonese and foreign languages.

Meanwhile Guangdong has seen more than 20 million overseas Chinese migrate around the world. Most can speak only Cantonese and local foreign languages.

"This is also one of the reasons why Guangzhou residents refuse to use putonghua in their classes," Chen said.

Close

Today's Top News     Top Life News
Hu: China to quadruple GDP by 2020 to $4 trillion         Legislators to amend methods on HK issues         Website loses case over MP3 downloads         22 detained for fake milk products         Survey: East richer than west         China reports 4 new suspected SARS cases	Kids being asked to speak putonghua       Tongli: A place for meditation       Da Vinci: Inventor of the Car?       Ditching sodas cuts childhood obesity - study       Heart disease now major global threat - report       Mandatory condom use in porn films debated