Its the Annual English Speaking Awards time on CCTV9 and this year there were two things that struck me:
1. Chinese English is becoming American English and
2. The standard is abysmal.
Now I don't want the first point to cast me as a sour grapes English speaker bemoaning the fact that USA-English is spreading round the globe like a noxious weed, but rather to wonder at the absence of Chinese-English? Just as I would hate reason number two to sound as though I'm calling Chinese students thick. So I'd better explain quickly - only bear with me, as I'm still feeling my way around this one.
I have spent most of my life in countries where English is not the first language. As well as having travelled round a great deal . But in every one of those countries, those who represented Academia and Media spoke fluent, grammatically-correct English. Depending on the harshness or strength of their local accent not all were as easy to understand as others. However, their use of grammar, syntax and inflection was perfectly understood. It was only one's familiarity with the local accent which might hinder understanding at times.
Most of these countries are small countries where one would have thought that the opportunities of finding a vast reserve of people who spoke near-perfect English was correspondingly small. Yet there never seemed to be a shortage of people who could converse fluently.
One would assume then, that China, with a correspondingly larger population (well, an astronomically larger population actually) would have a correspondingly vast supply of fluent English language speaker. But we haven't. Not even enough, it seems, to guarantee that certain newscasts, general interest, travel and other programme from CCTV9, the one and only English station to broadcast in that language both internally and externally, would need subtitles for the English to be understood at all.
Now why is that? Are the Chinese people, who have produced many writers and philosophers and scholars in their own history, less clever than, say, the Islanders of Papua New Guinea; some of whom have never even worn shoes?
Of course they're not.
Is their ability with language minimal?
Not at all, even if language ability were proven to be a racial trait it would not apply to Chinese people, many of whom speak multiple languages.
Do they not get taught early enough or learn for long enough?
Every school teaches all students for twelve years to speak English, starting at around the age of 5. (Yet I have never discovered a taxi-driver who understands even such basics as "Stop", "Left" or "Right").
The only other explanation left is: - aren't they taught properly? And the answer to that - at least in my little corner of the world, is a resounding..No, they are not.
The other unique contributory factor is, I consider, that there is absolutely no Standard English bench mark by which to teach or to examine or test on.
Throughout their school years English is taught by Chinese teachers whose English is, often, unrecognisable. I have given seminars to Chinese English teachers in which I have had to discard my entire presentation and ad-lib it because no-one in the room could understand me. Most students, after the first, enthusiastic year of learning "Hellohowareyou?" "I'mfinethanksandyou", lose interest and consider English classes a chance to skive off. Just as generations of English kids used to do when French was a compulsory subject in English schools.
So who can blame them? They are never going to travel to an English-speaking country. All the latest movies hit the theatres ahead of the West with sub-titles or dubbed dialogue. They've never met an English-speaking person in their life. What do they need English for?
Even the majority of those who graduate into University Foreign Language Programmes fall far short of even the basics needed to be able to understand native English at a Primary School level, let alone at the levels of their peers in other countries.
So I sat listening to those contestants to-night, each one the best supposedly, that the country can offer, no-one gaining a score lower than 94 where, on a Standard English bench mark, they probably would have scored in the low seventies. I analysed their speeches, their words, their understanding. But if was, actually, one of the journalists reading out a news story that gave me the clue as to why these English-speakers are just so damn bad: apart from the grammatical and pronunciation errs, no-one has ever taught them the rhythms and the stresses of the English language.
In a way, the situation is analogous to a contemporary scholar learning Mesopotamian or any other dead language: - we've never heard it so we don't know what it sounds like. Though we can read and translate it, would anyone from Ancient Mesopotamia understand a word we said? The English of the majority of Chinese students is learnt from someone who, themselves, has never heard the language spoken. They know that English is not a tonal language like Chinese, where the same combination of sounds stressed in four different ways, have four separate meaning.
So they have no idea of the sounds of English. The rhythm of the words that carry along our feelings, the tones which clarify our meanings, the cadences, the light and shade, the very sound of the language.
In every other place I have ever been where English is taught, people are at least familiar with the language. They've heard it around themselves, or on the radio, or blaring incomprehensibly through radio stations or, at the very least, from their English teacher at school. But millions of Chinese people have never even seen a foreigner, let alone heard one speak. Or laugh, or cry.
My students are often amazed to learn that I very often haven't a clue what a colleague from the deep South of America has said. Or that people from America can't understand people from various places in Britain very well . Or that English-speakers from South Africa speak English in a way that leaves some Australians baffled, or that people brought up in India are often incomprehensible to their relatives in England. They don't know that there are different ways to speak English, they have no idea why some words are stressed and some aren't, nor that tone of voice can carry meaning irrespective of the content of the words being spoken. They don't see the need for a standard because they don't realise that a standard is necessary. They have no idea that there is a correct way and an incorrect way to pronounce vowels or diphthongs, the building blocks of language. They are incapable of telling an educated voice from an uneducated voice or distinguishing good English from bad.
Look, I don't care if the bench-mark is Standard English, British English or American English. But there has to be some notch one can carve into the wall when someone has said something correctly. Whether Chinese English teachers are trained by CD or by qualified Native-English teachers is immaterial: but the person who records those CD's must be speaking English which is not idiosyncratic, and the Native-English speakers must speak English of a certain level to which all students must aspire.
As the national average is far below the level acceptable in foreign (i.e. English-speaking) Universities, those who want to work or study overseas are ill prepared. There was a recent article on OLO by Christina Ho, herself Chinese, but working in Australia, who highlights the plight of many Chinese immigrants to Australia. Though coming from highly qualified backgrounds many were working menial jobs, she pointed out. Consequently many women, for the first time in their lives found themselves unable to work. Their English, for which many have gained high marks at a school or University in China, is insufficient often to get them through a job interview, let alone into a job.
Chinese students, sometimes whose understanding goes little further than a few basic greetings, are incapable of following a lecture in their foreign universities, nor can they easily make friends with native English speakers. Many of them return home but, even those who manage to make it through, return with their spoken English little improved as they spent all their time with other Chinese students being thus marginalised in campus life. Mainly, however, they come back with very little understanding of the country in which they have been living, minimal travel experience, none of the contacts they were going to find, and a memory of a truly miserable time in their lives. Many hopes are dashed during this ordeal.
Every country has a local accent when speaking English, which identifies them: - the French with their rolling rrrrrs, the Germans with their guttural fricatives, and the Jamaicans with their round vowels. They have been taught a standard way of pronunciation which, combined with their own language, is unique. So far, there is no definitive accent which can be pegged as Chinese English.
One of the other reasons for this is the mushroom-like Language schools which have sprung up all over the country. These exist not only for those older people who did not learn English in school, or the businessperson who never was good at English in school but now finds a need for it, and the hapless students bound for foreign Universities. These are the main originators for all those "If you can speak English you can teach in China...." advertisements.
Consequently back-backers, retirees, travellers, those escaping home for the first time, as well as some genuinely, dedicated and wonderful teachers, flock to China from a variety of destinations. Two friends from Calcutta will start up a school and hire a couple from South America, a Filipino girl, someone from Ireland and a Swede. They will all then start conducting English classes despite the fact that they have difficulty understanding each other in the staffroom after work. To students who have never heard the English language spoken, this variety of accents it confusing...Will the real English please stand up?
Who now decides when English is good enough to receive a diploma for? Does it matter if the candidate confuses verb/adjective positioning (What's verb/adjective positioning?) Does it matter if they always say "s" for "th" 'cos that sounds kinda cute. Is anyone gonna care if they have absolutely no concept of the when to use the word "the?". Is it really important, in the great scheme of things if they use verbs as adjectives and adjectives for verbs? And if everything is said in a flat, uninflected monotone does that really matter as long as they got the vocabulary right?
Well, yeah. It does. Or it damn-well should be. China is trying to shake the image it has in many places as being the land of the second-rate: second-rate toys, clothing, milk powder. Isn't it cause for shame if they remain second rate English speakers?
There is much talk at the moment here - as in other countries around the world - of educational reform. It is needed in many areas. If there are to be any areas of change in the educational system then the way English is taught and understood is a major area in which some new thinking is absolutely necessary. Personally, I don't see the reason for English to be compulsory for so long. If it were an optional, or even compulsory only for the initial years, or in High School, then I suggest that those who did learn would be those who were at least prepared to stay awake for the duration of a class or refrain from making calls or playing games on their phones.
But if English is going to be taught at all, at least let it be real English. The standard English that is taught all over the world seems so far to have worked just fine elsewhere. Let our standards be high - why is there an assumption that it is harder for Chinese people than, say, people from Indonesia, or Finland. Why do we not insist upon and expect a criteria? The whole programme, concept and methodology of English language teaching needs seriously to be addressed if China really is going to take its place in the global community on equal terms with others.
1. Chinese English is becoming American English and
2. The standard is abysmal.
Now I don't want the first point to cast me as a sour grapes English speaker bemoaning the fact that USA-English is spreading round the globe like a noxious weed, but rather to wonder at the absence of Chinese-English? Just as I would hate reason number two to sound as though I'm calling Chinese students thick. So I'd better explain quickly - only bear with me, as I'm still feeling my way around this one.
I have spent most of my life in countries where English is not the first language. As well as having travelled round a great deal . But in every one of those countries, those who represented Academia and Media spoke fluent, grammatically-correct English. Depending on the harshness or strength of their local accent not all were as easy to understand as others. However, their use of grammar, syntax and inflection was perfectly understood. It was only one's familiarity with the local accent which might hinder understanding at times.
Most of these countries are small countries where one would have thought that the opportunities of finding a vast reserve of people who spoke near-perfect English was correspondingly small. Yet there never seemed to be a shortage of people who could converse fluently.
One would assume then, that China, with a correspondingly larger population (well, an astronomically larger population actually) would have a correspondingly vast supply of fluent English language speaker. But we haven't. Not even enough, it seems, to guarantee that certain newscasts, general interest, travel and other programme from CCTV9, the one and only English station to broadcast in that language both internally and externally, would need subtitles for the English to be understood at all.
Now why is that? Are the Chinese people, who have produced many writers and philosophers and scholars in their own history, less clever than, say, the Islanders of Papua New Guinea; some of whom have never even worn shoes?
Of course they're not.
Is their ability with language minimal?
Not at all, even if language ability were proven to be a racial trait it would not apply to Chinese people, many of whom speak multiple languages.
Do they not get taught early enough or learn for long enough?
Every school teaches all students for twelve years to speak English, starting at around the age of 5. (Yet I have never discovered a taxi-driver who understands even such basics as "Stop", "Left" or "Right").
The only other explanation left is: - aren't they taught properly? And the answer to that - at least in my little corner of the world, is a resounding..No, they are not.
The other unique contributory factor is, I consider, that there is absolutely no Standard English bench mark by which to teach or to examine or test on.
Throughout their school years English is taught by Chinese teachers whose English is, often, unrecognisable. I have given seminars to Chinese English teachers in which I have had to discard my entire presentation and ad-lib it because no-one in the room could understand me. Most students, after the first, enthusiastic year of learning "Hellohowareyou?" "I'mfinethanksandyou", lose interest and consider English classes a chance to skive off. Just as generations of English kids used to do when French was a compulsory subject in English schools.
So who can blame them? They are never going to travel to an English-speaking country. All the latest movies hit the theatres ahead of the West with sub-titles or dubbed dialogue. They've never met an English-speaking person in their life. What do they need English for?
Even the majority of those who graduate into University Foreign Language Programmes fall far short of even the basics needed to be able to understand native English at a Primary School level, let alone at the levels of their peers in other countries.
So I sat listening to those contestants to-night, each one the best supposedly, that the country can offer, no-one gaining a score lower than 94 where, on a Standard English bench mark, they probably would have scored in the low seventies. I analysed their speeches, their words, their understanding. But if was, actually, one of the journalists reading out a news story that gave me the clue as to why these English-speakers are just so damn bad: apart from the grammatical and pronunciation errs, no-one has ever taught them the rhythms and the stresses of the English language.
In a way, the situation is analogous to a contemporary scholar learning Mesopotamian or any other dead language: - we've never heard it so we don't know what it sounds like. Though we can read and translate it, would anyone from Ancient Mesopotamia understand a word we said? The English of the majority of Chinese students is learnt from someone who, themselves, has never heard the language spoken. They know that English is not a tonal language like Chinese, where the same combination of sounds stressed in four different ways, have four separate meaning.
So they have no idea of the sounds of English. The rhythm of the words that carry along our feelings, the tones which clarify our meanings, the cadences, the light and shade, the very sound of the language.
In every other place I have ever been where English is taught, people are at least familiar with the language. They've heard it around themselves, or on the radio, or blaring incomprehensibly through radio stations or, at the very least, from their English teacher at school. But millions of Chinese people have never even seen a foreigner, let alone heard one speak. Or laugh, or cry.
My students are often amazed to learn that I very often haven't a clue what a colleague from the deep South of America has said. Or that people from America can't understand people from various places in Britain very well . Or that English-speakers from South Africa speak English in a way that leaves some Australians baffled, or that people brought up in India are often incomprehensible to their relatives in England. They don't know that there are different ways to speak English, they have no idea why some words are stressed and some aren't, nor that tone of voice can carry meaning irrespective of the content of the words being spoken. They don't see the need for a standard because they don't realise that a standard is necessary. They have no idea that there is a correct way and an incorrect way to pronounce vowels or diphthongs, the building blocks of language. They are incapable of telling an educated voice from an uneducated voice or distinguishing good English from bad.
Look, I don't care if the bench-mark is Standard English, British English or American English. But there has to be some notch one can carve into the wall when someone has said something correctly. Whether Chinese English teachers are trained by CD or by qualified Native-English teachers is immaterial: but the person who records those CD's must be speaking English which is not idiosyncratic, and the Native-English speakers must speak English of a certain level to which all students must aspire.
As the national average is far below the level acceptable in foreign (i.e. English-speaking) Universities, those who want to work or study overseas are ill prepared. There was a recent article on OLO by Christina Ho, herself Chinese, but working in Australia, who highlights the plight of many Chinese immigrants to Australia. Though coming from highly qualified backgrounds many were working menial jobs, she pointed out. Consequently many women, for the first time in their lives found themselves unable to work. Their English, for which many have gained high marks at a school or University in China, is insufficient often to get them through a job interview, let alone into a job.
Chinese students, sometimes whose understanding goes little further than a few basic greetings, are incapable of following a lecture in their foreign universities, nor can they easily make friends with native English speakers. Many of them return home but, even those who manage to make it through, return with their spoken English little improved as they spent all their time with other Chinese students being thus marginalised in campus life. Mainly, however, they come back with very little understanding of the country in which they have been living, minimal travel experience, none of the contacts they were going to find, and a memory of a truly miserable time in their lives. Many hopes are dashed during this ordeal.
Every country has a local accent when speaking English, which identifies them: - the French with their rolling rrrrrs, the Germans with their guttural fricatives, and the Jamaicans with their round vowels. They have been taught a standard way of pronunciation which, combined with their own language, is unique. So far, there is no definitive accent which can be pegged as Chinese English.
One of the other reasons for this is the mushroom-like Language schools which have sprung up all over the country. These exist not only for those older people who did not learn English in school, or the businessperson who never was good at English in school but now finds a need for it, and the hapless students bound for foreign Universities. These are the main originators for all those "If you can speak English you can teach in China...." advertisements.
Consequently back-backers, retirees, travellers, those escaping home for the first time, as well as some genuinely, dedicated and wonderful teachers, flock to China from a variety of destinations. Two friends from Calcutta will start up a school and hire a couple from South America, a Filipino girl, someone from Ireland and a Swede. They will all then start conducting English classes despite the fact that they have difficulty understanding each other in the staffroom after work. To students who have never heard the English language spoken, this variety of accents it confusing...Will the real English please stand up?
Who now decides when English is good enough to receive a diploma for? Does it matter if the candidate confuses verb/adjective positioning (What's verb/adjective positioning?) Does it matter if they always say "s" for "th" 'cos that sounds kinda cute. Is anyone gonna care if they have absolutely no concept of the when to use the word "the?". Is it really important, in the great scheme of things if they use verbs as adjectives and adjectives for verbs? And if everything is said in a flat, uninflected monotone does that really matter as long as they got the vocabulary right?
Well, yeah. It does. Or it damn-well should be. China is trying to shake the image it has in many places as being the land of the second-rate: second-rate toys, clothing, milk powder. Isn't it cause for shame if they remain second rate English speakers?
There is much talk at the moment here - as in other countries around the world - of educational reform. It is needed in many areas. If there are to be any areas of change in the educational system then the way English is taught and understood is a major area in which some new thinking is absolutely necessary. Personally, I don't see the reason for English to be compulsory for so long. If it were an optional, or even compulsory only for the initial years, or in High School, then I suggest that those who did learn would be those who were at least prepared to stay awake for the duration of a class or refrain from making calls or playing games on their phones.
But if English is going to be taught at all, at least let it be real English. The standard English that is taught all over the world seems so far to have worked just fine elsewhere. Let our standards be high - why is there an assumption that it is harder for Chinese people than, say, people from Indonesia, or Finland. Why do we not insist upon and expect a criteria? The whole programme, concept and methodology of English language teaching needs seriously to be addressed if China really is going to take its place in the global community on equal terms with others.
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