Urgent need for change in foreign language teaching in China

The five Chinese teachers featured in the BBC documentary Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School. The documentary triggered a heated debate on British and Chinese education methods.

Last week, as I was correcting the midterm exams for my students in the advanced English writing class, I was shocked by the incoherence and illogic in their compositions.

That prompted me to take a moment to reflect upon my teaching experience for the past twelve years in China．

My main objective was to come to terms with the reason behind my shock. Logic would lead me to believe that by now I should be accustomed to the poor quality of English writing by Chinese students.

I realized that the reason for my perplexity is the fact that my students were in an advanced English writing class, which means that they were attending the class to polish their writing skills, not to learn the basics.

Bearing in mind the fact they have been learning English for more than 8 years (Most of my students have been studying English for a period that ranges between 8 and 10 years) they should have acquired the fundamentals of English writing including coherence and logic.

Attempting to figure out the reasons behind their failure to follow logic in their writing, I gave them a simple exercise of puzzling out the sequence of events in a short story. Unfortunately, they had a hard time in coming up with the right sequence.

From my years of teaching in China, I learnt that Chinese students are taught to memorize.

In a discussion with foreign professors during a seminar that I attended a few years ago, I was informed that they were aware of the intelligence and diligence of Chinese students. However, they witnessed the misuse of those qualities to become memorizing machines instead of coming to complete comprehension of the subjects through analysis and critical thinking.

To emphasize their points of view, they mentioned that a Chinese student will be able to memorize a whole book yet he/she may not be able to analyze one page of its contents.

Of course, they might have been exaggerating in their assessments of the capacity of Chinese students. However, one must acquire the courage to admit that their evaluations may be partly true.

The fundamental question that should be asked: “Do the Chinese methods of teaching foreign languages need an overhaul?” Certainly, for the sake of saving the invaluable time of our students, they need to be altered or at least modified.

Is the task of changing the methods of teaching foreign language easy? Not by a long shot. Actually, it needs a great deal of effort and time. However, the rewards are tremendous.

The following important question may creep into our minds: “How could we launch an overhaul of the methodology of teaching foreign languages in general and English in particular?”

Linguistic experts ought to hold seminars or conferences to discuss the issue in detail in order to come up with an effective and efficient plan to accomplish that task.

The Chinese government and Chinese educational institutions should play essential roles in achieving that objective.

The government could select competent Chinese English teachers to send them abroad in collaborative programs with English speaking countries to advance their comprehension of the English trains of thought and to be familiar with the latest advances in the methodology of teaching English. The same could be done with other foreign languages.

Upon their return to China, they can share their knowledge and experiences with other teachers at their schools, colleges or universities.

Both government and educational institutions could invite foreign linguistic experts to come to China to give workshops to Chinese foreign language teachers.

All middle schools, high schools and universities must put a great deal of emphasis on the importance of critical thinking.

Universities with departments of foreign languages ought to exert every possible effort to be selective in admitting students to the foreign language majors.

They must do their best to choose qualified teachers to educate those students bearing in mind the fact that most of them will become foreign language teachers in the future.

Teachers have to be sufficiently conscientious to allocate time to familiarize themselves with the latest advances in the methodology of teaching foreign languages.

Students have a major responsibility. They must acquire enough courage to get rid of their illogical fear, useless apprehension and utter timidity to be active in class and to make sure that their teachers are fulfilling their responsibilities.

My article was not written to offend anyone. It is intended to open a forum of discussion to improve the quality of education for our students who are the future of our beloved China.