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[tofuman]

UPDATED: 14:05, June 25, 2004
Chinese intellectuals rebel against foreign language tests
Chinese Daily Online


Chinese intellectuals have been grumbling about foreign language tests, which they are required to pass to obtain higher professional titles.

"I'm 54 now and don't want to torture myself with these novel English words, so I will not participate in any foreign languages test for professional titles in the future," said Wang Tongxi, engineer with the biochemistry and cellular biology institute under Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Wang aims to win the title of senior engineer and registered in this year's foreign languages test on April 11. He has been struggling to learn by heart over 6,000 English words in the past months with only less than five hours of sleep each day, but still failed to answer most of the questions on the exam paper.

After graduating from Beijing University in 1978, Wang has been studying neural polypeptide and published over 10 authoritative academic papers.

Most exam participants don't use foreign languages in their daily work and they forget the language even after having passed the tests with high grades, said Wang Jianmin, director of public management department with Beijing Normal University.

In China, professional titles, such as senior engineer, professor and lecturer, are generally hinged with not only honors,but also some financial benefits.

The examinations can not justify experts' professional levels and those with less language talent are not necessarily less gifted in other studies, said Wang who has been studying foreign languages teaching and application for years.

China began a foreign language study campaign in the 1980s, which has heated up recently.

The campaign is overheated and needs to be cooled, said Zhou Guoqiang, deputy dean of the foreign languages college in ShanghaiJiaotong University.

Experts advocate elimination of foreign language tests for someprofessionals.

Foreign languages tests should be applied only to those workingin departments or companies related with overseas affairs and experts in other fields should be exempt from the tests, such as professors of ancient Chinese and herbalist doctors, said Shen Ronghua, researcher with Shanghai Public Administration and Human Resources Research Institute.

Source: Xinhua

[anthyp]

Interesting article, but I for one don't understand the title of this thread!

Are you suggesting that these academics shouldn't have to study English since it's an obvious waste of time for them? Come on, a truly modern, educated person cannot be monolingual! Not even in China. Even if these people don't plan on using English much in the future, the Chinese are not wrong to insist that they broaden their minds a bit and consider the big bad world that exists outside of China.

Aren't most academic papers published in English, anyway? That alone should be enough incentive for these people. Of course, it's difficult, but professionals in this country don't make a bad wage -- perhaps they could pay for language classes. They seem to be following the lead of many N. Americans, who don't consider familiarity with other languages besides English de rigueur. But we can afford that luxury; Chinese professionals who want to be taken seriously by the international community can't.

Perhaps the problem lies with the means (the testing), rather than the ends.

[Zero Hero]

'anthyp', you make some good points, but I can fully understand the reluctance of this (in his field, leading) academic to partake in these exams. I can imagine he would rather concentrate on his particular area of expertise, especially when the tests in question entail little more than learning by rote a laborious string of words. After all, what are reference bilingual dictionaries there for if not to refer to when needed? He will already have a fairly good grasp of basic structures, moods, and voices, and will know tenses employed in articles, after all, he would have had to read a great deal of English-language work in his own studies and research. I guess that is what is meant by the waste of the best minds. It would be a waste in sense of not the most efficient or effective deployment of the said mind.

I suspect his attitude to English is similar to that held by many non-German speaking students of chemistry when German was simply the language of that discipline.

Also, by no means are all academic papers published in English. There are leading, world-renowned Chinese-language journals (both simplified and complex script) in many academic realms. Indeed, there are examples of academic work conducted by Chinese scholars and which are published in Chinese which no one expects to ever appear in English (principally due to the high quality of the work).

A particularly candid example is offered by the case of the Acta Mathematica Sinica, a series of highly specialist mathematical papers published in Chinese. I do not know too much about mathematics, but I do know something about machine translation. Before the contents of this journal could be made available to western scholars it of course had to be translated � which, for a small-circulation journal on a difficult topic took some eighteen months to achieve by hand (not many mathematicians are translators and not many translators are mathematicians). Since 1975, however, thanks to the machine translation system developed under Professor Loh at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, they appear in English a mere three months after their initial publication in Chinese.

[kellyb]

i can see that maybe studying english will perhaps not be relevant to some peoples work, however in my town its no problem. if a local expert or official wants to gain his promotion by passing the english test they just make the best students or english teachers at my school do it for them. last term 20 students and teachers from my school happily took the exam for other people and saw no problem in this. They were just helping a frined. How naughty!

[Roger]

Well, this so-called "English euphoria" is a huge Potemkin village hyped up by the media, including western publications. Some of my students have studied English for as long as I have been in this country, and by gosh you won't feel anybody has studied English seriously here or anywhere in China! THis is like the Great Leap Forward - one huge government-instituted delusional tactic by the Party to showcase their role as this nation's avantgarde - yesterday Russian, today English...
Anytime education has to submit to five-year plans it is doomed! The CCP was back in the early 1990s anticipating a virtually bilingual CHinese nation by 2008; well, bilingual are all those non-Han 'Chinese'. As for the Hans, learning English is a patriotic exercise; a tiny minority is dedicated to the study of EEnglish (or any subject for that matter). The great majority just study because they have - no choice! English is, after all, COMPULSORY.
You can clearly see the difference between those who study an elective such as French or ITalian or German - their English invariably is better, and their second foreign tongue often is of superb quality (as I can testify after meeting many of them at the bi-annual Canton Trade Fair).
Just how much the leaders mislead themselves is shown by comments made by people older than 30 (as in the reported case): after a decade or 2 working in the same danwei there simply is no youthfulness and energy left to start learning a foreign language. Besides, you just can't teach adults the same way you teach very young ones.
No wonder, TEFL in China is a huge PR windmill and a farce; people that make money from it such as LI YANG are national heroes. Has anybody ever met a competent English speaker who perfected their skills under Mr Li's enlightened coaching?

[KES]

Quoting Roger: "Has anybody ever met a competent English speaker who perfected their skills under Mr Li's enlightened coaching?"

I have not. Granted, my sample size is limited only to my experiences.

My perception is that students of "Crazy English" methodology tend to speak too loud, too fast, and in a grating, sing-song tone. Perhaps worst, is an accompanying false sense of confidence and achievement.

I had one young man tell me (if I interpreted his rapid-fire, ear-piercing, up and down delivery correctly) that he no longer needed to study English - he had mastered Crazy English and was as good as any Native English speaker.

Other graduates of this "school" of teaching I've met, mirrored, to a greater or lesser degree, this young man.

Then again, Your Mileage may vary.

[Zero Hero]

The problem is 'KES', unless you had 'controls' you will never know if the person you met would have reached that level whatever the input she had or course she took, etc. That is, she might have reached her current level in spite of Crazy English, not as a result of her time with them. Unless you could split her in two and send one to Crazy English and one to some other crazy scheme and then compared the two, you will never know if her language level is due to her 'studies' at Crazy English, or just exposure to English in general.

One thing Crazy English does do, 'Roger', is that it at least tries to install a sense of fun in the students, and encourages them to speak out, regardless of errors of phonetics, phonology, morphology, or syntax, so it is not entirely a farce. He also encourages motivation in students, which though obviously a highly nebulous concept is of vital importance in language learning. Having said that I would agree however that it is somewhat wanting as an overall educational course. But, as the man himself says, no one to the best of his knowledge is forced to sign up for a course.

The Chinese are always looking for the instant fix, the 'Learn English Before Finishing Your Chewing Gum' type of course. Crazy English offers that and many are sucked in, and now he is one of the richest men on the Mainland (at least as regards official income).