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English Language Education in China: Policies, Progress, and Problems

Article in Language Policy · March 2005

DOI: 10.1007/s10993-004-6561-7

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 GUANGWEI HU

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CHINA: POLICIES,

PROGRESS, AND PROBLEMS

(Received 5 April 2004; accepted in revised form 18 August 2004)

ABSTRACT. English language education has been accorded much importance in

the People’s Republic of China in the last quarter century. This paper presents an
overview of basic English language education in the Chinese education system. It is
intended to serve two purposes: (1) to provide background information for situating
and interpreting the findings reported by Silver and Skuja-Steele in this issue and (2)
to survey progress and problems in the development of basic English language
education in China. The paper is structured in three parts. The first part examines
national policies on the expansion of English provision in basic education since the
late 1970s. The second part focuses on policy efforts directed towards improving the
quality of English instruction. The last part sketches the major progress that has been
made and identifies several thorny issues in English language education that deserve
serious attention from policymakers.

KEY WORDS: educational efficiency and equity, English language education in

China, foreign language education policies, quality education, syllabuses and cur-
riculums, teacher education

ABBREVIATIONS: CBEI – Content-Based English Instruction; CCP – Chinese

Communist Party; CTMRC – Curriculum and Teaching Materials Reform Com-
mission; CTMRI – Curriculum and Teaching Materials Research Institute; ELT –
English Language Teaching; HERC – Higher Education Research Center of Sichuan
Foreign Languages Institute; MOE – Ministry of Education; SEC – State Education
Commission

INTRODUCTION

In the last quarter century, English language education has been a

subject of paramount importance in China, and proficiency in Eng-
lish has been widely regarded as a national as well as a personal asset
(Cortazzi & Jin, 1996; Adamson, 2001; Hu, 2002a; Jin & Cortazzi,
2003). On the national level, English language education has been
viewed by the Chinese leadership as having a vital role to play in
national modernization and development (Ross, 1992; Adamson &
Morris, 1997). Although the rationales articulated in a series of policy

Language Policy (2005) 4: 5–24 Ó Springer 2005

6 GUANGWEI HU

statements for expanding and strengthening English language

teaching (ELT) in the education system have varied over the years
with perceived priorities of national development, the significance
and advantages of national proficiency in the language have never
been called into question (Curriculum and Teaching Materials Re-
search Institute [CTMRI], 2001; Higher Education Research Center
[HERC], 1993). On the individual level, proficiency in English can
lead to a host of economic, social and educational opportunities; that
is, it can provide access to both material resources and ‘symbolic
capital’ (Bourdieu, 1991) for the betterment of personal well-being.
For example, it is a passport to higher education at home or abroad,
lucrative employment in a public or private sector, professional
advancement and social prestige (Hu, 2002b, 2003; Jiang, 2003).
Because of the prominence accorded to English and the escalating
demands for English proficiency, huge national and individual efforts
and resources have been invested in English language education (Niu
& Wolff, 2003).
This paper presents an overview of primary and secondary English
language education in China. It is intended to serve two purposes: (1)
to provide readers of this special issue with background information
for situating and interpreting the findings about Chinese ELT prac-
tices reported in Silver and Skuja-Steele (this issue) and (2) to survey
the progress that has been made, as well as the problems that still
exist, in the development of basic English language education in
China. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part examines
national policies on the expansion of English provision in basic
education since the late 1970s. The second part focuses on policy
efforts directed towards improving the quality of English instruction.
The last part sketches the major progress that has been made in ELT
and identifies several thorny issues that deserve serious attention from
policymakers.

EXPANSION OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

Policies on basic English language education in China have been

inextricably linked to political, economic, and social development in
the country in the last 25 years or so. These policies have been
shaped by the perceived goals and changing contexts of national
development. While some policy swings have occurred over the
years, the overall trajectory of policy efforts has been characterized
by a shift from an emphasis on the political and ideological functions
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CHINA 7

of foreign language education to a focus on its role in facilitating

economic development and national modernization (Hu, 2002a).
Shortly after the Cultural Revolution – a political movement of
ideological extremism started by Mao Zedong – came to an end
with his death in 1976, the new Chinese leadership headed by
Deng Xiaoping launched a national modernization program.
English language education figured prominently in the drive for
modernization (Adamson & Morris, 1997). Deng was convinced
that advanced science and technology held the key to China’s
modernization and that China would need to access scientific and
technological advances worldwide to develop the scientific knowl-
edge base needed for national revitalization (People’s Education
Press, 1986). Access to international know-how was, however, seen
as being predicated on the availability of a large pool of personnel
proficient in English, the international medium of scientific and
technological information. Thus, to revive and expand English
language education became an integral part of the modernization
drive. This was no easy task, as the decade-long Cultural Revo-
lution had wreaked havoc on the infrastructure for foreign lan-
guage education (Hu, 2002b; Jin & Cortazzi, 2003). During that 10
year period, English was viewed as the language of the enemy, and
in the first half of the decade, virtually all English teaching pro-
grams were abolished in the school system (Liu, 1993). For five
years, the foreign language departments of teacher education
institutions did not recruit new students (HERC, 1993). Although
English reappeared in the secondary curriculums in the early 1970s,
English instruction existed only in name: virtually no teaching or
learning was going on. As a result, there was an acute shortage of
English-proficient personnel when China embarked on the mod-
ernization drive (HERC, 1993).
The central emphasis on the strategic role of English in the
modernization process, the projected demand for human resources
with good proficiency in English, and the marginal English pro-
vision in the school system made the reinstatement and expansion
of English language education a top priority on the national
agenda of educational development. In 1978, the Ministry of
Education (MOE) issued the first unified primary and secondary
curriculum and the accompanying draft English syllabus in the era
of modernization. The curriculum introduced foreign language
8 GUANGWEI HU

education at Primary 3 (Liu, 1993).1 In view of a dire lack of

necessary resources in many schools for such provision, the cur-
riculum also made allowances for the introduction of foreign
language education at Junior Secondary 1 in poorly equipped
schools (HERC, 1993). The rationale for ELT articulated in the
syllabus reflected both the emerging modernization orientation and
the strong influences of a leftist ideology. Thus, English was rec-
ognized as an important tool for engaging in economic, commer-
cial, technological and cultural exchange with the rest of the world
and hence for facilitating the modernization process; however, it
was first and foremost a vehicle for ‘international class struggle’
and ‘revolutionary diplomacy’ (CTMRI, 2001: 120). The blatantly
revolutionary language and political messages were, however,
eliminated when the syllabus was reworked in 1980. By then, the
pro-modernity leadership had consolidated its authority and set the
building of a modern socialist state as its focal task.
The policy on universal provision of English language education
(at least in secondary schools) bore the marks of the egalitarian ap-
proach to education adopted in Mao’s era. With the belief that the
education system must promote social equality and benefit the mas-
ses, Mao was firmly opposed to stratification and elitism in education
(Tsang, 2000). The initial egalitarian approach to ELT was to be
abandoned soon, however. Two factors led to its demise. First, with
Deng Xiaoping’s leadership consolidated in the early 1980s, a utili-
tarian orientation toward national development and education began
to gain dominance. Deng put educational efficiency above educa-
tional equity and favored stratification in education to prepare dif-
ferent types of skilled personnel for the economy (Tsang, 2000).
Second, implementation of the earlier policy on system-wide English
provision was frustrated by a host of constraints, the most intractable
ones being severe shortages of resources, including teachers and
teaching materials. At the first National Conference on Secondary
Foreign Language Education held in 1982, it was acknowledged that
ELT efforts since 1978 had largely failed and that the quality of
secondary ELT was deplorably low.
The utilitarian orientation and the resource constraints together
led to several curricular changes. First, effort was concentrated on
strengthening ELT in elite schools, which were expected to turn out
the English-proficient personnel needed for national modernization

1
Only a small minority (less than 5%) of primary and secondary students studied
foreign languages other than English (HERC, 1993; Adamson, 2001).
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CHINA 9

(Ross, 1993). In 1982, the MOE drafted an English syllabus for 6-

year ‘key’ secondary schools, which were a small number of presti-
gious schools set up as pivot sites of educational excellence (Lewin,
Little, Xu & Zheng, 1994). In the same year, the MOE also issued a
directive on improving specialized foreign language secondary
schools and a draft curriculum for these schools that was weighted
heavily in favor of foreign language teaching (HERC, 1993; Liu,
1993). Second, foreign language was no longer a compulsory subject
in the 1984 national primary curriculums: English disappeared from
the curriculum for rural primary schools and was restricted only to
urban primary schools which had qualified teachers and whose pro-
grams were well connected with secondary ones. Third, a more
flexible approach to secondary ELT was adopted in response to the
increasing differences both in economic, social and cultural devel-
opment and in the infrastructure for ELT that existed across the
country. This approach was reflected in a 1985 MOE directive that
exempted poorly resourced schools from the obligation to provide
English instruction and in the 1986 national secondary English syl-
labus, which allowed schools to start ELT at either Junior Secondary
1 or Senior Secondary 1 (Liu, 1993).
From the mid-1980s onward, China’s modernization pace accel-
erated, and several important changes were introduced. The policies
of reform and opening up initiated by Deng in the early 1980s
had brought about rapid economic growth and substantial
improvement in the lives of the Chinese people and were gathering
further momentum. To transform China into a modern socialist
country, the Chinese leadership initiated a fundamental reform: to
move away from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented
one (People’s Education Press, 1986). Economic development was
firmly established as the top priority. In response to the increasing
demand from the growing economy for a well trained workforce, a
drastic reform of the educational system was announced in 1985
(Lewin et al., 1994). As regards basic education, the major thrust of
the reform consisted in the promulgation of 9-year compulsory
education, the decentralization of educational administration and the
diversification of educational provision and financing (Chinese
Communist Party [CCP] Central Committee, 1985). Pragmatism was
underscored in the educational reform: The increasing regional
socioeconomic disparities and their influences on educational devel-
opment were recognized, and different educational requirements were
set for different regions.
10 GUANGWEI HU

The pragmatic ethos manifested in the policies on national

development and educational reform had an impact on the policies
formulated for English language education. At the national level,
effort was exclusively concentrated on expanding English provision at
the secondary level.2 However, in recognition of the varying pace of
socioeconomic development across the country and in line with the
decentralization policy, the MOE (known as State Education Com-
mission [SEC] between 1985 and 1997) gave seven economically
developed provinces and centrally administrated municipalities the
autonomy to develop their own English curriculums, syllabuses and
textbooks for primary and secondary education (Hu, 2002a). These
developed regions had been able to attract huge foreign investment
and were enjoying economic prosperity. Consequently, they had both
the resources and the need for expanding English language education
in their school systems.
During much of the last decade of the 20th century, China enjoyed
phenomenal economic development and social stability. The twin
policies of opening up and reform remained as the guiding principles
of national development (Tsang, 2000). The utilitarian emphasis on
social and economic efficiency continued unabated in reform efforts
in the economic, social, cultural and educational domains. With its
increasing integration into the global economy, China was faced with
unprecedented challenges of globalization, technological advances,
knowledge-driven economies and pressures for innovation (Hu, in
press). The Chinese leadership recognized the many educational
deficiencies that would undermine national competitiveness and
staged a new wave of educational reforms (CCP Central Committee
& State Council, 1993). The new reforms consisted in changing the
existing educational structure, updating teaching content, absorbing
progressive thinking from abroad and innovating in pedagogy so as
to deliver quality education. There was an emerging progressive
ideology that stressed individual development, creativity and explo-
ration in education. The utilitarian and progressive orientations un-
derpinned the national secondary English syllabuses issued in 1992,
1993 and 1996 (CMTRI, 2001). In all three syllabuses, English pro-
ficiency was seen as an integral part of quality education. The major
goals of secondary ELT were defined as cultivation of communicative

2
The rapid expansion of secondary ELT was reflected in the increase of English
language teachers. Between 1985 and 1990, the number of secondary English lan-
guage teachers increased by more than 70,000 (SEC Department of Planning and
Construction, 1991).
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CHINA 11

competence in English, fostering of learner autonomy and develop-

ment of various intellectual abilities. It is noteworthy that despite the
importance attached to English language education in the drive for
quality education, no policy attempt was made at an across-the-
board expansion of ELT into primary school during the 1990s. The
postponement of expansion was necessitated by the limited resources
that could be mobilized for English education. As will be discussed
below, the educational reforms required concentration of available
resources on improving the quality of English instruction. Further-
more, the limited resources had to be stretched to provide English for
the rising numbers of secondary students resulting from the
enforcement of the Compulsory Education Law.3
The beginning of the new century saw a renewed attempt to ex-
pand English into the primary curriculum. In January 2001, the MOE
issued a directive on ELT at primary school and a curriculum outline
of primary English. The directive required that primary schools lo-
cated in cities and county seats start to offer English classes at Pri-
mary 3 from the autumn of 2001 and that the rest start to do so in the
following year (MOE, 2001a). The policy initiative was prompted by
three developments. First, China was on the verge of joining the
World Trade Organization. Second, Beijing led its rivals in the bid for
the 2008 Olympic Games and was highly likely to win the bid. These
two developments led to a projection of rising demands for English
proficiency (Jiang, 2003; Nunan, 2003). A third contributing factor
was that efforts to improve the quality of ELT at the secondary level
in the 1990s had not produced significant improvements. In its search
for a more effective recipe, the MOE endorsed early English
instruction. The new mandate about primary English instruction
seems to be a poorly deliberated one. Although the current infra-
structure for English language education in China has been much
improved, implementation of the new policy is fraught with the same
problems that frustrated the MOE’s attempt at primary ELT in the
late 1970s: a severe shortage of trained teachers, a dismal lack of
suitable learning materials, and poor coordination between primary
and secondary English courses, to name only a few (Li, 2001). These
problems are particularly serious in the rural areas, where schools are
struggling to meet the government’s mandate about basic literacy in

3
Based on official statistics (SEC Department of Planning and Construction, 1991;
MOE Department of Development and Planning, 2001), it can be estimated that
there was an annual increase of more than 2.6 million secondary learners of English
between 1990 and 2000.
12 GUANGWEI HU

the mother tongue (Liu, 2004). At present, it is difficult to tell to what

extent the policy can be successfully implemented nationwide.

EFFORTS TO IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ELT

The last quarter century has seen persistent efforts to provide English
language education in the formal education system. Policies on ELT
were driven by the perceived importance of English to national
modernization, a desire to catch up with developed countries and a
pressing sense of urgency. Because of the inadequate infrastructure
for ELT inherited from the pre-modernization era and the limited
resources available, however, efforts to expand English provision
have been constantly in tension with efforts to improve the quality of
instruction. The effect of this dilemma was felt most keenly in the first
decade of the modernization drive. As an illustration, when English
was made a compulsory school subject for primary and secondary
students in 1978, there was an acute shortage of trained teachers to
implement the curriculums. As a result, the MOE was compelled to
resort to a makeshift staffing measure: to recruit all available people
who had some proficiency in English. Among the recruits were large
numbers of secondary-school graduates with a smattering of English
and people who were following radio or TV programs of beginner
English. They were sent to crash courses and then admitted into the
teaching force. Given the overstretching of the available resources in
the eager expansion of English language education, it is not sur-
prising that the quality of ELT was miserably low.
During the mid-1980s, there were increasing criticisms leveled at
the low quality of ELT. These criticisms, together with the educa-
tional reform launched in 1985, led to a large-scale survey conducted
under the aegis of the SEC between 1986 and 1987 (HERC, 1993).
The study involved 1715 secondary teachers and more than 57,000
students from 139 schools in 15 provinces. About two-thirds of the
schools were key secondary schools and represented the upper end of
educational quality in China. The study revealed that the English
proficiency of the secondary students surveyed was disappointingly
low, although they had studied English for years. A great majority of
them had only a fragmentary knowledge of English, a small recog-
nition vocabulary and a very low level of communicative competence
in the language. The survey also found that a majority of the teachers
(53% for the ordinary schools and 69% for the key schools) had
never received any formal professional training. In general, the
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CHINA 13

teachers had a weak grounding in pedagogy, lacked professional

competence for the subject and knew very little about recent devel-
opments in foreign language education both at home and abroad.
The teachers themselves agreed that there was an urgent need for
them to upgrade their professional competence. Based on the find-
ings, the research team made a number of suggestions for improving
the quality of ELT, including teacher development, curricular reform,
syllabus updating and promotion of ELT research (HERC, 1993).
These suggestions were endorsed by the SEC; subsequently, efforts
and resources were focused on revamping the curriculums, updating
the syllabuses, producing new textbooks and upgrading teachers’
professional training.
The curricular reform effort did not take the form of a new unified
curriculum for all schools nationwide but consisted in gradual
devolution of decision-making in curricular matters to selected re-
gions. This departure from the usual practice of centrally controlled
curricular decision-making followed from the guiding principles of
decentralization and diversification promulgated in the 1985 educa-
tional reform and reflected greater attention to problems with ELT
arising from the size and diversity of the country. To experiment with
curricular reform, the SEC granted Shanghai Municipality and
Zhejiang province the autonomy to develop their own curriculums
according to their local needs. They were expected to provide relevant
experience for curricular reform in other parts of the country. In
1988, Shanghai set up its Curriculum and Teaching Materials Reform
Commission (CTMRC) and started its curricular reform. The
CTMRC came up with a curriculum for compulsory basic education
and one for senior secondary education in the early 1990s, both of
which were extensively revised in 1998 after years of trial (Hu, 2002b).
The curriculums developed by Shanghai have introduced three
major changes to improve the quality of English instruction. First,
English has been given more prominence than in the national cur-
riculums. For example, the 9-year basic education curriculum for
2003 allocated 1052–1200 class hours to English, in comparison with
the 672–808 class hours laid down in the national curriculum. The
greater weight of English in the curriculums has been due to both
increases in weekly instructional time and the second curricular
change: the expansion of ELT into lower levels of primary schooling.
To provide students with extended exposure to English, the grade
level for compulsory English instruction has been lowered from Pri-
mary 5 to Primary 1 (Hu, 2002a). The third important change, which
has had a significant impact on the current landscape of ELT in
14 GUANGWEI HU

China, was the introduction of content-based English instruction

(CBEI) labeled by Chinese foreign language educators as ‘bilingual
education’. While there are different versions of CBEI (Brinton, Snow
& Wesche, 1989), the type of CBEI adopted first in Shanghai and
subsequently in many other economically developed regions consists
in using English as an additional language of instruction for several
school subjects (e.g. mathematics, physics, and computer science).
This form of CBEI has several potential advantages over traditional
ELT in raising students’ English proficiency (Wesche & Skehan,
2002). However, the potential advantages can be reaped only when
necessary conditions (e.g. a genuine need for the language as a
medium of instruction, professionally trained teachers and well de-
signed learning materials) exist. Pioneering work on CBEI in
Shanghai was reportedly successful, though no carefully designed
evaluation existed to support the claim. Shanghai’s CBEI initiative
was embraced by the MOE and led to the setting up of an MOE-
sponsored ‘bilingual education’ research center to promote CBEI on
a large scale. In recent years, there has been much hype about CBEI,
and hundreds of schools in economically developed coastal and ur-
ban areas have jumped on the bilingual education bandwagon (Zhao,
2004). Thorny issues that deserve serious attention, however, have
been disconcertingly ignored in the current craze for CBEI (Hu,
2002a; Gu, 2004).
Efforts to raise the quality of ELT through syllabus improvement
have paralleled the curricular reform initiatives discussed above.
Again, Shanghai and Zhejiang were allowed to develop their own
English syllabuses as part of an effort to encourage educational
innovation and diversity of English provision in order to cater for
varying local needs. In the meantime, the pace at which national
English syllabuses were updated also quickened. Between 1988 and
2001, a total of eight national syllabuses were issued. The constant
syllabus renewal has been motivated by a strong desire to interface
with international developments in education and ELT. That is,
syllabus renewal has been utilized as a key strategy to incorporate
progressive and scientific thinking on education; to apply new theo-
ries and findings in the field of foreign language education from
around the world; and to improve learning materials, pedagogical
practices and methods of evaluation (Hu, 2002b).
An examination of the nationally and locally developed syllabuses
reveals four growing trends. First, the syllabuses have increasingly
gravitated towards communicative language teaching (Adamson and
Morris, 1997; Hu, 2002b). This trend is most apparent in the recently
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CHINA 15

issued English Curriculum Standards (MOE, 2001b), which strongly

advocates task-based teaching, the latest methodological realization
of communicative pedagogy. Second, pedagogical recommendations
given in the syllabuses have moved away from detailed prescriptions
to guiding principles so as to give classroom practitioners more lee-
way to innovate and experiment. Third, teaching objectives have been
specified in increasing detail, in both quantity and quality terms, to
set clear targets for classroom instruction to attain. The last signifi-
cant trend lies in a growing emphasis on increasing language input to
students. As an illustration, while the 1996 national syllabus required
that students be exposed to 200,000 words of supplementary reading
materials, the 2001 English Curriculum Standards has raised the
requirement to 360,000 words. Although the four trends sketched
here are indicative of improvements in syllabus design, research on
ELT in China suggests a gap between syllabus rhetoric and classroom
reality (Hu, 2003; Nunan, 2003; Silver and Skuja-Steele, this issue).
To support curriculum and syllabus developments, a new policy
on textbook production has been adopted since the late 1980s. While
in the past the production of primary and secondary textbooks was
undertaken by the People’s Education Press (a subordinate of the
MOE), the new policy has allowed considerable local autonomy in
textbook development. In 1986, the SEC set up a textbook evaluation
committee responsible for assessing locally developed textbooks and
granting publication permissions (Hu, 2002b). Subsequently, several
agencies and institutions were commissioned to develop new text-
book series for use in different parts of China (Hu, 2002a). More
recently, a number of local education departments and publishers
have been collaborating with overseas publishers and textbook
writers in producing up-to-date learning materials. For instance, the
most widely used textbook series, Junior/Senior English for China, are
results of collaboration among the People’s Education Press, the
Longman publishing company and the United Nations Development
Program. Similarly, the Oxford English series used by schools in
Shanghai has been produced jointly by the CTMRC and Oxford
University Press. Compared with their predecessors, recent textbooks
are more innovative, learner-centered and communicatively-oriented
because of their incorporation of new conceptions of education and
international developments in language education (Adamson and
Morris, 1997; Hu, 2002a). The big challenge, however, is to train
classroom practitioners to use the new textbooks effectively. There is
some evidence that as a result of outdated preservice preparation and
inadequate in-service support, many teachers fail to understand the
16 GUANGWEI HU

underlying principles of the textbooks and use them in traditional

ways (Leng, 1997; Ng & Tang, 1997; Jin & Cortazzi, 2003).
The last major component of the ELT reform to be discussed here
concerns the teaching force. As mentioned earlier, the rushed
expansion of English provision in the late 1970s and early 1980s
created a severe shortage of teachers and led to the admission of
numerous untrained teachers into the teaching force. Throughout the
1980s, the proportion of qualified teachers remained pathetically
low.4 In 1988, only 30% and 26% of the junior and senior secondary
English teachers respectively met the minimum requirements for
professional qualifications (SEC Department of Planning and Con-
struction, 1991). The SEC was clearly aware that the low professional
competence of the teaching force could not support the envisioned
goals of English language education and would undermine China’s
modernization endeavor. Consequently, several policy measures were
introduced (Hu, 2004). The most important measure consisted in
restructuring and expanding the preservice and inservice English
language teacher education sectors. As a result, the number of ter-
tiary institutions offering preservice English language teacher edu-
cation programs rose from 161 in 1981 to 226 in 1989 (Liu, 1993).
Today, virtually all the tertiary teacher education institutions provide
English language teacher education programs. In tandem with the
expansion of preservice English language teacher education, various
formal and non-formal inservice programs were also set up. Over the
years, the inservice English language teacher education sector has
expanded rapidly to include a whole range of short- and long-term
continuing professional development programs run by various insti-
tutions, including education colleges, tertiary teacher education
institutions, comprehensive universities, distance learning agencies,
television universities and the self-study higher education system (Hu,
in press). Thanks to these policy measures, the proportion of English
language teachers with required qualifications has risen steadily over
the years. In 2000, more than 60% of the senior secondary teachers
and 91% of the junior secondary teachers held the requisite qualifi-
cations (MOE Department of Development and Planning, 2001). The
numerical increases, however, obscure a number of deep-seated
problems which will be discussed in the following section.
4
Professional qualifications are defined in terms of educational attainment. As
stipulated in the Compulsory Education Law and the Teachers Law, the minimum
professional qualifications required for junior and senior secondary teaching posi-
tions are, respectively, an associate degree and a baccalaureate degree from a tertiary
institution (not necessarily an institution of teacher education).
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CHINA 17

PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS

In the last 25 years, profound changes have occurred in basic English

language education in China. With China’s deepening socioeconomic
reform and increasing involvement in global economic activities,
quality education has become a key strategy for enhancing national
competitiveness and ensuring sustainable development. Because of
the Chinese leadership’s conviction that proficiency in English is an
essential component of quality education, a great deal of policy
attention has been given to basic English language education. Huge
resources and efforts have been expended on the various components
of English provision, with the infrastructure of ELT being signifi-
cantly improved. Today, English is firmly established as a core sub-
ject in secondary schools nationwide and in the primary curriculums
in developed regions (Liu & Gong, 2000). There are about 80 million
students studying English in general secondary schools alone. Added
to this number are an estimated 40 million learners of English in
primary schools and specialized/vocational secondary schools (Hu,
2004). The contingent of English language teachers has also been
strengthened considerably in both quantity and quality. The general
secondary education sector alone boasts 577,000 English language
teachers, registering a 353% increase from the number of teachers in
1978 (MOE Department of Planning, 1984; MOE Department of
Development and Planning, 2001). Of these teachers, more than 85%
hold qualifications that meet official requirements, as compared to
less than 22% in 1986, when the professional qualification require-
ments were announced.
Impressive progress has also been made in curriculum develop-
ment, syllabus design, and learning materials production. There is an
accelerating shift towards curriculum pluralism to encourage inno-
vation and experimentation in ELT. Similarly, there exist a variety of
syllabuses informed by new developments in language education
theory and research. Also available are a range of textbooks produced
locally, nationally, and internationally (Jiang, 2003). As a result of
these developments, the quality of ELT has improved considerably
(Liu & Gong, 2000). Given the progress that has been made over the
years, it is not surprising that some observers of China have com-
mented that the country ‘‘is gaining English-language competence
much faster than any other country in the region’’ (Hertling, 1996:
para. 10). Despite the impressive progress that has been achieved, a
host of issues in basic English language education deserves serious
18 GUANGWEI HU

attention and careful deliberation (Jiang, 2003; Niu & Wolff, 2003).
The remainder of this paper highlights four of these issues.
The first issue concerns the recent introduction of English as a
compulsory subject in primary education. The policy decision has
been based on putative effectiveness of early instruction in a new
language and research on a critical period for second language
acquisition (Marinova-Todd, Marshall & Snow, 2000; Li, 2001).
However, the jury of second language acquisition is still out on
whether early exposure to a new language in the classroom can lead
to more effective learning. In fact, much research ‘‘points to the
advantages of postponing formal teaching in specific contexts’’
(Hyltenstam & Abrahamsson, 2001: 163). Policy decisions on the
starting age for foreign language education need to take into account
a large number of contextual and resource factors. Early instruction
itself is not a sufficient condition for effective learning to occur; there
are other conditions that are required, for example, the availability
of teachers with a high level of proficiency in the target language and
professional training, rich opportunities for authentic communication
in the language, ample instructional time, teaching methodology
geared to the learning needs of young children, as well as consistent
and well-designed follow-up instruction in the higher grades
(Marinova-Todd et al., 2000; Hyltenstam & Abrahamsson 2001). At
present, these conditions are largely missing in the Chinese context.
Even if such conditions existed, whatever advantages that may be
offered by an early introduction of English instruction would need to
be weighted carefully against possible negative influences on other
parts of the school curriculum (Marinova-Todd et al., 2000). Even
before English was made a compulsory subject, the primary curric-
ulum was already a very heavy one. In order to squeeze English into
the curriculum, the MOE (2001a) mandated a reduction of one class
hour for Chinese instruction from Primary 3 onwards and the con-
version of some flexible curricular hours into compulsory hours for
English. In addition to curricular hours, it is common for children to
be kept after school for English instruction. The added burden of
English learning deprives children of time for engaging in other
activities and for learning other subjects. All these might produce
consequences that China cannot afford (Niu & Wolff, 2003).
The second issue relates to the rapid spread of CBEI. Like primary
ELT, if the potential advantages of CBEI are to be realized to any
significant extent, there need to be optimal conditions: suitable
learning materials, appropriately trained teachers, a perceived need
for English as a medium of instruction, a threshold level of learner
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CHINA 19

proficiency in the medium language, a supportive language environ-

ment in the larger societal context, to name only a few (Hu, 2002a;
Gu, 2004). Most of these conditions do not exist in most regions of
China. Currently, the only justification for CBEI is to provide stu-
dents with extended and intensive exposure to English so that their
proficiency in the language can be raised. To maintain an artificially
created bilingual school environment is a costly undertaking and may
well end up in failure (Hu, 2002a). In this regard, Hong Kong pro-
vides a most pertinent example. As far as conditions for English-
medium instruction are concerned, mainland China cannot hold a
candle to Hong Kong. The latter’s huge investment in English pro-
vision, 150 years of British rule, extensive international contact,
widespread public use of English and employment of large numbers
of native-English-speaking teachers all have constituted more favor-
able conditions for English-medium education than those found in
the former (Hu, 2002a; Gu, 2004). Yet, ‘‘government and business [in
Hong Kong] remain (and have become increasingly) dissatisfied with
the English language proficiency of students graduating from sec-
ondary school and university’’ (Nunan, 2003: 599). In light of Hong
Kong’s experience, the mainland educational authorities would be
well advised to review the policy on CBEI and to exercise great
caution in its promotion.
A third issue that is a cause for concern has to do with teacher
education. Although the proportions of teachers with professional
qualifications have increased greatly over the years, the quality of the
teaching force is still rather low and cannot adequately meet the
demands of ELT reforms initiated in recent years (Yu, 2001; Nunan,
2003). The definition of professional qualifications principally in
terms of educational attainment confuses the distinction between
educational level and professional preparation. Educational levels are
at best weak proxies for professional training (Paine, 1992). This issue
is particularly disquieting given the many problems that plague the
initial and inservice teacher education programs available. With a few
exceptions, preservice teacher education programs suffer from out-
dated curriculums and teaching content, a narrow focus on language
proficiency at the expense of educational work, a marginalization of
school-based work, an inadequately defined knowledge base for
teaching, and a teacher-dominated, textbook-based and transmis-
sion-oriented pedagogy that severs language proficiency work from
pedagogical preparation (Hu, in press; Sharpe & Ning, 1998). The
situation of inservice education is equally problematic. Most inservice
programs have been put in place only to help teachers obtain paper
20 GUANGWEI HU

qualifications. They adopt, or make a limited adaptation of, the

curriculums and teaching materials for preservice programs, follow
instructional and evaluation practices informed by a strong trans-
missive orientation and lack a coherent framework for continuing
professional development (Hu, in press). Given this state of affairs,
even trained teachers lack adequate training.
To make the situation worse, the recent policy on primary ELT
has created an acute shortage of teachers. Currently, it is estimated
that there are 200,000 primary teachers of English. To implement the
policy nationwide, however, requires at least 300,000 more teachers.
Despite an increase of primary ELT teacher education programs in
tertiary teacher education institutions and normal schools, the
immediacy of the policy initiative and the huge gap between demand
and supply of trained teachers have once again compelled the MOE
to resort to a makeshift staffing measure. The measure consists in
transferring primary teachers of other subjects with some English
proficiency to English teaching posts after some sort of training and
recruiting non-education graduates with a specialization in English
(MOE, 2001a). The policy measure reflects a na€
ve conception of the
professional qualities required of primary foreign language teachers
and is creating more problems than it is meant to solve. As pointed
out earlier, effective early foreign language instruction is predicated
crucially on the availability of well-trained teachers. Without a strong
contingent of professionally competent teachers, there will always be
a gap between policy rhetoric and classroom reality.
The last issue to be discussed here concerns the widening gap in the
quality of basic English language education between different regions
of China (Hu, 2002b; Nunan, 2003). In this connection, it is important
to point out that the Shanghai data presented in Silver and Skuja Steele
(this issue) represent ELT practices in the most developed regions of
China. Although they are indicative of policy directions and peda-
gogical potential (Hu, 2002a), they do not reflect current practices
across the country. In their comprehensive overview of ELT in China,
Cortazzi and Jin comment that ‘‘there are significant differences in
language teaching developments between the major cities and small
cities, between rural towns and countryside, between coastal and in-
land areas, between north and south, between key and non-key schools
or universities’’ (1996: 61). This comment is clearly borne out by the
findings of a recent investigation (Hu, 2003) into regional disparities in
secondary ELT. The study has found clear differences in English
proficiency, previous learning experiences, classroom participation,
and language learning strategies between first-year university students
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CHINA 21

who completed their secondary education in developed areas and their

counterparts from underdeveloped areas. These differences can be
attributed to the joint influences of a range of social, economic and
cultural factors. If even the most successful students from the under-
developed areas have been denied effective English instruction, it is not
difficult to imagine what the situation is like for the majority of stu-
dents who fail to enter university.
Given the economic benefits and social prestige associated with
English proficiency in China (Cortazzi & Jin, 1996; Hertling, 1996;
Nunan, 2003), unequal access to English provision not only perpetu-
ates but exacerbates educational inequality that has been around for
quite some time (Epstein, 1993). Recently, the issue of inequitable ac-
cess to effective education has attracted much attention, because it is
emerging as a destabilizing factor and posing a serious threat to con-
tinual national development (Tsang, 2000). To address the issue, the
central government has been reallocating national resources to im-
prove the educational infrastructure of the vast underdeveloped re-
gions, which has about 70% of the primary and secondary student
population. This policy development, however, has put the central
government in a dilemma. On the one hand, the pragmatist philosophy
underlying the overarching policies of reform and opening up inclines
the central government to prioritize educational efficiency; that is, the
production of more education outputs and outcomes at given or less
educational investment. On the other hand, because of deficiencies
resulting from a long period of low investment, huge resources will be
needed to improve educational equity, including equal access to effec-
tive English language education in the underdeveloped regions. Thus,
educational efficiency is in tension with educational equity. This di-
lemma will likely persist for years to come and will exert a shaping
influence on basic English language education policy in China.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to thank Rita Elaine Silver for her valuable comments on

earlier versions of this paper.

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English Language and Literature

National Institute of Education
Nanyang Technological University
1 Nanyang Walk
Singapore 637616
Republic of Singapore
E-mail: gwhu@nie.edu.sg

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