Job Discussion Forums

[MW]

What do you think?

ASSUMPTION: Everyone in China needs to learn ESL

Beijing wants its 13 million residents to speak English to enhance its image as a cosmopolitan metropolis and its hosting the 2008 Olympics.(China Daily, (10-05-02). China�s Ministry of Education wants all young people of China to learn English due to China�s WTO membership. (China Daily, (10-05-02). Certain municipal governments in China require all of their civil servants to learn some English (China Daily, (10-05-02) WHY?

Market studies, market analysis and affirmative recommendations from experts in the fields of business, math and linguistics should support each of the forgoing propositions.

What is the mathematical probability that each of Beijing�s residents will need to be able to speak English for an intended or even accidental encounter with a single English speaking foreigner during the 2008 Olympics?

Does a market study support the proposition that Beijing�s image will be enhanced in the eyes of foreigners if all the residents of Beijing can speak English? Further, would such image enhancement translate into increased economic benefit for Beijing? If so, how much economic benefit will accrue to Beijing and does it offset the social, cultural and political costs that must be paid along the way by the people of Beijing?

How many bilingual (Chinese-English) jobs will actually be created in China due to China�s World Trade Organization (WTO) membership and hosting the 2008 Olympics? Does the number of new jobs requiring English support the need for all of China�s young people to learn English?

What is the mathematical probability that all municipal government civil servants, in any particular Chinese municipality, will need to use English in their daily work? Is there any empirical study or evidence to support the current ESL revolution in China, which revolution may in fact have significant adverse social, cultural and political effects? (Qiang/Wolff, (4/03)

Why the concerted effort to require 1.3 billion Mandarin speakers, 25% of the world�s population, to learn English as a second language? Since Mandarin is one of the six working languages of the United Nations, does the world at large have a greater appreciation for the importance of Mandarin than China itself?

Is the current ESL revolution in China a misguided, self-inflicted English colonialization, brought about by tacitly, if not officially, adopting ESL acquisition as a national program? Will the West conquer China from within, without a single shot ever being fired?

[Tao Burp]

Again a great dead-on post. Image, of course, defines this great drive to educate the masses in English; the only problem, though, is the drive is based on outrageous and unrealistic expectations which are demanded by an antiquated educational system run amuck. At my third tier college, I know of administrators who can't speak a lick of English, yet they are required to take government exams to keep their jobs. Some of these guys go way back even to the days of Mao. So, they find teachers in the Foreign Language Department to serve as a proxies, so they can pass the exam and keep their jobs.

Student exams are proctored, except that too is open for interpretation. Proctors readily turn a blind eye to students cheating, unless the cheating is so blatant that it can't be ignored, and even then, it usually is.

Like it or not, foreign teachers play into the whole menagerie as well. Even if you are a dedicated educator, you will soon realize you are merely a charade, someone to fulfill the requirements needed. You can do your best to educate in the classroom, but inevitably, if a student fails an exam, he or she most assuredly will be given another chance to pass the exam, ideally when you're not proctoring the same exam again. If the student fails that one, no problem, the teachers will just pad points on the exam to get it to pass.

The current ESL revolution in China is misguided--and misdirected; although it's not self-inflicted English colonialization, more like it's indicative of China's draconian need to present an image that it perceives the outside world to be.

[Dragon]

Dear Comrade MW,
Once again you have showed us all your astute observations about your vast knowledge of ESL. You ask many great and wonderful questions. Please comrade MW answer them as you will undoubtedly enlighten us all. I hold you up as the future of the ESL industry in China. Mya you live 10,000 years comrade/
Furthermore, I look forward to all of your insightful postings and have taken to printing them out and put them in a separate file so that I may read them and hopefully become more like you, "A worker for the people". Live long Comrade MW and we eagerly await the next posting.
DRAGON

[Roger]

You know how Chinese businesses kill themselves? Through over-competition!
First there was one shoe-shine person outside a shop somewhere in a town. He was doing good business.
Next day, four shoe-shine people were sharing the samne business volume between themselves. They could still survive fairly well, but none got rich.
A week later, the street was crawling with shoe-shine people, all poor and without custom.
Taxis... hotels... karaoke bars... hair salons... everybody is emulating a perceived successful businessperson's success. Few people like to produce anything - too hard labour (my partner says selling is everything, producing can be left to the dumbos).
So why not the same with training centres?

The main attraction often is the foreign face that the school uses in its advertisements.

The whole English-speaking mania was set off by Comrade Deng. Remember he studied and worked, no, not in Britain or the USA, but in France.
But unlike some other cadres who were perfect Russian speakers, Deng understood the importance of the English language immediately.
For him - I suppose! - the importance lay in the vast repository of knowledge, know-how and sciences that the English language offered. He wanted Chinese not so much to travel abroad but to learn from the West.
How his ideas have been perverted over the last ten years or so!

[MW]

Hey Folks:

This was a set up question that you should have all answered with a quick YES or even a jubilant HECK YES!

Surely you can see the wisdom of requiring 1.3 bil Chinese and their continuing offspring to learn English. It is called "job security."

No, not for them, for us! We English teachers, remember our priority?

[Dragon]

Dear Comrade MW,
Yes, you tricked them again. You are so wise. Nobody even cared toanswer you. What is wrong with them. Please devote a thread to this Facilitation method so we may all learn it especially how it got started in 1978 so few years after the dear leader Mao passsed away.
Comrade, when will you officially be a citizen of the New China? When you become one we will all be better off.
DRAGON

[J.D.]

If only we feel the real warmth of the fire that only our dearly departed Dragon could breathe.