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doi:10.1017/S0266078413000291
34 English Today 115, Vol. 29, No. 3 (September 2013). Printed in the United Kingdom 2013 Cambridge University Press
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for general education because many of the foreign foreign language teachers in China, not only
missionaries did not adequately know Chinese. because it complemented the Grammar-
There was also a prevailing sense among Translation Method currently in place, but also
Westerners that the systems associated with because it tted so well into traditional education.
China were barbaric and therefore needed to be According to Fu (1986), EFL teaching in this
replaced with things more civilized (i.e., systems period can be characterized as follows:
from the West). The Grammar-Translation Method
1. The goal of English acquisition is to learn the
was prevalent in Western language teaching
language in order to read its literature or in
methodology at that time, and was adopted for
order to benet from the mental discipline
teaching English in the missionary schools. The
and intellectual development that result from
Grammar-Translation Method coincided with tra-
English study.
ditional language teaching methods in China,
2. English teaching in the classroom makes use of
because Grammar-Translation encouraged memor-
a very small number of textbooks, which are
ization, recitation and strict adherence to grammar
compiled on the basis of the principles of the
rules and was easily accepted by students and
Grammar-Translation Method.
Chinese teachers, once they were trained to teach
3. The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and
English (Harvey, 1985).
language practice. Much of the lesson is
English was not formally taught as a course in
devoted to translating sentences into and out
school until 1902, when the Ching government
of the target language.
prescribed English as one of the twelve courses
4. Grammar is taught deductively. In other words,
offered in middle schools (Li et al., 1988). As a
students are given the grammar rules and
matter of fact, it was the famous Westernization
examples, are told to memorize them, and then
Movement of the Ching dynasty that facilitated
are asked to apply the rules to other examples.
the EFL teaching. At that time, the increasing con-
5. Accuracy is emphasized. It is important that the
tact with Western countries and the growth of trade
students get the correct answers in class. If the
made it necessary for English to be included in the
students make errors or do not know an answer,
school curriculum. Also, the early 1900s saw an
the teacher supplies them with the correct answer.
attempt to introduce the Direct Method because
there was a demand for oral prociency in trade
and business endeavors that the Grammar- The rst renaissance (19571966)
Translation Method could not accommodate (Fu,
1986). The Direct Method was introduced by In the late 1950s, teaching Russian as a foreign
native-English-speaking teachers, but the Chinese language lost its popularity and there was a swing
teachers, who were by now responsible for teach- to English (Li et al., 1988). In many middle schools,
ing, felt insufciently prepared to use it. Chinese class hours for EFL teaching increased. In some big
teachers limited oral skills, in addition to their cities, like Shanghai and Beijing, English began to
inadequate methodological training, caused them be offered as a course in middle schools. The
to lose face with their students and resulted in the 1958 education reform caused a change in EFL
Chinese teachers reverting to the Grammar- teaching methods and materials, and there was a
Translation Method (Woolsey, 1992). great desire to improve foreign language teaching
methods. At the beginning of the 1960s, the
Audio-Lingual Method was introduced as a way to
Shortly after liberation (19491956) improve oral skills. Although it had some success
The year 1949, when the Peoples Republic of due to repetition drills, again, because of the lack
China was established, was considered a new of training and fear of losing face, it did not widely
beginning in education for Chinese people (Fu, replace the Grammar-Translation or Intensive
1986). However, due to the intimate Sino-Soviet Reading Methods. Today, more than fty years
relationship at that time, EFL teaching during this after its introduction, the Audio-Lingual Method is
period of time was greatly reduced all over the still sometimes used in Chinese schools.
country. Foreign language courses in many middle
schools were switched from English to Russian.
The Cultural Revolution period
Foreign language education in China was also
affected by the then current methodology in the
(19661977)
former Soviet Union: Intensive Reading. This The so-called Cultural Revolution brought a great
method was introduced and accepted widely by disaster to Chinese education, and there was no
Student-centered classroom
activities Conclusion
To facilitate language acquisition and to improve All in all, foreign language policy in China is an
communicative competence, the students are indirect but sensitive outcome of political strife or
required to have a large amount of practice. So afliation. The switch-over from teaching English
the teachers must see to it that classroom inter- as a foreign language to teaching Russian as a
action is managed, not just by the teacher, but by foreign language in most schools in the early
all present. In order to avoid being the focal point 1950s and the canceling of English as a subject
of the interaction, the teacher should arrange the in the curriculum during the Cultural Revolution
desks in the classroom in such a way that the stu- are just two glaring examples. Although a variety
dents can look directly at one another, therefore of modern teaching methods, such as CLT, have
maximizing interaction among the students. been introduced into current English classrooms,
However, this does not mean that once a teaching most EFL teachers in China encounter a number
activity is in progress, the teacher should become of problems. Research on EFL teaching in
a passive observer. Although the teacher may be non-English-speaking countries repeatedly proves
non-directive in general, it is the teachers respon- that making exclusive use of either CLT or one
sibility to recognize the distinctive qualities, par- of the traditional methods cannot satisfy the
ticular those that are assets, of his or her pupils, requirements of English teaching nowadays. One
and help them to develop those assets fully. To of the best ways of improving EFL teaching in
do this, the teacher should discard masks of super- the 21st century seems to be to use an eclectic
iority and communicate openly with his or her method, which allows teachers to reconcile the
students. Instead of being the dominant authority modern methodologies with the traditional ways
in the classroom, the teacher is an independent of teaching in China.