Why the hell does China want to learn English?
This was a question I had from the moment I set foot in the Middle Kingdom as a Peace Corps volunteer whose job precisely it was to teach English at a Chinese university.
It simply made no sense to me why this country would impose a requirement on its youth to learn my native language and make that language a prominent part of its college entrance exam. I mean, I can understand it, say, when American politicians speak about the need to put an emphasis on math and science learning. Math and science learning lead to concrete societal goods in terms of innovation and invention and so a massive public investment in them makes sense. But what does China get out of forcing English down the throat of its people?
To me, it was as great a mystery as Stonehenge. It’s not like China needed an English-speaking workforce in order to attract American industry. China needed to do nothing to attract American industry. American industry would have flocked here in droves had the population been infected with leprosy. The only thing industry cared about was cheap labor, not English speaking ability. Nor did China need an English educated public in order to lure tourists. Tourists as well would come regardless of the language ability of the general population. All that would be required would be a relative handful of English trained guides. True, a few people would use English to advance their careers in business and industry. But that would be such a statistically insignificant sliver of those who learned as to not justify a massive investment of resources involved in a nationwide mandate.
The longer I stayed in China, the more the mystery deepened. Most of those who taught English could barely speak it; most of those who learned English, learned it badly. Perhaps there was a connection between these two factors. In any case and as far as I could tell, there was no real need for a widespread knowledge of English in the culture. A society usually has to meet its real needs before it can go about fulfilling artificial ones. But with two-thirds of its population living on less than $100 a month, China was a country that had obviously not met all of its real needs. So, I was stumped.
The whole thing seemed a case of one of Marx’s best—perhaps his only—insight, the one about history repeating itself first as tragedy and the second time as farce. Convinced that a gigantic increase in steel production was the key to turning China into a world power, in 1958 Mao tasked the entire country with undertaking this project, essentially transforming every household into a home smelting operation. Known as the Great Leap Forward, this would turn into one of the gratest collective efforts humanity has ever engaged in, and one of its greatest failures. Not only were millions of acres of forest denuded to stoke the furnaces, but the subsequent redirection of labor resulted in unharvested crops and massive famine. To top things off, the steel that was produced from all this sacrifice was practically worthless.
Thankfully no one was dying as a result of the massive waste of resources on a project of utter futility that was the Chinese English-learning industrial complex. Instead, true to Marx’s prediction, the whole thing resembled nothing so much as the theater of the absurd. Everyone affiliated with the process can tell you their own stories. David mentioned the insistence by one English center he was affiliated with to have its English speaking staff perform a skit in Chinese. My favorite insight into the bizarre nature of the whole undertaking came on a trip to Tibet when I discovered that my Chinese tour guide could understand my Chinese companion’s English but not my own. An English speaking tour guide who cannot understand English speakers!
For the sake of my sanity, I put the whole issue aside for the remainder of my time in China and had not really thought about it until I read David’s recent essay on the topic, where he mentioned how foreign English teachers are viewed a “trained monkeys” by not a few in China. It happened that on the same day I came across a report in the New York Times of an essay written by Chinese President Hu Jintao. In the journal “Seeking Truth,” China’s leader warned about the culture war that he sees as taking place between China and the West: “We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration.”
Although he did not refer specifically to China’s massive commitment to English learning, it is not hard to see a connection. If you are concerned about China idolizing a culture, you might reasonably question the wisdom of your country’s policy of promoting the learning of that culture’s language. Hence, for the same reason that ecoterrorists who don’t like oil will blow up a pipeline, I predict that this declared war on Western culture will inevitably lead to an assault on the language through which the culture is disseminated. In other words, don’t be surprised when the massive English learning mechanism that China has in place is dismantled, and the foreign English teacher in China goes the way of the do-do bird, or more accurately, of the moderate Republican.
My sense is that this is going to happen in the not too distant future. To use one of David’s favorite devices, the whole English learning industry in China is a house of cards. A “house of cards” literally refers to playing cards that are put together in the shape of a house; figuratively it stands for an elaborate structure that will collapse at the slightest touch. In my estimation, President Hu has just given the structure the necessary push.
He may also be setting a 'path' for future policy changes (as you have suggested) and many local government areas have increased 'requirements' for 'teachers' in their schools and colleges for example - so you may be sensing a change here...my feeling is the 'cowboys' are riding out of the system and a more academic approach to training and skills development is being sought...in 'services' and in 'skills' areas rather than just English Language.
I sense that Chinese professionals are starting to seek 'life-long learning' options rather than 'certificate accumulation' - in the past English has been the easiest 'training' to obtain - but we are starting to see the increase in skills-based training being supported. Remember that once a Chinese person leaves university, options for further 'recognized training' (part-time Technical and Further Education, part-time University courses etc) are fairly few and/or expensive. Chinese tertiary education has been focussed on producing Tier 1'engineers' for the most part, getting the wheels of industry rolling, and is now moving toward other skills and knowledge in different tiers... For professional trainers, the prospects are probably ok...for the backpacker teacher, prospects are probably diminishing in China (as they did in other Asian countries such as Korea and Japan) with time.
Maybe this is the 'western influence' they are trying to defend against!
No more 'Are you the 1?' for me! Sigh... Ma Nuo, begone!
( a famous dating game called "Are You The 1?" had a contestant (Ma Nuo) that had a quote "I'd rather cry in the back of a BMW, than smile on the back of a bicycle" when confronted with a suitor who didn't own a house or money. - it cause a mild Internet sensation in 2010)
English is the language of business and science around the world. It is a common denominator.
China plans to be the dominate economy worldwide and will soon be there by 2050 at the latest.
China has a government agency that assists Chinese students to attend universities in every country in the world. Every country! The numbers increase yearly.
China state owned enterprises but natural resources and businesses around the world.
As the west and the developing world languish the Chinese learn English, French, German, Japanese and on and on and on. However increasing numbers of westerners are going to China to study Chinese.
Chinese people migrate around the world in increasing numbers.
Read the Art of War. Knowing your enemy intimately is very important. And what better way to get to know them than to read them and listen to them in their own language.
Dismantle? ha. It will grow and grow.
No matter trained Monkey whatever, are just only negative part of this trend, it is unavoidable defects due to lack of resources and experiences. it is normal, but will be definitely improving. that is for sure.
we also didn't see the connection between English and Culture conflict, English is a tool. I suppose our President Hu was talking about the trend that seems everybody hates/dispises Chinese/ chinese government...... you guys also should check yourself for this attitude..... sorry to say that.
To be very clear I have always been a big fan of America, and lived there happily for several years. There are plenty of things to admire about American culture, and I've no doubt that the post Mao generations of China do admire them. Things like the general (but not universal) willingness of Americans to help others in need, to jump in to attempt to right things that are wrong and to honor the right of all people to speak their mind.
However, perhaps Hu had more in mind the blind willingness to accept that everyone should have a gun readily at hand. Or maybe he was thinking about the growing acceptance that marriage and family have no place in a society where getting laid by as many members of the opposite sex (or same sex in some cases) as possible is the definition of "living the dream". Or perhaps, as anonymous points out, it's about a society in which about 90% are wasting their lives watching the most brain dead TV shows imaginable or playing video games in which the hero is the guy who can successfully blow out the brains of everyone he encounters, including police, mothers and children and anyone else who gets in his way.
Those are just a few examples of the developing American culture that any responsible national leader should feel responsible to save his nation from emulating.
But that's not to say that China doesn't also have some cultural characteristics that other nations should surely try to avoid. It's a two way street.
If we could just take the best of both these nations and eliminate the worst, what a wonderful nation that would be - almost as good as Canada. :)
Tanshui, I agree English is the language of business and science. But you don't need to poorly train an entire populace in English in order to bring you nation in line this economic reality. Indeed,I would argue that China's economic development to this point has been almost completely disconnected from its English language learning efforts. This could be proven by the fact that (a) China, despite its efforts, has a population that for the most part is functionally English illiterate (b) China has done ok economically speaking. Obviously, you need people at the top layers of business, industry and science who are trained in English. As you say, you need to know your enemy. But you don't need to indoctrinate an entire populace in English in order to achieve this. Indeed, the attempt to do so is an incredible waste of economic resources.
Vichina, the delusion that learning English will help the average Chinese get a job is what has kept this whole house of cards going. Given the high unemployment of college-educated youth, widespread technical training makes much more sense from an economic perspective. For the most part, the only job learning English will help you get is a job teaching English. At some point, this ponzi scheme will have to stop, and my guess is the tipping point is coming soon.
However, I think that one needs to look at more than the immediate situation and look a few generations down the road.
I have been interested to hear discussions and comments on English language CCTV, and to read articles, about the need for China to move from an educational system that is based solely on rote learning - i.e. memorize and regurgiate exactly - to a system that also includes fostering creativity to compete against the west. Of course fostering a system that includes creativity also fosters a system that looks for the student to challenge and disagree with the teacher or professor. OH OH.
In Toronto at the the University of Toronto, and other schools, large numbers of Chinese and Indian students are getting nailed for plagarism. Why? Because they simply regurgitate what the professor said when writing a paper and do not attribute the words to the professor or author. When brought up on charges the students are stunned because they are just doing what they have been trained to do. They say 'You never challenge a professor or you will be failed. You must repeat exacty what you have been told.' So now the U of T and others are adding courses to first year to help train foreign students learn how to challenge and disagree and succeed.
A generation of people poorly trained in English will want their children to be well trained in English.
In the west we look for immediate gratification. In China the government and indeed so many people I meet are looking down the road concerned for the next generations. I know dozens of Chinese women and men who have come to Canada to further the education and opportunity of their child. And they eat bitterness, of their own choosing, to do so.
China is not wasting its economic resources to bring English to the masses it is investing in its future and the future of generations to come.
In any western urban centre walk down a street, ride the subway or look at the driver of a BMW or Mercedes and the chances of good that you will see someone from China. In Canada or the USA this Chinese person will more often than not speak and read English. The westerner seeing them more often than not will not speak Chinese. Who do you think has the power?
Just a thought.
For after all one day the current generation will be remembered as ancestors and while many things have been conveniently removed from the public mind over the past decades such is no longer the case.
Like others have mentioned, English is necessary to competing and communicating in a global economy. My last teaching contract a year ago was working in corporate training for a shit private English training Center.
The only thing that made this job bearable were the fact I was rarely at the training center since I was usually teaching students at their respective company. In addition, these were professional university educated staff who knew they NEEDED English to do their job. They were a little less likely to want, or need, just a Trained Monkey and more likely to look favorably on someone professional and experienced who could teach oral and written business English.
While creative problem solving or creative discussions were encouraged, they needed the hard skills of professional English communication to facilitate their global communications. For example, some had to regularly communicate with IT people in India, or a boss in Singapore, France, USA, etc. requiring frequent email. Possibly they were involved in global customer service requiring English. Some may have been working in a Five Star hotel. The list could go on, however, these students knew they had to hone their English skills or find another job since their HR manager was monitoring their progress.
Outside the adult English learning environment, parents of young children are paying big money for English schools and tutors to provide them every perceived advantage in their future. One of my American friends in Chengdu has been paid upwards to 200 RMB an hour ten weeks in advance to teach children!
Chinese parents have historically sacrificed and invested big money in their child’s education. Many Chinese and foreign companies are making handsome profits to help Chinese high school students go to study abroad with North America, UK and Australia the favorite choices. A B.S., or more especially an MBA, from one of these countries or regions is highly coveted and viewed as a ticket to the best paying jobs in China.
I believe in the not too distant future, China will go the way of Indonesia and require foreign English teachers have a B.S. Degree in some discipline of English like literature, ESL, etc. While this may eliminate some very good English teachers without an English degree, it is a move to professionalize teaching standards, not dissimilar to North America or other regions of the world. I’m just happy the trend has turned to rifting the obviously non-qualified foreigners from the teaching ranks.
I don’t take Hu’s remarks as any reversal on the English teaching industry or foreign investment, but more as a “Don’t forget your own historical and proud culture while your broadening your mind to the world.”