Teaching English in China

My trip to China came about because I was asked to do some Teacher Training for Chinese Teachers who teach English to students here in Suzhou. After a month, I have gotten to know some of them very well. They have been teaching me to cook Chinese food, they have been giving me instructions to interesting places to visit, and they have been trying to teach me a few word of Chinese. I have developed a great deal of respect for these teachers and the great job they are doing under difficult circumstances.

There are a number of factors that make their job very hard. As I work with them every week I am learning as much about the Chinese system as they are about the Canadian. Officially my job was to help them better understand the Canadian system of education, and to give them some strategies to help them teach English, but I quickly learned that there was a lot more to it than that.

The biggest difficulty they have is their own mastery of English. I had some of them tell me that I was the first foreigner they have spoken to. All their English was learned in public school and and in college afterwards, and some of them learned it all from Chinese teachers. This situation is made worse, because once they start teaching, these young students become their only source of English conversation. They tell me that they are actually losing a lot of their English skills because of lack of practice. They have no one to speak to except the students who are themselves just learning. In order for some of the Teachers to understand me I have had to modify the way I speak to such a degree that during a Skype call home, my wife asked me why I was speaking to her like she was in grade one? The teachers have had to do this even more severely in their classrooms to accommodate their students , and they are losing the skills they developed in college.

The lack of English outside of schools creates another serious problem. The students have no real reason to learn English. They have no place to practice, and they see no need to learn it. The need is there though and getting more obvious all the time. I look around and see the biggest new apartment building and the biggest office towers advertising with English as prominent as Chinese, so just as the developers see the coming of the foreign boom to China and the need for English as a common language, I see that these students going through the schools now are going to need English to succeed in the International world that China is gearing up to exploit. The students, like children anywhere, do not see this. They speak Chinese everywhere they go. Other than to say “Hello” to the few foreigners and then run away giggling when we answer, they see no practical reason to learn or use English. To them they are studying English only to pass the exams. The students that do master English either because their parents pressure them, or someone else motivated them, are going to be the ones making the big salaries, driving the fancy cars, and living in the English named luxury apartments complexes . The lack of interest in English makes it terribly hard for the teachers to motivate the students to learn. At least ESL (English Second Language) learners in Canada are confronted constantly by the need to learn English to communicate, but here students just cannot see the need for English. Oh, the sign says "WET PAINT", but I didn't even need English to know that.

Lack of resources is the other major difficulty faced by these teachers. Their job is teaching English, but in most cases they are given standard exercises books, based primarily on Grammar. As I discussed the way reading was taught in canada with guided reading programs and explained about the hundreds of levered books needed in my little school of 300 students, I discovered that these teachers had no actual English books outside of the Exercise books. I explained the proven importance of reading aloud to students, but they explained they had no good books to read to their students. I discussed the importance of independent reading and was told the students had not books to read unless their parents bought some. When you realize that the schools here are between 1500 and 2000 students, you realize that it is almost impossible to do anything quickly about this. I thought I would be able to pick up books here, but there are none to be had anywhere. Even major book stores carry few if any English books. Even if teachers wanted to slowly build up a library, they are unable to get the books. I felt so bad about those hundreds of old children's novels I remember sitting in storage rooms because they were “old” and teachers didn't want to use them any any more.

Speaking to education officials in China, I realize that they recognize the difficulties these teachers are dealing with, and are trying to take steps to solve some of these problems, but they are such complex issues that it will take a long time to find solutions. Unfortunately the solutions may be too late for many of the students struggling to learn English in schools today. I think China recognizes the need to graduate an effective body of students able to function in the English speaking Global economic world that is coming to China, but they are still struggling to find the best way to do it. I like to think that in some small way I am over here helping with this.