Job Discussion Forums

[Jojo]

Hi,
I was wondering how much English instruction is taught in state/private elementary schools? I know that there is now a 5 year plan in increasing teaching English language in China. My question is, what percentage of English Language is being taught in primary schools and middle/high schools?

What is the difference between public state run schools and private schools in relation to English Language teaching? Can someone please enlighten me on this issue. Thanks in advance.

Jojo

[Roger]

What percentage of English instruction:
Percentage of WHAT? I do not know how many subjects students normally take, but I have a rough idea of the amount of English taught: At primary schools it is 3 to 5 periods a week. In middle schools, this goes up to maybe 6 to 8 periods (the higher number includes oral practice in a few schools).
In normal schools - that turn out English teachers - they have more than ten periods a week. In some, they study English literature, in others they don't. The picture is not uniform. I can't understand this, nor why they do not have English literature at all college.

The difference between public schools and private ones:
Often, there is only minimal differences. SOme private schools merely collect higher tuition and usually hire an expat to raise their market value.
Other private schools run bilingual sections with English being used as a medium of instruction in certain subjects.

[MyTurnNow]

[Jojo]

Maybe I was a bit vague in my original post, let me clarify. What I meant was, What percentage is English taught compared to Chinese instruction? Is it 30% English and 70% Chinese instruction or does it depend on the school?
In reading previous posts, I got the impression that it was the Chinese teacher that usually teaches english grammar in the lower grades, Is this correct? Please correct me if I am totally off on this one.

Jojo

[Roger]

Your clarification does not clarify enough, at least for me: Do you mean 30% of English instructed using Chinese? Or do you mean devoting 30% of the time to teaching English versus 70% to teaching Chinese?

I guess you mean the first: using CHinese to teach English to the tune of 30%. I would say, this is too low - CHinese teachers speak about English two thirds of the time in Chinese. You can test this by yourself: Take a text, say from NEW CONCEPT ENGLISH, Practice and Progress (that is fit for college students here). First, the teacher will rehearse the list of vocables, pronouncing every word three times, followed by students repeating after the teacher; next the teacher will read the passage, most likely in a very halting manner; he will translate bit by bit, often every word in a phrase. Students will probably fall asleep or rifle through a comic strip magazine. If the teacher asks for a Chinese rending of any portion of the text from one of the students, someone will read aloud the translated version that follows the English text (yes, the book is bilingual!).
Well, that's what I have observed on a number of occasions! There is no Q&A part, no pattern drills. It simply is memorising and parroting.
And yes, grammar is exclusively explained by Chinese teachers, mostly in an inadequate fashion.

[Gray000]

I'd like to expand a touch on what Roger just said about grammar. There is a widespread notion among beginning teachers, encouraged by local teachers who probably even believe it, that Chinese students are good at grammar.

THIS IS NOT TRUE!!!!!

Chinese students are good at taking cloze tests when they look like this:

I have never ______ to Beijing.

They are good at multiple choice tests that look like this:

I am ______ to Beijing tomorrow.

a) Have gone
b) Swam
c) Should

And similar feats of testing. Chinese students are not good at using grammar in a meaningful way or discriminating fine shades of meaning, nor are their teachers. I suspect the reason for this is the extensive use of the good ole 'memorize without understanding' method. In 2 of the high schools I've taught at, teachers devoted a considerable amount of time to making the students memorize a whole page! What uselessness!

Another reason is that Chinese students can't use grammar is that none of the books currently in use in schools show them how. If you've studied Spanish, for example, you've seen boxes that match conjugations with pronouns for regular and irregular verbs, that show the uses of different object pronouns, etc. There's nothing like that here.

Anyway, rant aside, Roger's right in that English is (generally) only used when one is saying or reading the thing being studied right now. That said, I get the impression that there is a sizable group of younger teachers realize what BS this is and are trying to do better.

So when you go into the classroom, your problem is not that the students do not have practice speaking fluently, as the locals will have you believe. The problem is that they have never, ever, ever used English as a medium for expressing a message, nor have they ever heard any English that they can't also read in both languages, nor has their schooling prepared them for this. Some people here will tell you chinese students are good at writing. If you want to see the truth of that, assign an essay.

In a similar vein, there's the idea that foreign teachers can't teach grammar. Load of carp. A good series for this is SBS.

REgarding frequency of classes - I think there's variation even in the same city. In the Jilin primary and high schools I taught for, everybody had English every day. Here in Fujian, the middle schoolers I just started with (thank god I only have them for 2 more weeks because they are horrible!) have English 2 or 3 times a week.
In every case I think they have chinese every day, because they are still learning new characters in high school.