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| Quzhou Technical College |
Before arriving in China I definitely had some preconceptions about both the way in which English should be taught, and the objectives of learning English as a second language.
These have changed, although I must say that the observations I make are based mainly on my personal experience of living in a Chinese regional city rather than a large multicultural city like Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong.
Firstly, the level of English spoken locally is almost non-existent. This means that the opportunity for students to practice outside the education system is minimal, although they do have access to the Internet and all that it provides. Also although the demand for English teaching positions is high, the number of foreign or native speakers is very low.
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| View of the college looking north from the main building |
Most students are taught by Chinese teachers, many of whom have not had the benefit of learning intensively from native English speakers or travelling to English-speaking countries, so their opportunities to refine and improve their skills are limited. Hence the demand for native English speakers. Textbooks have also been developed in this context and tend to lag somewhat behind the current style of spoken English, although they are slowly improving. Altogether, teaching and learning English to such a huge population is an awesome task.
Secondly, the Chinese government has chosen English as the second language to facilitate communication as China becomes part of the global economy. They did not however, chose English-speaking culture. I have found that a lot of ESL (English as a Second Language) teaching material embeds elements of British or American culture which is foreign and inappropriate here.
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| The College forecourt and Quzhou suburbs across the river |
What this means, is that as well as learning English vocabulary, students are using resource material that is foreign to them. That is, the vocabulary can be unnecessarily regional and include words that have little relevance to the needs of international communication. This is apart from the vocabulary that is essential in the technical and trade areas. ESL teachers should be very wary of using this material without some level of localisation for the country. I have found that including names of Chinese cities, landmarks, and celebrations in lesson material greatly improves class participation.
Thirdly, although I was well-aware that English and Chinese languages are very different (alphabet, grammar, sentence structure, speech patterns, etc.) I didn’t realise just how different. I have been very impressed by the few Chinese people I’ve met whose command of English is very good, and the couple of locals (one British and one Australian) who can speak fluent Mandarin. My own attempts at learning rudimentary Chinese have taught me that this is a two-way street. Intonation is much more critical in Chinese, and I doubt that I would ever be able to pronounce the words properly, even if I know them.
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| Statue of Confucius (Kong Fuzi) in the college/university campus |
Pinying (the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into Latin script) is not English-friendly, because of its historical development firstly by an Italian Jesuit priest and then several modifications in subsequent years. For example the pinyin “q” sounds similar to the “ch” to the untrained ear, but is in fact a cross between “ch” and “tz”! The closest phonetic spelling I can write for Quzhou is “Chew-Joh”. And pinyin doesn’t have accents, which are critical to pronunciation. For example “ma” can be pronounced as “mā”, “má”, “mǎ”, “mà” or “ma” which are in fact four different words – “mother”, “hemp”, “horse”, “scold” and a question particle.
Fourthly, there are vast differences in the sounds of spoken English for non native-English speakers. There is British (from Cornish through all the English variations to Scottish) Irish, American (and its sub-sets), Canadian, Australian and New Zealand flavours – not to mention the small differences in vocabulary and grammar. In fact, it would be helpful if all English language movies and TV series had optional English subtitles – especially Taggart! Students have said that my pronunciation of some words is different to what they’ve heard before.
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| Aerial photo of Quzhou College (centre) and University (top) |
Years of hosting overseas students in Australia has helped me improve my communication with non native-English speakers. The the comprehension level of my students was only 60% when I started here, but through some modification of my pronunciation and speech pattern, I have managed to raise that to 90% which has really improved class interaction and effectiveness. I think English speakers can be quite chauvinist in their communication with foreigners, and the dictum “when in Rome…” absolutely applies when abroad. Conversely, I believe that immigrants should always make a serious attempt to learn the language of their adopted country.
Summary: Even after years of studying English at school and tertiary institutions the vast majority of students in China may still have difficulty in mastering conversational English with good pronunciation.
Summary: Even after years of studying English at school and tertiary institutions the vast majority of students in China may still have difficulty in mastering conversational English with good pronunciation.
I have great respect for the Chinese people and students in taking this bold step in making English its second language and I can only hope that my very small contribution has helped Australian-Chinese relations in this “Asian Century“.
