Agnes S. L. Lam
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9789622097506
- eISBN:
- 9789888180271
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622097506.003.0003
- Subject:
- Education, Educational Policy and Politics
This chapter presents the changes in foreign language policy in the light of China's relations with the world. Statistics from a survey offer an overall picture of the experience of learning English ...
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This chapter presents the changes in foreign language policy in the light of China's relations with the world. Statistics from a survey offer an overall picture of the experience of learning English from primary school to university in the last few decades. Four case histories of learners, two older and two younger, make these statistics more meaningful in terms of individual experiences of the changes through time. Finally, information provided by heads of programmes of English and other foreign languages give an indication of some of the recent circumstances. From the data provided, it is apparent that English has been the most important foreign language in China since the late 1950s. Russian competence is still available among some of the older teaching staff though the most popular second foreign language among younger foreign language professionals now seems to be Japanese. With China's entry into the World Trade Organization, it is to be expected that a number of European languages may attract more learning fervour from students training to be foreign language professionals at university level. At the school level, it is likely that English will continue to be exclusively important, that is, in addition to the Chinese language.Less
This chapter presents the changes in foreign language policy in the light of China's relations with the world. Statistics from a survey offer an overall picture of the experience of learning English from primary school to university in the last few decades. Four case histories of learners, two older and two younger, make these statistics more meaningful in terms of individual experiences of the changes through time. Finally, information provided by heads of programmes of English and other foreign languages give an indication of some of the recent circumstances. From the data provided, it is apparent that English has been the most important foreign language in China since the late 1950s. Russian competence is still available among some of the older teaching staff though the most popular second foreign language among younger foreign language professionals now seems to be Japanese. With China's entry into the World Trade Organization, it is to be expected that a number of European languages may attract more learning fervour from students training to be foreign language professionals at university level. At the school level, it is likely that English will continue to be exclusively important, that is, in addition to the Chinese language.
