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English craze sweeps SZ's kindergartens
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Huang Naili
MARY, Orange, Annie, Isabel, Sophia and Sunny are not foreigners. They are a group of five-year-olds jumping up and down and shouting English with their English teacher Ms Li in Shenzhen's Cartoon City Kindergarten in Meilin, Futian District.
Though the whole session was conducted in English, they seemed to have no problem understanding their teacher's English and responding in kind.
Zhu Yizhao, a three-year-old kid in the kindergarten, was taught an English song which repeats two sentences: Mummy, Mummy I love you and Daddy, Daddy I love you. The bright kid figured that there was someone missing in the song: his grandma, or nainai, who takes care of him when his parents aren't around. So he never forgets to add: Nainai, nainai, I love you. When his mother translated the song into Chinese, his nainai was moved to tears. The little boy's presentation of English songs is now a regular performance at gatherings with the family's friends. The performance not only wins applause but also makes his parents very proud. His mother, who studies English in university, said it's a result of the kindergarten's effort of promoting "bilingual education".
According to Ma Rong, president of Shenzhen Marong Education Foundation, a private firm which owns this kindergarten along with four others and a primary school in the city, the group pays great attention to English teaching. "Our teaching activities are conducted both in Chinese and English. As a matter of fact, English activities take up nearly 40 per cent of the children's time in the kindergarten," the president claimed.
In Ma Rong's kindergarten, a typical class usually has 30 kids and two classes will share an English teacher. Everyday the kindergarten would arrange a so-called English session for all the kids, 30 minutes for bigger kids and 15 minutes for the smaller ones. These sessions are always arranged by an English teacher with the help of another teacher whose major may not be English. Those who teach in Chinese have all gone through courses to improve their English.
Ma said English immersion is always on her mind. The English teachers are encouraged to conduct everyday activities in the kindergarten in English. As many of the kindergartens in the city teach the language with the aid of a set of textbooks provided by the Nanjing Normal University and whatever randomly choosen materials the teachers happen to lay their hands on, Ma Rong's foundation has conducted English teaching in a more serious and systematic way: compiling its own English textbooks in co-operation with top English educators.
Parents' desire
An increasing number of kindergartens in Shenzhen are trying to offer English lessons like Ma's kindergarten, driven by the strong desire on the part of parents to get their kids speaking English.
According to a report in yesterday's Hong Kong Commercial Daily, in some of the city's Hong Kong-sponsored kindergartens, children whose parents are Hong Kong residents are usually put in the so-called "Hong Kong class" where English is introduced as an important subject.
"The introduction of English in kindergartens caters to social conditions. We have to prepare our students to function in a global society. You feel silly if you don't understand English and want to surf on the Internet. And as globalization looms large, nobody can say no to English which has become the global language of communication and education," Ma said.
Shenzhen University Kindergarten is a relatively small kindergarten with five classes of about 150 children aged from two to six years old. English lessons have been introduced three times a week, 20 to 30 minutes a time in the school's four classes except the class for the youngest kids. Yi Rong is the kindergarten's only English teacher and many parents have complained to the president and Yi that one English teacher is simply not enough.
At a recent parent-teacher meeting for the youngest class of the kindergarten, many parents voiced the hope that their children can also learn English at school. "My daughter can now say fox, rabbit and a lot of other English words. But we've only got a few hours after dinner to teach her. It would be better if she can learn more English at school where she spends most of her day," a couple said earnestly at the meeting.
Fang, an accountant working for a local media organization, said her three-year-old son enjoyed learning English very much. The little boy's teacher last semester found every opportunity to teach the kids English words and sentences. Fang was glad to hear her son repeat what he had learnt from the teacher after school.
Fang said that in the future she wants to send her boy abroad to study in a developed country and to settle down there, so English is obviously very important. This semester, the little boy's teacher is on maternal leave and the new teacher seems to be not so enthusiastic about teaching English. So Fang is finding creative and entertaining ways to expose her son to English at home, for example, buying him English-teaching CDs, playing them whenever her son appears to be interested, hoping the lad will develop an ear for the language.
Wu Xiangyang, father of a three-year-old son, explained why he wants the son to learn English: "Nowadays people are calling those who don't have computer and English skills 'new illiterates' and nobody can deny the importance of English as the international language of commerce and science. I want him to learn English at an early age because I don't want him to lose out later on. And also because I myself cannot speak English and have lost of lot of very good business opportunities. I don't want my son to repeat my failure."
Wu said the worry that teaching English to little children might in the end westernize our young is irrelevant: "Of course the West has a lot of dirty and ugly things that I hate to mention. But there also is a lot for us to admire. I insist my son must grasp both Chinese and English as I believe multilingualism can be a means of expanding my son's horizons in an increasingly globalized world."
Ma Rong agreed that the ability to speak two or three tongues will give children economic and technical advantages in the future. She's also strongly in favour of the view that our kids can be taught to be fluent in different languages at a very young age. "We have all heard children from multi-racial families chat easily in their parents' different mother tongues and I believe an ease in conversing in different languages can bring long-long benefit."
A different voice
Yi Rong, English teacher at the kindergarten of Shenzhen University, apparently doesn't think so. She dismissed many kindergartens' promotion of the so-called "bilingual education" as "sheer, crass commercial goals".
Ma Rong's education foundation is certainly successful in commercial terms. In the foundation's Infants Education Centre of Overseas Chinese Town, a kid's monthly school fee is around 1,200 yuan (US$146), much higher than other government-sponsored kindergartens.
"China is unlike Hong Kong, the Philippines and other countries or regions which have a history of being colonized by an English-speaking country. Children there are exposed to English on many occasions. In our country, there is not very much English in the environment and people may be learning it from teachers who may not speak English very well themselves," said Yi.
She believes that most of the English teachers the city's kindergartens can recruit are graduates of three-year colleges. "An English major with a university degree would be reluctant to teach in a kindergarten. Kids who have learnt bad pronunciation in kindergartens are a headache for their English teachers in primary schools."
Yi has been teaching English in the kindergarten for five years and she believes the best thing a kindergarten English teacher can do is to prepare kids for their study of English in primary schools as a second language.
Authorities' voice
Chen Jianshuang, section head of kindergarten education in Shenzhen's Municipal Education Bureau, said the education authorities neither encourage the English craze in the city's kindergarten, nor oppose it.
Chen said the English subject in not listed in the nationwide education guidelines for kindergartens: "The English craze in the city's kindergartens is prompted by the demand of parents. It also has something to do with Shenzhen's geographical position as it borders on Hong Kong where English is very important. And of course, all of us realize that English is indeed important for our kids' future."
Chen said there is no law or regulation that says kindergartens cannot promote "bilingual education". However, if this education is carried out in regular school time from 7am in the morning to 5pm in the afternoon, the kindergarten is not allowed to ask parents to pay extra charges. "We cannot avoid the fact that not a few kindergartens are promoting English teaching as a way to get more money," said Chen.
Chen said since over 90 per cent of the city's nearly 500 licensed kindergartens are sponsored by the so-called "social forces"--enterprises, overseas investors or private owners, it makes it hard for authorities to monitor the standard of English teaching in all the kindergartens.
"Parents must have a clear mind on this matter since many of the advertising can be misleading.
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