SPEAKING
FREELY China's pedagogic
pitfalls By James Fishback
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
As president Richard
Nixon touched down in Beijing in 1972, the
diplomatic void between China and the US could not
have been any wider. Geopolitical isolation not
only kept diplomacy and investment at bay, it
equally inhibited cultural exchange between the
two countries. Yet, six decades later,
fluctuations in daily Chinese life are nearly
pegged to the financial, political, and, to a
degree, cultural events in the US.
Burgeoning markets in Shanghai, vibrant
tourism in Beijing, and nascent private equity in
Xi'an have all centered on a linguistic
medium that spans
China's vast frontiers. Recent studies give us
insight to the quantitative curtain behind China's
thirst for proficiency. Seattle University [1]
estimates that although China has a "proficient"
English-speaking population of just under 10
million, it is home to 300 million "English
learners".
In an effort to meet the rising
demand of English proficiency, English training
schools have sprung up throughout the mainland
with a fairly straightforward mission: helping new
speakers overcome English's linguistic inertia.
Much like large-scale commercial
factories, these schools firmly believe in
trumping the exclusivity of "quantity versus
quality" and opening their doors to waves of
students all in an effort to meet the rising
demand for English speakers.
For many of
these local training programs, a misguided
pedagogical mindset begins from the outset of
over-enrollment. To meet such unexpectedly high
matriculation, local schools are forced into
viewing classrooms through a factorial lens: rows
of desks as fast-paced assembly lines, teachers as
static machinery, and students as arriving parts,
who with the right algorithm should be able to
pick up English in no time.
These schools
have only continued to present students with a
mechanical approach to proficient English, an
approach in which antiquated computer labs,
unnoticed word walls, and dissimilar textbooks
dominate an all-too-familiar pedagogy. All of
these voids have pieced together an education
that, for onlookers, students, and teachers like
myself, just misses the mark.
Chinese
training programs frequently flaunt enrollment
numbers, as if they alone underscore linguistic
successes. Yet, in reality, these programs simply
abandon intimated students and leave "proficient"
students with a grasp of English that can only be
described as choppy, awkward, and intensely rigid.
Speaking privately with a student after an evening
lesson, he muttered, "I leave now" as he walked
away. It's clear that statements like this,
discounting grammar, are just out of place.
Becoming truly proficient in English "or
any language for that matter" signifies a true
understanding of what's contextual, colloquial,
and catastrophic. Chinese English-speakers are
often puzzled when tourists or Western colleagues
use phrases such as "correct", and they will ask
them to re-answer the question with a much simpler
"yes or no".
Only adding insult to injury,
GlobalEnglish Corp [2] states that many of the
11,000 non-native English speakers throughout
China would not be able to keep up with a typical
business meeting conducted in English. If
anything, this data underscores the importance of
strengthening the linguistic medium between our
two countries. Ultimately, this medium will be
home to our financial relations, political
discussions, and diplomatic accords that are bound
to take place in coming years.
Throughout
the summer, I taught a 3pm to 5pm English course
in the Nan'an district of Chongqing, China. Here,
I've witnessed the many factors that have only
come to widen the gap between students and
teachers, like myself. A lesson I taught in
mid-July was coined "English and Fruit Salad."
Students were to watch me prepare a fruit salad as
I narrated the show in English. But with just over
100 students in a single classroom, questions
could not be answered, queries could not be
addressed, and, above all, quality could not be
achieved. Although teaching a diverse set of
students is certainly valuable at times, a
diminishing return may quickly present itself if a
reasonable student threshold is not considered.
We, as humans, are innately crafted for
language acquisition and find it much easier to
remember English we speak than English we skim. As
such, I urge Chinese training schools to begin
teaching conversational dialogue, while allowing
students a chance to slowly but surely work their
way up the verbal ladder. Followed by formal,
business-oriented interchange, students will be
able to naturally and confidently progress on an
avenue that continues with writing, intimate
conversation, and sooner-than-not, English's
formal qualities.
For far too long,
English schools in China have rooted their lessons
in intricate, and frankly obscure structure. This
focus intimidates students and often discourages
them from continuing their English studies, a
pattern I've seen far too frequently. This
structure does not belong in a student's beginning
stages; instead, it should be included when the
student has proven a firmer grasp of the language.
Witnessing a worsening academic
architecture, I encourage Beijing to immediately
establish a discretionary fund that ought to be
given to English proficiency programs throughout
the mainland. From the outset, this fund should be
used for putting more Western instructors in the
classroom, building new facilities, a move that
will certainly abate disproportionate enrollment
figures, and advertising incentives for those who
are able to linguistically excel among their
peers.
If officials abandon inaccurate
reports and arbitrary enrollment figures, they'll
undoubtedly get a better picture of the dynamic
here on the ground. They'll understand that they
must embrace policies that make students feel less
like products and classrooms less like factories.
They must abandon a timeworn sentiment, and begin
to notice rows of desks not as obscure assembly
lines, but as columns open to ventures of
ingenuity and advancement that far exceed their
country's own population.
If officials in
Beijing, school supervisors, and parents truly
want to empower their students, they'll have to
veer away from the failed didactic methods of the
past, and replace them with activities that truly
give students a fair shot at linguistic growth. If
Chinese training schools begin to change course,
they'll give students throughout the mainland the
linguistic skills that will serve them within the
wall and far beyond it.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
James Fishback, a political
columnist for The Huffington Post, recently spent
three months teaching English in the Nan'an
District of Chongqing, China. He is currently
researching power-parities and income
differentials centered in interior-China.
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