English Eduation in Rural China
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English Eduation in Rural China:Practices,Problems and SuggestionsVery few studies have been conducted on English Education in rural China.This study aimed at investigating rural English education with an less adoptedperspective: It reported local teachers' and officials' views on the problems withpresent rural English education, the characteristics of English classes and finallygave some suggestions on how to improve rural English education in the hope thatby calling attention to the gap between urban and rural education, more awarenessof the problems can be aroused.This study used a questionnaire for rural students to find out about the frequency of different classroom activities and also adopted interviews toinvestigate local teachers' and officials' views about rural English education. Itanswered the following questions:1) How do teachers deliver lessons in rural English classes?2) What are the problems observed by teachers and local officials in rural English education?3) What suggestions do rural teachers and officials offer for improvingEnglish education?The survey and interview results showed that the rural English class mainly adopted a traditional grammar-translation way of teaching, with the teacherexplaining texts and grammar points. The classroom was mostly teacher-centred, but students did have chances to interact in English with their teachers andclassmates. In addition, the content of rural English lessons was strictly confinedto textbooks. Furthermore, teachers usually adopted physical punishment ratherthan communication to establish their authority among students.This study also reported several problems concerning rural English education: lack of financial support, difficulty of attracting teachers with highqualifications, insufficient teacher training, heavy workload for teachers, lack ofclass preparation and teaching research, and students' low motivation. In 2001,thecentral government demanded that all primary schools should offer Englishclasses from 2002 at the latest. Without sufficient teacher reservation and financialinput, the hasty policy-making turned out to have caused more problems than itactually solved in rural English education. Suggestions on how to improve rural English education were offered by theinterviewees in this study. One suggestion was to train local teachers to make fulluse of the audio material in textbooks and to assign students more memorizationwork. Another possible strategy was to encourage local teachers to exchange theirteaching problems and solutions. It can be quite realistic and effective toencourage teachers to help each other in groups in overcoming obstaclesencountered in teaching practice.This study is significant in various ways. First, on the policy level, it helps to arouse the awareness of educational inequality, and thus can help to adjust thepolicy making process by providing information at the executive level. Practically,this study also gives advice on how to improve governments' support toless-developed areas. On the teaching level, this study can give practical suggestions to rural teachers on how to improve their teaching.摘要本研究主要针对中国农村英语教学中的问题进行探讨,目前,该领域的研究为数较少。
本研究从较新颖的角度针对农村英语教学投入问题进行了分析:本研究报告了农村英语教师和政府官员对于目前农村英语教学存在问题的观点以及农村英语课堂的特征,最后对如何改进英语教学提出意见和建议,以期能够更多地吸引社会各界对于缩小城市和农村教育差距的关注,加深对于教育差距问题的认识和理解。
本研究使用了一套针对农村学生的问卷来探索不同课堂活动的频率,同时也采用了访谈的方法,以了解当地教师和政府官员对于农村英语教学的看法。
本研究回答了以下三个问题:1、农村英语教师有哪些授课的内容和形式?2、农村教师和政府官员发现了农村英语教学中的哪些问题?3、农村教师和政府官员提出了哪些建议来改进农村英语教学?问卷和访谈研究的结果显示,农村英语课堂主要采用的是传统的语法和翻译教学方法,这种方法主要的形式就是教师在课堂上讲解课文和语法知识点。
课堂是以教师为中心的,但学生在一定程度上可以与教师和同学互动。
另外,农村英语课程的内容基本是严格局限于教材的。
最后,教师经常采用体罚的方式,而非采用沟通手段以建立教师的权威。
本研究也报告了农村英语教学中的一些问题:财政支持的缺乏、高水平教师的缺乏、教学能力培训的缺乏、教师的高工作负荷、课前准备和教学研究的缺乏,以及学生较低的学习动机。
2001年,国务院要求所有小学最迟必须在2002年普及英语课。
由于教师储备的缺乏和财政投入的缺失,这一政策的制定在农村英语教学上导致了许多问题。
本研究给出了受访者对于改进农村英语教学的建议:一、训练当地教师充分利用教材中的音像材料,并给学生安排更多的记忆性学习内容;二、鼓励当地教师针对他们教学中的问题和解决方法进行交流,让老师们组成互助小组以克服教学中遇到的困难,这会是一个现实且行之有效的方法。
本研究的结论在以下几方面意义显著。
首先,在政策层面,本研究希望能够有助于加深对教育不平等问题的认识,从而通过提供政策执行层的信息而帮助调整政策制定过程;其次,在实际操作层面,本研究就政府应如何改进对于欠发达地区加大政策支持提出了建议;最后,在教学层面,本研究提出了对于农村英语教师如何改进其教学的建议。
关键词:农村英语教育、资金、师资目录省略Chapter OneINTRODUCTION1.1 Motivation for the StudyIn 2008, I went to Shenlin Middle School in Ningxia Province to be a short-term volunteer teacher. That was my first visit to a village school. I was not only shocked bythe poor life students there were leading, but also by the misery they experienced inlearning English. The average score of the English examination was usually around 50,while the full mark was 120, and this score was far from high enough to get them intothe higher level of education. In the summer of 2009, I went to Lianshui, a county innorthern Jiangsu Province, to train rural English teachers in primary schools. I wasagain touched by the teachers' lack of confidence and by the problems they encounteredin teaching. I searched for literature on rural English education in China in order to findsolutions. However, there were very few studies on this topic. Since then, I have kept aneye on the development in this field.1.2 Significance of the StudyFirst, very few studies have been conducted to examine the condition of rural English education, and thus this study can reveal information about the inequality ineducation and arouse awareness of the problems with rural English education.Second, this study discussed the issue of rural English education from a less adopted perspective, because most existing studies address the issue of rural educationthrough analyzing government policies, rather than discovering the real condition inrural areas. Therefore, in addition to looking at the policies and data provided by thegovernment, this study also investigated what the local teachers and officials thought ofEnglish education in rural areas.Moreover, practically, this study also tries to make suggestions on how to improve rural English education. Some suggestions focus on how to provide further political and financial support for rural education, while others attempt to offer teaching strategies toteachers.1.3 Structure of the ThesisThis thesis will begin by reviewing the condition of and problems with English education in rural China in existing literature. It will then move to the methodologyused in the study, introducing the subjects and instruments. The third part will cover theresults and discussion. This part will first describe the characteristics of rural Englishclasses in the study, and reveal problems afterwards. It will also report suggestionsoffered by interviewees. In the last part conclusion, I will summarize the major findingsand give my own suggestions derived from the study. Limitation and future researchdirection will be included in the end of the thesis.Chapter TwoLITERATURE REVIEWFormer Vice Premier Li Lanqing called for a vigorous promotion of foreign language education, especially English teaching and learning. After that, a lastingexpansion of English education began in 2001.All primary schools around the countrywere required to offer compulsory English courses as early as the third grade, whenstudents were nine years old. However, questions such as how to implement the statepolicies in rural areas, and how to close the gap between urban and rural Englisheducation remain unanswered. In recent years, many scholars have investigated thedevelopment and inequality of education in China, some focusing on English educationspecifically (e.g., Feng, 2009; Hu, 2003, 2005; Hu, 2007; Liu, 2008; Paine&DeLany,2000). Furthermore, many researchers began to see the enlarged gap between the cityand the countryside in terms of English teaching and learning. In this chapter, I willsummarize the recent development in rural English education, and scholars' discussionof the problems.2.1 Present Condition of Rural English EducationOne milestone of English education in rural China was the reform of educational system in 1985, and it was also a very important move in the Reform and Openness. Inthis year, the central government released The Decision on the Reform of the Educational System (zhonggong zhongyang guanyz} jiaoyu tizhi gaige de jueding), andbegan decentralization in education. Since the Reform and Openness, China movedfrom an egalitarian to a more utilitarian side in education (Hu, 2005). The 1985 policymade several leaps. Regional differences were allowed in education. Financially, thetown and township government became the main sponsor of local education, instead ofthe central government (Zheng, 2005). In terms of language education, different regionscould develop their own teaching materials and design suitable teaching syllabus. ForExample, Shanghai began to develop its own textbook in 1988. In 1993, Shanghai,Sichuan, Guangdong and Shandong respectively used their own English textbooks (Liu,2008, p. 30). In 1986, the National People's Congress of China passed the Law forCompulsory Education of the People's Republic of China, and the country began topractice a nine-year compulsory education. Soon after, the central government requireda new English syllabus for junior secondary schools. After nearly seven years of inquirywith experts and language teachers and experiments, the trial version of Syllabus forJunior Secondary Foreign Language Education was finally released and new textbooks,Junior English for China, were put to use. This new policy did not force a standardcourse all over the country, and the textbook had several different versions to suit theneed of different areas. English became increasingly popular in the 1990s.With the spread of English came challenges. The 1997 national seminar on foreign language education in secondary schools identified the following problems:English course reflected the test-oriented characteristic of Chinese education in general,with teachers usually paying attention to fragmented knowledge rather than the abilityof using the language. Teaching strategies were out of date and teaching initiation couldrarely be seen. The teaching quality was not high, and the average qualification ofEnglish teachers was below that of teachers of other subjects. Teachers were not welltrained, and there was frequent loss of teachers (Liu, 2008). Many of these problemscontinue to this day.At the end of the 20t}' century, the central government initiated a new round of reform, aiming at gearing the compulsory education to the needs of modernization, theworld and the future (Ministry of Education, 2001).To put theory into practice, theMinistry of Education began to work on a new syllabus for compulsory education tocatch up with the social and economic development during the period of the Reformand Openness.GuidelinesIn January of 2001,the ministry issued The Ministry of Edaication Vigorously Promoting the Teaching of English in Primary Schools,stipulatingBeginning in fall 2001,primary schools located in cities andare to "gradually" teach English; beginning in fall 2002, primary counties schools located in towns and townships are to "gradually" teach English. It alsoprovides general guidelines for curriculum design, textbook selection,teacher training, and local administration. (Y Hu, 2007)blow, English is widely provided in primary and secondary schools over the country.The book The Development Report of Elementary Foreign Language Education (jichu waiyu jiaoyu fazhan baogao) provided evidence to show the progress insecondary schools, especially in terms of teacher qualification (Liu, 2008, p. 30). Table1 is based on the data provided in this book.Both the government and scholars have investigated the problems with the present English education, especially in the less developed areas. It is particularlydifficult to provide qualified English courses in the countryside as required bycompulsory education. In recent years, although the central government has made anumber of policies to promote and support English education in rural areas, China hasstill witnessed a widening gap between the city and the countryside. According to Feng(2009, p. 85), "The provision of the English language in schools in economic andsocio-political powerhouses and in coastal regions differs enormously from that ininland and remote regions." In a study on regional differences in English languageteaching in China, Hu reported an obvious distinction between students from developedareas and less developed areas. These differences lie in students' English proficiency,previous learning experiences, classroom behavior, and language learning and usingstrategies (2003).The government reports also provided evidence of inequality between developed and less developed areas. By analyzing the data collected in the 2005 population censusLi found that the chance for residents in the city to receive tertiary education was 6.3times of that for residents in the countryside (2010). Meanwhile, evidence also showsthat it is more difficult for students from the countryside to gain access to qualifiedtertiary education. There are two kinds of education at the tertiary level in China: one isthe four-year university education, and the other is the three-year certificate education.The former is far more valued than the latter in the job market and in institutions offurther education. Although the official data showed that the percentage of studentsfrom the countryside in tertiary education rose from 43.4% in 1989 to 53% in 2005, thepercentage of these students in key universities was actually dropping. For example, inNankai University, one of the top ten universities in China, this percentage was 30% in2006, 25% in 2007, and 24% in 2008. In otheruniversities such asUniversity, this percentage has been no higher thantop33%recent years (Yuan,Tsinghua2009).Since 2002, all primary schools in the country were required to offer English lessons from Grade Three at the latest. This policy, although intended to narrow the gap,has only created pressure on rural English education, if not enlarging the gap. Feng(2009) described two very different pictures:Learners of English in major economic and political powerhouses such asShanghai and Guangzhou may have access not only to teaching byqualified teachers at any age from kindergarten to an advanced level, butalso to all modern facilities such as multimedia laboratories and computers,to private tutoring by native speakers of English and even to tours abroad togain direct exposure to English used in naturalistic settings, whereas inunderdeveloped regions, it is an issue to provide even the basic foreignlanguage education specified in policy documents. (p. 8)From bad to worse, to achieve the goal set by the national government, quality is sacrificed to gain quantity. Although data showed that most of the primary andsecondary schools have already begun to offer English classes, many teachers in ruralschools have not received enough training and do not have any idea about up-to-dateteaching strategies. Many underdeveloped areas have wasted a huge amount ofmanpower and material resources every year just to barely meet the requirement (Liu,2001). Students also suffer low motivation in English, inefficient learning strategies andpoor achievement.Upon seeing the slow development in the countryside, the central government has recently promised to give priority to narrowing the gap between urban and rural areasand to place more emphasis on rural education in the future. In 2010, it published theNational Outline for Medium and Long Term Educational Reform and Development(2010-20), emphasizing that in the coming ten years, promoting fairness should be thebasic educational policy. The government also clearly claimed that the future workshould focus on balancing the development of compulsory education between regions,and helping the disadvantaged population. The fundamental solution lies in allocatingeducational resources appropriately, with the policy favoring rural, ethnical, theeconomically backward and remote regions. The government should aim at closing theeducational gaps. This document also attributed to the government the mainresponsibility of achieving educational equity, with the help of a common effort in thewhole society (Ministry of Education, 2010). Therefore, it is urgent and of greatimportance to look at the problems with rural education, the reasons for the gapbetween the city and the countryside, and also the solutions to the problems.2.2 Problems with Rural English Education Identified by ExistingLiteratureThere are several levels of problems. On the local government and school level, leaderships are frequently confronted with financial difficulties, loss of teachers, and thelack of teaching staff, basic teaching facilities and language materials. On the teachinglevel, improper strategy use reflects the insufficient teacher training. On the learnerlevel, students usually show a low level of motivation, improper learning beliefs andstrategies, resulting in low achievements in English.2.2.1 Lack of qualified teachersSince 2002, English has been included into compulsory courses in primary schools in the countryside. However, the reality was that there were far less qualified English teachers to satisfy the suddenly explosive need in schools. Actually, before this policy, the secondary schools in the countryside in many underdeveloped areas had already suffered from teacher shortage. Now, the lack of trained teachers is regarded as the biggest problem in rural schools in China. According to the official data in 2008, there were 198,040 English teachers and 20,642,417 students in rural secondary schools all over the country, and these figures mean that on average, each teacher had 104 students, and the smallest number of lessons required in the state policy was eight 45-minutesessions a week (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2008). First, due to the huge vacancy for English teachers created by the 2001 policy of the Ministry of Education in promoting English education in primary schools nation-wide, the rural schools could only meet the government requirement by hiring untrained teachers, and this caused more negative effects than positive ones. According to the 2001 policy, all urban primary schools should provide English lessons beginning in the autumn of 2001,while their rural counterpart should do it beginning in the autumn of 2002 (Ministry of Education, 2001).However, this new policy ignored the fact that it took time to train teachers. Although there was no official data, some scholars of number of professionals. Liu commented that China was not ready to offer English in all primary schools. The 2001 policy required that all urban primary schools began to teach English from Grade Three in the new term that year, and this means that in each grade, the number of new English learners would reach as high as 5 million at least, which would be 20 million in total. This created a need for 200,000 more English teachers. However, since it took three years to train a teacher, there was no way to satisfy the need (2001).This estimate only took into account the situation in cities, without mentioning the fact that in 2002, rural primary schools should also include English into compulsory courses. Another scholar Hu commented that this "policy on primary ELT has created an acute shortage of teachers." He said: 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. (2005, p. 22).In 2008, seven years after the policy was made, there were still news reports on the unfilled gap. Professor Cui Gang in Qsinghua University estimated the nation-wide need for English teachers as one million (Sohu Educational News, 2008). This estimation did not even include private primary schools.Although the 2001 policy was aimed at English education in primary schools, it also had some impact on secondary English education. Before this policy, many rural secondary schools in underdeveloped areas had already suffered from the shortage of trained teachers. This new policy made the situation worse, because the limited teacher resources were further spread out. In a word, "efforts to expand English provision have been constantly in tension with efforts to improve the quality of instruction" (Hu, 2005,p. 12).The second cause for teacher shortage is the limited economic and socialcondition in rural areas. It is hard for rural schools to attract qualified teachers. Hu said that "the coastal and urban regions' economic prosperity and better living standards have helped their schools not only attract a disproportionate number of university graduates but also lure many qualified teachers from less developed regions" (2003, p. 305). There is also income disparity between the teachers from urban and rural areas.An obvious hierarchy existed in the teachers' income, with teachers in village schools at the bottom, despite the fact that they had to work in the toughest places and under the poorest condition. Teachers in village schools hardly had any bonus or welfare such as medical insurance (Du, 2005). Moreover, in comparison with teachers from the city, those in rural schools have fewer chances of further training, and this has also hindered the improvement of teaching quality in rural schools. According to Hu, "many urban secondary schools are affiliated to prestigious universities or have established connections with such universities and, consequently, can enlist help from the universities with their in-service teacher training" (2003, p. 305). Moreover, urban teachers have many chances to receive further education or training abroad."Governments of the more prosperous metropolitan centers sponsor an increasing number of teachers for in-service training in overseas universities" (Hu, 2003, p. 305). In the same article, Hu mentioned the following data: According to the Shanghai Curriculum and Teaching Materials Reform Commission (1999), by the end of 2003, about 11,000 teachers of English in Shanghai will have participated in refresher courses, and between 1500 and 1800 core teachers will have received ELT training in overseas institutions (p. 305).Although the actual operation might vary from this plan, such a high number of training opportunities is impossible in an underdeveloped city in western China, letalone the countryside in those regions.2.2.2 Loss of teachersAnother serious problem in rural schools is the frequent loss of teachers. In some rural schools, students are forced to adapt to new teachers once every few months. This usually affects students' morale negatively. Existing research counted the percentage of teachers staying in one same school in 2005, and it reported that the percentage lowered from 56.86% in provincial capitals, to 45.85% in counties, to 43.89% in towns, and to 33.33% in the countryside. Among this 33.33% of teachers in rural schools, 22.92% of them taught in more than four schools at the same time (Zheng, 2005, p. 76). This shows that the percentage of teachers leaving schools was high. Research also showed that in general, teachers in rural schools had stronger motivation to move to other schools or work in another field. Respectively, 10.49% of teachers in county schools, 17.56% in town schools, and 22.92% in rural schools had the wish to move to another school, while another 19.44% in rural schools had the intention to move out of educational domain (Zheng, 2005). Zheng summarized the characteristics of teacher transfer as follows: The transfer direction moved from the educational domain to other domains, from less developed areas to developed areas, from rural to urban areas.Moreover, the floating happens more frequent among teachers with higher educational qualifications and younger teachers. English and computer are the two subjects that witness the most serious loss of teachers (Zheng, 2005).2.2.3 Lack of infrastructural resourcesThe infrastructural resources mainly include in the following aspects: audio and visual facilities assisting English teaching, English learning materials other than textbooks, and chances to obtain extra English trainings after class, and teachers' access to up-to-date teaching guidance.Because of the low qualifications of rural English teachers, and the requirement of offering English lessons in every school beginning in Grade Three, the government encouraged distance teaching in rural education through the Internet and encouraged the use of modern audio visual facilities. To equip rural schools with modern facilities is believed to be a very effective way to reduce the burden on rural schools after the 2001 policy. However, the reality is that many underdeveloped areas do not have access to the Internet. Moreover, very few rural primary schools can be equipped with facilities such as audio classrooms. In rural secondary schools, the possession of such devices is also far less common than in urban schools. One basic facility that nearly all schools can have is the tape recorder (Wu, 2008). However, its use is quite limited in rural schools because teachers there are more used to asking students to follow teachers rather than the tapes. In the recent years, some rural schools benefit from the donation and have their own audio classrooms now, but it is quite common that they fail to find someone who knows howto make the full use of it. A survey conducted in Shiyan, an area in central China, shows that the percentage of English teachers using the multimedia devices and audio classrooms differs greatly from the city to the country. There are respectively 30% of English teachers in urban primary schools, 3% in rural primary schools having made use of the multimedia facilities; the same research also shows that there were only 25% of rural primary schools having an audio classroom (Wu, 2008, p. 19).The second gap lies in the availability of English materials. First, in terms of learning materials for students, there is a huge gap between the city and the countryside. Many parents spend a great amount of money buying English novels and magazines for their children in the city, while in underdeveloped areas, it is hard to find such an abundant supply of English materials. Even if there is a supply, many rural parents do not have spare money to buy them. English textbooks are usually the only English material rural students have, and this would not be acceptable for parents in metropolitan areas. Moreover, learning English from a very young age becomes increasingly popular in metropolitan cities today. Beside English lessons in schools, many students in urban areas also attend a variety of extracurricular classes. Research shows that the higher the family income is, the more extracurricular English classes the students attend. Rich parents invest generously on their children's education. The cost of attending certain English schools and courses is higher than the local average annual income, but those expensive schools never fail to enrol enough students in economically advanced areas such as Shanghai and Beijing (Feng, 2009). Feng also commented that in the fear of the children "losing at the starting line," "parents of all economic conditions have invested heavily in their children's English." Moreover, "in a highly commercialized society such as Shanghai, however determined parents are,access to English as a commodity is no doubt in the hands of the rich" (p. 95). This phenomenon becomes more outstanding in the recent years. In Beijing, many children between three to six years old spend three hours a week at least in learning English, and some even begin when they cannot speak Chinese fluently. Nearly all kindergartens offer English classes in Beijing. The "baby class" for children between three and six cost at least 10,000 yuan a year (Zhang&Xie, 2010). In Beijing, parents are desperate to get their children into the English schools opened by Disney, and the classes charge from 5,000 to 12,000 yuan per a term depending on the type of class. In total, Chinese parents spend 14 billion yuan on pre-school English classes for their children ("Chinese Parents," 2010). Although there is no data showing the source of the investment, it is only reasonable to assume that it is mainly from urban parents, because it is basicallyimpossible to find such a training school in the countryside, nor even in a county town. It is obvious that urban students have far more chances to obtain qualified English education and the choices are abundant. In addition, urban students also have access to a variety of English learning machines, which rural students in many underdeveloped provinces have never heard about. These machines cost from a few hundred to several thousand yuan.It is also extraordinarily difficult for rural teachers to find any reference books and articles to inspire and improve their teaching. Urban secondary schools usually have their libraries. In addition, there is much easier access to a variety of books on teaching methods in cities, because of the existence of bookstores and the Internet. On the contrary, in underdeveloped rural areas, the only source of information is textbooks, or in a few schools, the school library. In。