Chinese Obsession With English to be at par With Indians
Posted : April 23, 2006 at 1:21 pm [IST]
‘Economist’ last week had a feature on China regarding the business of English language that is booming in the country. All that is happening to compete with other countries to grab businesses of the English speaking developed countries such as USA, UK, and Australia or South Africa. Acquaintance with the language always gives advantage in business.
Anything up to a fifth of the population is learning the language. China is already the world’s largest market for English-language services at $60 billion a year, as estimated by Mari Pearlman at ETS, an American group that developed TOEFL, a well-known test of English-language proficiency.
Products involved are mainly teaching materials: dictionaries, language textbooks and classroom aids. The education arms of foreign companies in partnership with local firms supply them. Macmillan has sold more than 100m school textbooks in China with its partner FLTRP.
The government recently lowered (from 12 to nine) of the age at which primary-school pupils start to learn English, and many eastern cities have begun teaching it at six. Foreign publishers must license books to Chinese publishers.
High-tech teaching is also on increase. Interactive whiteboards made by a British firm, Promethean costing $4,125 enable teachers to integrate traditional materials with movie clips, radio broadcasts and other Internet content. British Council has already become “the biggest online university in the world”, with 2m students.
With Chinese employers seeking proof of English ability, it has become a good business. Teacher training promises to become another big market.
Another business is for those engaged in the private language schools-some 50,000 of them. Though the schools were established for adults, the demand today is from parents willing to spend up to half their household income to boost their offspring’s chances. The rage at kindergarten these days is English-speaking classes for four-year-olds.
However, China has no government drive to welcome native English speakers, unlike Japan, where the ministry of education runs the 19-year-old JET programme, which puts thousands of foreign teachers to work in state schools. Until a few years ago, private language schools in China could be fined for hiring foreign English teachers.
However, China’s Communist Party is reluctant because, along with English textbooks and teachers come western ways of learning and thinking-ways that might one day threaten the party’s authority.
After going through this feature, one can appreciate the need to be at ease with English language or for that matter with some more foreign languages beside the mother tongue for competing in global competition. We, Indians are gifted with a knack for learning any foreign language faster and better. Perhaps, it is due to our own language originated from Sanskrit. It gives us certain basic advantages in pronunciation. All professional education institutes of the country must have facilities for teaching major foreign languages of the countries with which India has and intends to have business relations. The institutes must also encourage the students to learn at least one of these languages. India will have to be a step ahead if it wishes to retain its leadership in ITeS. And the superiority on language front can be one way for that.
- Indra
Category: Employment/Education |
Leave a Comment