Rethinking English Language Teaching and Learning in China

Rethinking English Language Teaching and Learning in China
Posted on 25 November 2013 by Deena Boraie
I have just come back from a very successful TESOL Symposium held in Guangzhou, China. We were hosted at the beautiful Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, which is located near Baiyun Mountain. The theme of the conference was really intriguing: “Envisioning and Creating the Future for English Language Teaching and Learning.” Although the focus of the discussions was on China (because almost all the participants were from China), I think this topic is extremely important at this point in time in our field, and we should have these discussions all over the world. One of the issues that generated a lot of debate was the proposed reform of reducing the weight of the English examination used to admit students to universities in China from 150 points to 100 points, while at the same time raising the number of points for Chinese and the arts and sciences. This means that more emphasis will be placed on Chinese and less on English. Over the years, the role and status of English has fluctuated in China, reflecting the political climate. This proposed change in the examination implies that the demand for teaching and learning English in China, which increased dramatically in the past few years, may have peaked. It also reflects a change once again in the role and status of English. In an article published in the Deccan Herald on October 22, 2012 entitled “China’s English obsession slowing down,” the author states that China’s obsession to learn English to catch up with the rest of the world showed signs of wariness amid complaints of stressful experiences of students over mastering the language as well as fears it could overtake Mandarin in the long run. Although the China Daily on October 26, 2013 reassured English language teachers that interest in English will not wane and in fact, would become stronger, the discussions during the TESOL Symposium showed that many teachers believed that this policy change will have a significant impact on their careers. See photos of this event Personally, I question English language policies that impose a one-size-fits-all approach that does not allow for flexibility and does not take into account the available resources and the level of demand for English in the various regions of a country. For example, in Egypt (as an Egyptian, this is the context I am most familiar with), English is a compulsory subject and is taught from Grade 1 in all public and private schools in the country. After 12 years of studying English, the level of proficiency of most Egyptian high-school graduates is low. This is a low return on investment by the government and the challenges for improving the effectiveness of the system are high. The quality of English language teaching and learning needs significant improvement and many students do not actually need or use English in their lives. I wonder whether there is a more effective approach to implementing English as a Lingua Franca all over the world. Please share your thoughts on this! This entry was posted in TESOL Blog, TESOL Leadership Blog and tagged deena boraie, EFL in China, ELF, ELL assessment, English as a lingua franca, English in China, evergreen, TESOL President, TESOL President's blog, TESOL symposium. Bookmark the permalink. - See more at: http://blog.tesol.org/rethinking-english-language-teaching-and-learning-in-china/#sthash.VbD5OmOD.dpuf

English Lesson in China (China vs. U.S Education)

Cantonese vs Mandarine

http://www.zgyyzx.com/1.

why Cantonese is not a language but a dialect of Chinese?

http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2858/why-cantonese-is-considered-as-a-dialect-of-chinese

they're not completely different, but similar in some ways. You should know, all dialects are different.

• Mandarin Chinese is not a natural language. It grabs pronunciation from Beijing dialect, vocabulary from all the northern dialects, grammar from the articles written by great writers during the New Culture Movement.
• Modern dialects have only one root -- Middle Chinese. Middle Chinese (中古漢語) is the lineal descendant of Old Chinese (上古漢語). Cantonese is also from Middle Chinese.
• Although the written form is different. The original characters are the same. The new characters are only made to show the pronunciation of Cantonese.
• Northern dialects of Chinese lost the entering tone (入聲). For example, 力 is pronounced as "li4" today in Mandarin, but it's "lik" in Middle Chinese. Many southern dialects still have entering tone.
• Cantonese is not the same as Middle Chinese, but a descendant. In fact, all today's dialects are its descendants.

You see: Cantonese is from a language which all other dialects (including Mandarin) are from, so Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese, not a new language. 

Profile: Xi Jinping: Man of the people, statesman of vision

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-12/23/c_132058866_2.htm

Critical Pedagogies in Korea: Some Closing thoughts and Materials

Critical Pedagogies in Korea: Some Closing thoughts and Materials: A friend of mine is teaching various lessons based on the Tao Te Ching.  You can see her blog here . And esletc is a fantastic blog full o...

Class Plan

CLASS PLAN

1.      Teaching context description: I teach at a foreign language high school. My students are second graders, two classes are Chinese major and the other class is English major learning Chinese as their third language. There are 5 writing classes a week for Chinese major and 4 writing classes and 4 speaking classes for English major. Because of the curriculum design, English major has more class than Chinese major; however, their Chinese level is similar to Chinese major students in general. Most of the students start learning Chinese from the first grade of their high school and several students have lived in China for a while. Therefore, the students’ Chinese speaking level ranges from lower intermediate to advanced level.

Because Chinese is not one of the compulsory subjects for their university entrance exam, students do not have deep motivation to learn Chinese especially second graders. in order to make Chinese learning interesting, I introduced a popular Chinese language game to my students which is the main activity I will do in my Chinese class.

There are 23-24 students in the class. It’s big for a language class with only 50minutes class time limitation. In the class, not every student has the chance to speak Chinese, and not every student understand my Chinese class. This situation limits students’ participant into the class. 

2.      My activity rational:

There is a popular Chinese language game in China’s variety show, which is called who is the spy. The game is played by 7 famous stars in China, 6 of them get the same vocabulary, 1 of them gets the different but similar vocabulary. The different one is the “spy”. Every person should say something to describe the vocabulary in hand. The team members should guess who the spy is from their descriptions and after each round they will point to one person that might be the spy they think until they point the spy out and the game will be finished. If the spy cannot be found until the game finished it means the spy wins, otherwise the 6 person team win.

The interesting part of the game is even the spy himself/ herself doesn’t know he/she is the spy. They have to deduce who is the spy from the description.

I think this game is very helpful for students to learn Chinese because it involves the ability of speaking, listening and the deduction based on the understanding. Moreover, it’s not only a language game but also involve the social culture that embedded in the vocabulary.

In order to adjust to students’ Chinese level, I changed the game rule for a little bit and design the activity as a 3-class unit.

3.      The activity for my language class

1^ST Class: Preparation—game introduction and vocabulary searching.

After a brief introduction, I showed students the variety show video clip that famous stars play in. The 2 video clips are about 15 minutes; students almost understand how to play the game after watching. They all look interested in the game but some students showed concerned that it might be difficult for them to play.

With this concern, I asked the students to work in groups of 4 to list some vocabulary pairs that could fit the game and fit their Chinese level to play from the topics that we have learned in speaking Chinese class before mid-term: transportation, Chinese festivals and jobs. During the discussion, I walked around to help students. At the beginning, one of the groups has no idea about what they should do. I have to explain again and they started working. One of the groups not only list the vocabulary pairs but also had discussions about how to explain the vocabulary in different way. When the class finish, I collected students’ vocabulary list.

2^nd Class: Game playing

Before the class, I made vocabulary cards according to students’ vocabulary list.

In order to adjust to students’ Chinese level, I changed the game a little bit.

There will be 8 volunteer students to play the game and 2 of them will be the spy. Students are allowed to take dictionaries with them. Instead of playing alone, they can ask help from a partner and have 2 minutes to do preparation together. The audience will have the right to point to the spy. With this change, it involves every to participate.

During the 50 minutes class, the students have played 3 times of the game and when the class finished, they were still talking why they think he/she is the spy.

3^rd Class: Game reflection

Students are required to review the vocabularies they played in the game and draw a tree map to write down anything they remembered from the game or new ideas come from the game. They can work in pairs and some comments on the game are welcome in order to improve the game 

Final reflection of A politics beyond subjects

our group choose first floor DKU Sarang cafe. As a public place, I think the atmosphere in this place is very important. Customers should feel comfortable here, therefore, the tables and chairs/sofa are important. The place's temperature and music also make important parts of the atmosphere.
Compared to the main atmosphere, the other customers are less important. When we go to the cafe, we normally focus on the coffee and the things we want to do.
when I entered the space, I feel cool and relaxing. It's also very convenient to have a cafe like this at the building. Ivy feels thankful to have a cafe here. I guess others might feel like this too.
The things we supposed to do in the cafe of course is drinking coffee and meeting friends, chatting, reading, studying and other things to kill the time. I think they are also the encounters people normally would do here.
There are many activities should be excluded in cafe. when lovers date in cafe, they shouldn't  kiss in cafe; when meeting with friends, making very big noise is impolite in the public place; when people use computer in the cafe, they should use earphone; other activities like dancing,singing or fighting are absolutely should be excluded.  

what should we do for the poor area education?

When I was reading the article, the exceptional case about Sara made me think of the western part of China, the very poor area education.

Here is a video about the area, I would like to share.

According to China’s sustainable development strategy report of 2012, there are 128 million poverty populations in China, whose annual income is under 2300yuan RMB (416,760WON) which is the similar amount of Japan’s population and more than two times of South Korea’s population.

From this video, we can see what they got for children education.

Of course, China government has made policies to help them and some enterprise has donated money to build schools for them, which is called hope primary school in Chinese. Some social organizations has called people to donate clothes and books for them, university students spend summer and winter vocations to teach them.

However, except for these basic needs, no one care further more about their education quality. Why? Because having a proper school, have real desks and benches, enough books, pencils and notebooks are already good enough for them? All this stuff, even high technology multimedia, has been taken for granted in our daily education. What do we care for our education? Do students like the teaching method? Does the education promote students to integrated education? Is banking education or problem-posing education good for students?

But do people have this similar concern to these poverty children?

Therefore, my first question is

Does this critical pedagogy suitable for them?

Or   do these children need critical education?

Think about this: what kinds of issues do we talk about under critical pedagogy:

Ideology, racism, sexism, feminism and other social class issues. Do these poverty children care about these social issues? Do these children need this kind of critical pedagogy?

Yes, I think they need critical pedagogy in their education even more than us.

o   The proposer of critical pedagogy Paulo Freire had a poor life when he was young; he said “I didn't understand anything because of my hunger. I wasn't dumb. It wasn't lack of interest. My social condition didn't allow me to have an education. Experience showed me once again the relationship between social class and knowledge" (Freire). This influenced his decision to dedicate his life to improving the lives of the poor. Therefore, I believe that the poor kids need critical education more than us.

However, what kind of critical pedagogy do they need?

Do they care about the social issues that we mentioned before?

I like the sentence in the first article: actual experience is quite different from hypothetical solutions!

I have another video to show:

Their parents working in the city’s construction sites, factories and other dirty and messy places those native citizens don’t like to work at. Their dreams are going to work like their parents.But, they are called "Migrant workers".

Critical Pedagogy in poor area education: an empower tool or unpractical dream?

新东方上海志愿者宣传片

Jay Walker on the world's English mania Don't Insist on English Growing Chinese

Patricia Ryan: Don't insist on English

How should we learn/teach English in language ecology?

How should we learn/teach English in language ecology? Background Language ecology may be defined as the study of interactions between any given language and its environment… …Part of its ecology is therefore psychological: its interaction with other languages in the minds of bi- and multilingual speakers. Another part of its ecology is sociological: its interaction with the society in which it functions as a medium of communication. The ecology of language is determined primarily by the people who learn it, use it and transmit it to others. (Haugen, 1972, p. 325) Since Haugen proposed the term “language ecology” in 1972, this idea has appeared in a range of studies of exploring the interaction between language and environment. However, the interpretations of what language ecology is range widely. Generally speaking, there tends to be two approaches to this idea, sociolinguistic approach and ecological approach. Sociolinguistic approach tends to explore language ecology on the ground of societal context and change, in which “ecology” refers to “context” or “language environment”, under this framework language ecology mainly explore the language issues that related to sociocultural, educational, economic or political settings; ecological approach considers “the complex web of relationships that exist between the environment, languages, and their speakers.” (Wendel, 2005). With three decades development, language ecology has become a field of linguistics called Ecolinguistic, one of the most important contributors Muhlhausler suggests that ecolinguistic “considers not just a system of internal factors of a language but also wider environment factors… … language is interconnected with the world- it both constructs and is constructed by it.” Encyclopedia of language and education has collected the studies that concerned with ecologies of language and ecolinguistic, literacy and learning and made volume 9: Ecology of language in 2008. The volume is made up of 5 sections, that include the discussion of linguistic human rights, language policy and language planning, language learning and sociocultural theory, educational issues of selected countries and regions, specific issues of language survival and language death, language diversity, and classroom language ecologies in a range of multilingual contexts, etc. The essential issue in language ecology is diversity. Baker (2001) believes that “language and cultural diversity maximizes chances of human success and adaptability.” The discussion of this issue leads to the concern of language human rights. According to some linguistics that half of today’s spoken languages may be extinct or seriously endangered by the end of the present century (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001297/129728e.pdf ). The discussion of language hegemony has shown the similar concern of some language and culture’s hegemony lead to some other language and culture’s extinction, especially in the countries and regions with colonized history, such as Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and some other African countries. The Crisis States Research Center defines them as fragile states. (http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/Z413%20EDB%20Section16.pdf ). Language hegemony Under the framework of the ecology of language, language hegemony specifically refers to the hegemony of English has been brought up. English has been accepted as lingua franca and been taken for granted in most international interaction. However, some scholars proposed that the dominance of English as the problematic in international communication (Tsuda, 1986, 1990, 1992, 1993a, 1993b, 1994, 1996) has caused serious consequences, which include: (1) linguistic and communication inequality to the speakers of languages other than English. Tsuda took the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an example, according to W.J. Coughlin’s report , an American journalist, the misinterpretation of Japanese word “Mokusatsu” caused the bombing. (2) Linguistic discrimination and social inequality. Tsuda used one of the Time magazine reports as an example. Think about our reality, we do have the bias that fluent English speakers are well-educated and easily to get a job. (3) Colonization of the consciousness of the non-English-speakers, causing them to devalue their own language and develop linguistic, cultural and identification upon English. Although these problematic issues have been brought up from those ex-colonial countries, yet these problems could be discovered from other English learning countries like China and South Korea. English as a second language in these countries plays a critical role in students’ life. Every important exam that could decide the person’s future has English test as one component. In China, in the most important test Gaokao, Chinese university entrance exam, English score takes account of 18.5% to 25% ranges from provinces. In the large population country with average 4% university entrance rate, which means if the student is not good English, there is no chance for her/him to survive in this exam. After entering university, students must pass the college English test that called CET-4 and CET-6 otherwise they cannot graduate from university. After graduation, one of the most important requirements of getting a good job is good English score. Therefore, learning English in China is really a “mania” ( see http://www.ted.com/talks/jay_walker_on_the_world_s_english_mania.html). However, with the crazy expansion of English learning, Chinese students’ native language level has declined. China Youth Daily had a social survey showed that 83.6% participants believe that students’ Chinese competence has declined. Some officer from China ministry of education said in the interview that the strong pursuit of English is one of the important factors that affect students’ native language learning. In light of this phenomenon, a Chinese proficiency test which is called Chinese CET, targets at native Chinese speakers has started from some big cities and provinces since last year. I don’t think the implement of one test could be the effective measure to improve the present situation. We should find out where the problem really is and fix the problem fundamentally. How should we learn and teach English? Under the language ecology framework, with the realization of these problems, we cannot help thinking, why should we learn English? And as an English teacher, how do we teach English in this kind of setting? I believe that the “ecology of language paradigm” could give other some ideas to deal with these questions. Based on the view of language, the “ecology of language paradigm” advocate that the following: (1) The right to language (2) Equality in communication (3) Multilingualism and multiculturalism The right to language refers to the language human right that aimed to promote linguistic and cultural security for the non-English-speaking people to protect the language and culture diversity, especially for the people in the “fragile states”. Tsuda believes that the prerequisite for equality in international communication is equality among languages. He proposed three approaches to this “ideal speech situation”: one approach is called “linguistic localism”, which means use the local languages by all the participants in communication; another approach is using a third language between the communicators; the third strategy is equalizing linguistic handicap of the participants in communication. Under the ecology of language framework, people might have strong appreciation of their own language and culture, which could lead to “linguistic and cultural isolationism”. In order to avoid this kind of weakness in this theory, some scholars (Tehranian,1993) suggested that we should have the attitude of multilingualism and multiculturalism. Therefore, with the consciousness of “hegemony of English”, as English teachers we should incorporate the ecology of language paradigm with language education and become more sensitive to the ethical aspects of international communication. According to the experimental English teaching project organized by British Council in DRC in 2007, mother tongue-based multilingual education is a valuable component in teaching and learning English. They also proposed some teaching suggestions for future study: (1) English can be an empowering tool for learners but not as a replacement for their mother tongue. (2) The English teaching materials should be locally designed and piloted. (3) Language mixing activities have a strong potential for counter-hegemonic discourses. (4) Learners’ political consciousnesses are an integral part of their identity and should be respected and explored during the language teaching program. (5) Learners’ mother tongues should be recognized as a rich source of material should not be seen as a hindrance or interference. These suggestions could be useful to rethink of our local English education. I think the essential idea among these suggestions is the appreciation attitude toward our native language and culture to the learning of English. As teachers, when we bring this idea into our classroom could start from the very simple way, such as encourage students to use English without advanced learners’ judge; learning English from the material content that students are familiar with and then encourage students to use English to talk about the local culture and content that students are interested; In English classes except for language teaching, teachers should also add some “education” etc. Further study interest As a Chinese student majored in TESOL, I am very interested in applying what I have learned into China’s English education. For further study, I would like to examine China’s English language education policy under the ecology of language framework, especially attempt to examine what kind of language policy China has implemented to prevent the hegemony of English and how these policies work. Meanwhile, as a Chinese language teacher working in a foreign country and experiencing the great expansion of Chinese learning, I would like to examine that whether there is the “hegemony of Chinese” phenomenon and how can I avoid “hegemony” in Chinese teaching. References Nabea, W. (2009). Language policy in kenya:negotiation with hegemony. The Journal of Pan African Studies,3(1), 121-138. Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Phillipson, R. (2008). A human rights perspective on language ecology. In A. Creese, P. Martine & N. Hornberger (Eds.),Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2nd ed., Vol. 9, pp. 3-14). New York: Springer. Fettes, M. (1999). A critical theory of language acquistion. InThe Ecology of Language Acquisition Workshop. Fettes, M. (1998, April). Linguistic ecology towards an integrative linguistic science. Retrieved from http://dok.esperantic.org/~mfettes/ Tsuda, Y. (n.d.). The hegemony of english and strategies for linguistic pluralism: Proposing the ecology of language paradigm. Retrieved from http://miresperanto.com/en/english_as_intern/hegemony_of_english.htm Whitehead, D. (2011). English language teaching in fragile states: justifying action, promoting success and combating hegemony. In H. Coleman (Ed.),Dreams and Realities: Developing Countries and the English Language (2011 ed., Vol. 16, pp. 2-39). Retrieved from http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/Z413 EDB Section16.pdf Tang, Y., & Lin, X. (2005, 01 17). 英语比汉语更重要？大学生中文水平普遍下降. Retrieved from http://www.ycwb.com/gb/content/2005-01/17/content_834152.htm Huang, C. (2012, 01 10). 83.6%受访者认为国人汉语应用水平下降. Retrieved from http://zqb.cyol.com/html/2012-01/10/nw.D110000zgqnb_20120110_1-07.htm

Cultural Imperialism

http://youtu.be/fmXUmdrhAIk

received reading and oppositional reading

Critical Pedagogies in Korea: Freire: What is the story? Who tells the story? What names do we use? The Dialectic Oppressor  -- Oppressed  Theory  --  Practice ...


Received reading of this ad. 
 what is the ideal audience?
 Adults who want to improve English proficiency, especially business men who need English to expand their career. 
 what are they supposed to see? 
 They supposed to see the slogan"better than Native", which means this is an amazing English program that will really help them to improve their English.If they take the course their English even will be "BETTER THAN NATIVE". From the picture, they can see a non-native English speaker is pulling a native English speaker; the image empowers the audience and give them desire to learn the English program and get this kind of power "Better than NATIVE". 
 Oppositional reading 
 1. Who will be the target audience? The image of men will distance women ad readers.Nowadays, career women play an important role at the workplace. This kind of image distance will lose potential women students. 
 2. "BETTER THAN NATIVE"? Will the students really be "better than native" after attending the program? Why should the standard be "better than native"? Most of the second language learners have the feeling that it's impossible to be "better than native", even cannot be "as good as native". This slogan will mislead the ad readers even give them the feeling of unreal, which will lose potential students. "Better than native"? What's that really mean here? From which aspect that "better than native"? The language four skills? which skill? "Better than native" means English is very good? Why is this the goal for English learners to achieve? Obviously too difficult to achieve, probably will scare potential students to run away.

Some suggestions for Pedagogy Class

Maybe I am still an “old fashion” student, I prefer to hear more lecture. As a second language student study in English, I don’t feel confident about what I have understood from reading the article. I am not looking for some “standard” answers for the reading; however, I will feel more comfortable if we have some guide reading questions. Sometimes when the time up for the class, it feels like that we haven’t finish talking about the reading material. In this situation, some reading questions could be given as the conclusion for the class that will make the class more clear. When we have discussion in the class, many ideas comes out that made me realized that I was lack of background information about that idea. Therefore, I think some guide reading questions may help us so more preparation for the class especially the background information.

English Open Class In China Primary School

Chinese Eucation in China ChengDu Province

Yang Lan TED Talk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Lan