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Problems for learners in ChinaI have been teaching in china now for three years. My students have mostly been adult learners in public schools. One thing I have noticed is that students are very comfortable with textbooks. I have often seen students wake up early in the morning, reciting a textbook by themselves, taking textbooks to class for more reciting, and then going back to their dormitories for even more reciting. I think perhaps one reason for this is expectations. Students expect that everything they need to learn is in a textbook. When they study for examinations, they will almost always follow a textbook. Students? parents want their children to read textbooks in order to get high grades on their exams. Teachers also commonly read from textbooks with students reciting afterwards. Textbooks are not in and of themselves bad things, but they are severely limited. Part of the problem is culture, possibly combined with other social problems. Parents see textbooks as the best, most efficient way for students to get a high score on their examinations, and often schools have exactly the same attitude. In this situation, getting a high score on an examination means everything to student, school and parents alike, even if it means students can?t reproduce language easily in normal, conversational situations. This is an issue of face. Low scores means loss of face, which leads to societal problems in China. Therefore, there is a premium on high scores. This goes so far so as to ?ensure? students get a high score, even when they don?t deserve it. In my current employment, I?m required to ?make sure?, or to ?find a way? to get students to pass their examinations, and I have been informed that it will be the same in my next job. Textbooks should be an integral part of a students? education, when used in the right way. However, in the above situation, textbook use becomes a major problem. Firstly, in order to learn a language well, and to understand the depth of a language, and of communicating in that language, a thorough knowledge of that language outside of that textbook is needed. It?s good that students can reproduce the grammar and mechanics that are found inside textbooks. This is vital. But students also need the ability to confidently reproduce that language when talking to other people, including foreigners, when they get the chance. In my classes, there is often one person the students do NOT want to talk to. That person is me, the foreign teacher. I guess part of it is because they are more comfortable and used to talking to a textbook, and not to a real foreigner. Secondly, this form of education kills what I believe is one of the foundations of good learning, and that is creativity. Constantly, and only, learning from textbooks tells students to only think about the contents of the book, and not to think about other applications of their newly learned english. Students are losing their creativity in learning when learning is purely text book centered. This also applies to other disciplines, and there are other issues, including political and cultural issues that surely contribute to this problem, but for now, it is enough to focus on how textbooks, or more particularly their use, contribute to the problem. Finally, but connected to the previous point, and especially relevant to China, is the issue of studying abroad, especially to a place such as America. In order to be successful in applying to go to, and then experiencing America, and its university education system, one must develop a strong creative thinking skill. This is one of the skills that make America such an innovative country. This is one of the skills that American universities look for in prospective students. So this is a skill that chinese students need to somehow develop. Always learning from textbooks seems counterproductive to this goal of many chinese students. In summary, I believe there are three problems related to language learning from textbooks in China. It makes language learning about grades and face, and not good reproduction; textbooks kill creativity in learning when overused; and finally, it hinders the dream of many young people to study abroad. Therefore, we need to encourage more creative language learning, and rely less on textbooks.
