Job Discussion Forums

[TangWolun]

just got this from a fellow I know in China.

What do you teachers think?

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STOP TEACHING SET PHRASES AND SPEECH PATTERNS. IT DOES NOT PRODUCE ENGLISH SPEAKERS AND IT DOES NOT MEET EMPLOYER NEEDS.
CHINA EFL: A Market Driven Model

Gary China Petroleum Guangzhou Training Center

INTRODUCTION

For at least the past 20 years, Chinese employers have utilized the national English examination, CET 6, as the benchmark for employment of Chinese university graduates with English L2 capabilities. Recently, some Chinese educators have begun to question the validity of CET 6 as an appropriate benchmark because it measures knowledge learned about English but does not adequately measure comprehensible output.

Although �English Fever� is running rampant throughout China and is claimed to be �market driven�; the rush to institute English learning nationwide, with more than 1,000,000 Chinese teachers of English who are themselves, for the most part, unable to produce comprehensible oral or written English or teach in the target language, has miserably failed to meet market needs. The goal of universities and colleges throughout China is to have students pass national English competency examinations such as TEM 4, CET 4 and CET 6. Setting aside, for the moment, the fact that these national English competency examinations bear little or no relationship to comprehensible output, the pass rates have become the exclusive focus of administrative attention and false pride. This is in part due to demands of Chinese employers who are misinformed that passing CET 6 is the evidence of an accomplished English speaker[i]. . Wang Shugua, President of Harbin Institute of Technology is quoted as saying �I recognize CET as a good tool to promote English studies but I am against the practice of regarding a CET certificate as the prerequisite for graduation, which is totally misleading.�

The market need to have graduates who can produce comprehensible English output has been completely ignored. Consequently, foreign employers, Joint Venture employers and Chinese companies doing business abroad are hiring university graduates from India because they are able to produce comprehensible oral and written English. Imagine more than 5 million Chinese university graduates, who have learned English for 16 years, being passed over for Chinese jobs in China . This is simply unacceptable! English is one of �the 10 most popular disciplines that saw low rates of employment last year.� [ii]

Both �in house� and private corporate English training centers are proliferating throughout the business hubs of China . The curriculum is usually industry specific and amounts to ESP (English for a specific purpose), i.e. the teaching of technical language and phrases to meet the perceived need to limit English communication to a standard or formal form of English.


In August 2008, China Petroleum Guangzhou Training Center, (TC) the educational arm of PetroChina,[iii] implemented the Holistic English Program[iv] in an attempt to rectify the recognized deficiencies of the CET 6 certification. Holistic English is to English language learning what Chinese traditional medicine is to health care. Holistic English moves away from the traditional focus on grammar and lexis. �While there is a need for specialist terminology, the greatest need of international employers is to have employees who can communicate successfully in English. Thus, communication and accommodation should be emphasized in language instruction; the mastering of perfect grammatical forms is an added bonus that can be reserved for later refinement. Flexibility is just as important as the mastering of prescribed forms, if not more so. In order to communicate to communicate across international boundaries, students must learn to adjust to their interlocutor in order to facilitate understanding. Moreover, because of the growing use of English as a global lingua franca, students of the language need to be exposed to a wide range of English accents in order to increase their abilities to understand the people they are likely to encounter in an international career. Furthermore, it is not only formal but informal language skills that should be practiced at university; students should be made aware of the different genres and registers in English, so that they can determine the appropriate use of the language in the various situations in which they are likely to find themselves. �. Finally, students should be taught skills that allow them to mediate between languages and cultures. Thus an intercultural approach is needed in language teaching, so that future employees are �able to view different cultures from a perspective of informed understanding� (Corbett 2003:2)[v] An approach that has the goal of successful intercultural communication at its core will prepare students for the relatively unpredictable needs of language use in corporate Europe.�[vi]

All of the trainees of the center had passed the national CET 6 but were unable to produce adequate comprehensible English output, to meet the needs of their overseas assignments. This paper presents the data collected and the conclusions drawn regarding the efficacy of the Holistic English Program in assisting the TC trainees with English acquisition sufficient to prepare them for their work assignments abroad where English L2 will be the primary mode of communication with other L2 speakers of English.

TC INSTITUTIONAL OBJECTIVES
Gary

TC STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS
Gary

TC CURRICULUM
Gary

TC STUDENT EVALUATION
End of one year

CONCLUSIONS
End of one year
.


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[i] Yuankai, Tang, 9/6/07 Beijing Review, Education Feared to Raise Robots
[ii] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-06/27/content_6799171.htm (accessed July 2, 2008)
Beijing-based survey company Mycos HR

[iii] China �s largest company by revenue and employees.

[iv] Corbett, J. 2003, An intercultural Approach to English Language Teaching, Clevedon & Buffalo: Multilingial Matters
[v] Erling and Walton 2007, English at work in Berlin , English Today, Volume 23 Number 1

[GeminiTiger]

This is the same thing everyone in this business has know for years. China teaches students to pass exams instead of teaching the knowledge that would make such an exam passable.

All of my students know it also, but there is little they can do. They are too busy trying to get a 'computer certificate' or a 'CET' certificate or some other certificate to concentrate on knowledge. They feel as they have no choice as these large number of certificates make a new graduate employable.

The schools do not have the innovative capacity to change the system, once the number of CET and TEM and other certificates for the school goes down the administration will feel it's a loss of future business and a loss of face. They will do nothing to encourage the change.

About the only thing that could change is the business practice of hiring people with 'certificates'. That is not going to happen here, Chinese are obsessed with 'stamps' and 'certificates', they think it means something, even if they cheated for their own 'certificate' when they went to school.

The system is stuck between a rock and a hard place we can talk about it all we want to, I don't see anything changing.

[ke_te_si]

This looks like an interesting paper. Would you happen to know where it is available? I'd like to read the whole thing. Thanks.

[Lorean]

[englishgibson]

to answer the question of this topic's thread, i'd say we (foreigners) are on the way out and chinese with overseas education are on the way in...we've been invited to attract business to private language centers or to stimulate interest in students of public schools...i also dare to say that we've been invited to provide the chinese academic staff with a knowledge of other cultures

now, that this country has learnt about us and learnt how different our educational approach is, they'll adjust their own way...they've even created a new regulation for private language centers where a chinese national is supposed to be the director of studies

in any case, the new chinese educational approach is on its way (an old version of the new one)...they've even pasted and re-edited some parts of IELTS, TOEFL, some foreign uni entry exams and so on and on...those might eventually become the new way of grading their own breed of "talent" in this country

have you ever seen a BMW with a great wall engine?

cheers and beers to my chinese students that could one day teach me how to teach english

[vikuk]

If there's one thing the Chinese excel at - then it must be associated with churning out poor quality.
This country is maybe cheap - but look at the crud you so often get for your money - and EFl is no exception. What kind of standards are expected in language classrooms when you have all those non-English speaking Chinese teachers, trained in the art of rote learning - Ft's, often with no-training, no-qualification and no-experience, being expected to work wonders with next to no teaching materials and a make it up as you go curriculum - and students who so often associate EFL not so much in terms English to be learnt as a foreign language, but English to be endured for a foreign language exam!!!
But what the hell - many schools seem to have long since given up the ghost of EFL for teaching language, and are focused on EFL for making a profit. So why should those guys complicate their business' by going the whole hog by getting serious over English teaching. Finding skilled teachers and training them to to use effective teaching programs - is a waste of time and effort when there are still more gullible folk willing to support the balance books for a fantasy version of good English teaching.
Maybe one would think that Education authorities would start to act on this negative situation - new regulations, new standards or maybe just trying regulate those standards that are intended to promote quality (for example that FT's should have a 4 year degree). But then hey-presto comes the next game the locals excel in (at least if there's a profit to be made out of it) - the art of getting round rules by any means possible!!!!!!!

Of course there are exceptions out there that must be guiding lights for progressive teaching - but in a next to unregulated environment where developing profit seems to mean so much more than developing standards - it seems that the best quality so often plays second fiddle to an easy-to-copy, money-making worse

[Lorean]

[vikuk]

[Orrin]

@vikuk,

You have hit the nail squarely on the head.

[englishgibson]

and so we're headed for more entertainment in our classrooms...if it's uninteresting, we will get fired

i was invited to china to teach but the only thing they really cared about was my passport and the only thing they really asked me to do was to entertain...now, am i the only one?

the question is .. how can the chinese authorities justify all those credentials/requirements needed for these "entertainment shows" and all those lovely but clueless leaders in schools/centers

cheers and beers to all requirements for academic experts as well as cheers and beers to the experts' roles here in china

[william wallace]

The job I'm doing now (how long will I last??) asked for uni transcripts and TEFL cert,yet it is the overall worst in all my years here.The sad thing is the school is filled with lots of potential -Foreigners from UK, Canada, USA,Iran, Nigeria and even Aussies( ) and Kiwis!
I presently have,and had in the past argued(General Discussion) that ESL as it is now, employing many,is on its last legs.Seems obvious to me,though the responses to me perspective, as in the past, has been met with disinterest, scorn, ridicule, but some oldbies agree.

[Mei Sheng]

Someone typed - "i was invited to china to teach but the only thing they really cared about was my passport and the only thing they really asked me to do was to entertain...now, am i the only one?"

No.

[arioch36]

Looking for new jobs this sumer. Talked to New Dynamic Institute (mentioned in a different thread .. their contract really is terrible)

During the interview they asked me what was most I thought was most important. I decided to be honest, as I had little intention of accepting their horrible contract. "Help promote a learning environment where they can improve their english."

The interviewer for NDI said, "What is really most important is that you are humourous and make them laugh." Exact words. Don't get me wrong, when humour occurs in the classroom, it is usually welcomed. But I haven't sunk that low yet. I am sure they will get exactly the right teacher for their school

[Mei Sheng]

NDI is part of the Only English "empire" here. They gain their muscle via an affiliation with the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

I appreciate their assistance in keeping me alive, but, I can't refrain - OE is not a place that I want to work for again. The job isn't bad, for awhile, but, I'm happy to be elsewhere now.

Except for there, during my 4 years in China, I have never lost my voice. I guess it was a subliminal message from my creator.

I just wish they weren't so frugal and turned on the AC, heat, had paper for the broken down copy machine etc... Perhaps if the working conditions and bosses attitude were different, my health may have been different.

I'm a happy, healthy camper now.

Stay away from Only English; unless, of course, you have no where else to go. Good Luck!

[Mei Sheng]

"During the interview they asked me what was most I thought was most important. I decided to be honest, as I had little intention of accepting their horrible contract. "Help promote a learning environment where they can improve their english."

The interviewer for NDI said, "What is really most important is that you are humourous and make them laugh." Exact words. "

I think a good, hearty laugh would occur if I heard the salesman's salary.

The wool has definitely been pulled over all training center staff/CC's eyes here in Zhongguo.

I will refrain, except for - I hope that all the training center salespeople here in China get a chance to smooch my derriere.

Yunqi