English Class in America, and Chinese Class in China

“Hopefully our future language classes can become more helpful to kids as a human being, instead of treating students as exam machines.”

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G9Wbz-a4Tap1QhKCd2VPSQc0DlhSMsOQ/view?usp=sharing

Language represents the culture behind a country. Education is the foundation and hope of a nation. While language and education are both so important for a country, how does the education system on language differ in two of the biggest countries in the world — China, and the United States compare?

It’s my fourth year studying in the United States, plus my prior 15 years of life studying in China, I have experienced two totally different ways of education in languages from these two countries, and have some really interesting observations on that.

China and the United States have extremely different education system, however, the importance of native language courses seem like weighted in the same level. In China, Chinese language is a course everyone has to take each year from the first year at elementary. And the classes are expected to be taken place at least once every week. As the grade level goes higher and higher, students will also have more and more classes everyday. For example, an 8th grade student in China can have 3 or 4 Chinese classes everyday. However, by that time, most of these classes are not about learning anymore, but only about preparing for admission tests. On the other hand, the structure for English language courses in the United States are more regular based. American high schools also require students to take English every year, but the classes are offered once everyday, instead of pushing the students as much as possible.

Other than the basic structure of the native language course, the materials taught in these courses are also so different between the two countries. In China, the teachers emphasize a lot on ancient style prose and poems. Just imagine if you are required to recite 20 articles written in the old English that even Shakespeare doesn’t understand, additional to 50 more short poems each semester. That’s what most Chinese students are facing.

Besides that, Chinese students are also trained to “analyze passages” but in a certain given structure. There is a really funny true story about this, an author’s article was used on a big Chinese middle school exam, analyzing passage section. And one question was “Why the author said ‘the curtain is blue’ at the end of the story?” People asked the author to answer this question, and he said, “Because the curtain is truly blue!” But guess what? He gets no point because the “correct answer” suppose to be: blue represents sadness and loneliness, the author chose the color blue at the end of this story to express his sorrow. Yes, this sounds ridiculous, but this is exactly what Chinese classes in China are training the Chinese kids to do.

In another way, American style English classes seem much more reasonable and humanized. The most refreshing idea I learnt from my first American language class was, “There is no wrong answer”. What American kids do is reading tons of books, and write their own opinions out. The teacher and the class itself is just a resource of reaching for help. The main goal is still let the kids express their own thoughts instead of being manipulated by certain rules.

What makes the native language classes in China and the United States so different? I would say it’s the difference of goal. In China, the purpose of taking any classes is to get higher grades on the admission tests, while in the U.S., schools are for students learning how to think, and how to become a better man. I once was so surprised after my first SAT test because I couldn’t believe my school never taught about how to answer those kinds of questions on the SAT exam. In other words, we all need to prepare for it completely by ourselves, which would never happen in China.

I’m not arguing which country has a better way of teaching its native language. After all, each country is facing its own situation, and one single method does not fit for all conditions. However, I believe China still has a lot to learn from the United States, and hopefully our future language classes can become more helpful to kids as a human being, instead of treating students as exam machines.