Mar 08, 2021, 15:44
A member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, has proposed that English no longer be a compulsory course for the national college entrance examination.
The CPPCC National Committee member said that since only 10 percent of surveyed college graduates said English is useful to them and given the translation software available, English should no longer be a set requirement along with Chinese and math.
The proposal, if adopted, would put an end to the nation's tradition of foreign language teaching and learning that dates back more than a century.
English is still the most commonly used language in the world, and will continue to be so in the future. China is the world's second-largest economy, largest trade partner of more than 120 countries and regions, largest destination for foreign investment and largest source of international travelers.
The reason why China and the world can interact so closely and deeply is to a large extent due to the use of English as a communication bridge. It is difficult to imagine how students would understand China and the world without foreign language education.
Were primary and middle schools no longer to teach English as they have been over the past decades, it would be predictable that only the students from better-off families would be able to afford expensive extracurricular language courses, and it would become more difficult for their counterparts from lower down the social ladder to master the language, putting them at a disadvantage.
That many Chinese students cannot use English fluently after learning it for years at school should not be attributed to the language itself, which is arguably one of the easiest languages to learn and to use, but to the poor methods used to teach the language. It is no secret that English teaching in Chinese schools focuses more on preparing students to get high scores in exams rather than having the ability to use the language in real world situations.
Many people inevitably need to understand and use English. It would be more sensible to improve how English is taught in schools rather than simply stopping teaching the language.
"Make it sophistiated, appealing, lovable, majestic and easy to use within China."
This is not going to happen in the real world, especially given the way that nearly all subjects, including languages, are taught in China. Dull, rote, regurgitated Chinglish is the accepted norm.
Language is the most important instrument for globalization. Can one imagine Chinese speaking Chinese only and German speaking German only - can business be done? The one who came out with this idea should be sacked!!!!!! Such a proposal will throw China backwards another 50 years, not that China has caught up. Coming out of poverty doesn't mean China has surpassed the developing country stage. China is still largely at the bottom end of affordability. With this type of proposal, China can become retarded like during its late Qing era. The official who suggested this needs to be removed for he or she clearly lacks even basic common sense and is empty on imagination. China cannot afford such a cost in its administration.
In terms of language of course it is paramount importance for China to go all the way to preserve its Chinese language. Make it sophistiated, appealing, lovable, majestic and easy to use within China. Across China's ethnicities, make Chinese language the ownership of all the 56 ethnics, not just one. A language's importance also depends on the depth it is related to culture and science. Therefore the development in these two areas using Chinese language need to be continuously enhanced and the bar of excellene needs to be raise. How products and daily life experience are brought about through the use of Chinese language in China is vital. This will naturally promote its use inside China. In short within China don't take the Chinese language for granted, instead allow the Chinese language to comepte with the English language for supremacy. This will ensure the Chinese language's survival. Outside China, strengthen China's collaboration with the few countries which are willing to learn Chinese to deepen their prowes in Chinese. The people from those countries need to be exposed to China as much as possible. Meeting of minds is important and that their native language will not be threatened is vital. Hence China must also demonstrate how China supports those languages in their home countries.
As for English, the more you Chinese are pro-efficient in it the better. English is currently more widely used internationally than Chinese in terms of political landscape, land area and economic area. Of the top 6 global financial centres, 4 are in English, including Hong Kong. Only Tokyo and Shanghai have presence of their national language. For China to be a true economic nation, English is indispensible. Extreme nationalism or religious extremism will ensure the destruction of economic excellence because common sense is shelved.
Therefore China must be pro-efficient in English. China must acquire sufficient international ownership in the use of English. To be able to articulate in English worldwide and still beat the Anglos to it, that will help to put China amongst the leaders in the Anglo sphere. When this occurs, the Anglos will also start paying attention to the Chinese language. When the condition is sufficiently matured, this Anglo tendency will open the opportunity for China to work with the Anglo governments to create the dual language channel at least within the Anglo and Chinese sphere. Therefore the Chinese language's use will be widen then.
With strong command of English without dimishing China's proefficiency in its own Chinese language, this will help China to think more creatively. It has been proven that the more languages that one can command, the more creative one becomes. By this empowerment, the people will appreciate the government better. With more languages of course the people will become more informed. This is advantageous to China as China will have unlimited options globally. The only challenge to the Chinese government is to keep pace and stay ahead of its people in thoughts. This in turn creates sustained dynamism in China's government.
For globalization the more proefficient the Chinese are in the use of English, the greater the chances of globalization. However inevitably the people will globalize regardless of whether a country globalizes or not. With the technology growth it is dumb to assume people won't globalize and will not learn English on their own. Therefore its stupid for the government to curb English when the mass is leaning towards it.
It is a vital question of how China makes itself the first choice home with good social comfort (not necessary must be extremely rich, moderate will do) where the natural language is Chinese extremely, good safety for asset security and most dynamic condition for business without curbing the learning of English.
If the Chinese people need to compete globally, so too China as a country.
First off, they don't seem to have an effective way of teaching English to Chinese students; after years of English education, many still speak and write Chinglish.
As to your point that English opens up a window to the rest of the world, my argument is that the Chinese are already pretty well- informed even without English; their Chinese language media, internet etc, tell them more than they need to know. Hence English is not useful in that regard.
On another point, if you force somebody to learn something they are not interested in, you will find that they are unable to get good marks in the subject, and also will forget very easily what they have been taught, after all if they don't use English in their daily lives they will forget how to use the language, this happens in most languages, for example I have forgotten a lot of Afrikaans, that I was taught in school because it was a compulsory subject and I didn't like it and that is why I have therefore lost touch with it.
In my opinion,English should be taught on a voluntary basis, with particular focus on use in International Trade, Overseas Study and organisations that uses it on a regular basis, also an effort must be made to teach proper English, not the American version, with bad spelling and pronunciation,after all Americans can't speak English properly anyway
Teaching English as a compulsory subject probably has a lot of drawbacks. But at least it does show to students that there is a different world of thinking, living and communicating beyond the middle kingdom. Do you believe that they would be able to learn about foreign cultures and their differences to China if they were given effective teaching which broadened their world view or would this also be regarded as "not useful"?
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