English education in China

The emphasis on English education in China only emerged after 1979 when the Cultural Revolution ended, China adopted the Open Door Policy, and the United States and China established strong diplomatic ties. One estimate (in 2007) of the number of English speakers in China is over 200 million and rising, with 50 million secondary school children now studying the language.^[1]

However, online test score data from the 2018 EF English Proficiency Index ranks the nation at 47th out of the 88 countries measured, with an overall score of 'Low proficiency.' It suggested that internet users in cities and provinces like Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, and Jiangsu had a generally decent command of the language while those in other cities were limited to basic vocabulary.^[2][3] A 2017 article from The Telegraph also suggests that less than 1 percent of people in China (some 10 million) speak English conversationally.^[4]

According to a report on China Daily, many students start learning English in kindergarten before they start school.^[5] Most schoolchildren are taught their first English lesson in third grade in primary school. Despite the fact that it is common to learn English at an early age, some have criticized the pedagogy for being geared towards only the skills being tested. Therefore, skills such as learning grammar rules become more focused on memorization. However, creative skills such as writing are still an important part of English education in China. The methods, which focus on testing students' memorization of grammar rules and vocabulary, have been criticized by Western educationalists and linguists as fundamentally flawed.^[6] Furthermore, students are seldom able to put newly learned English words into use. This problem arises because Mandarin is the official and dominant language in China, while English often has little use in the country. This problem is further reinforced through the national Band 4 examination, where 80% of the test is the writing component and 20% of the test is listening, while an additional speaking component is only required for English major students. However, Guangdong Province has started requiring all students to take the English speaking exam for the National College Entrance Examination as of 2010.