The ascent of English : China
New dawn in a shared languageMany more Chinese are learning English to further their opportunities, driving the market for education, says Andrew Yeh
On a typical weekday morning, Gao Long retreats to a snow-covered park among the grey buildings of Beijing Normal University to practise English by herself.
Several other students do the same. Some sit on benches mumbling over books while others saunter to and fro in sub-zero temperatures while reading aloud. They come to work on their spoken English and escape the cramped dormitories they share with many roommates.
“You don't disturb anybody in the park because everyone is reading out loud,” said Ms Gao, a bespectacled college undergraduate. “You have to rely on yourself others can only give you a form or teach you certain ways but it's still up to you in the end.”
Ms Gao spends her time here reading passages from her heavily marked English text, stopping every now and again to perfect her pronunciation of tricky words such as “pesticide”. As the weather warms up, she says, even more students from the college will come to the park to practise. There are countless Chinese youths with the same curiosity and drive as Ms Gao for mastering the English language. In a country imbued with the values of self-improvement, learning English is often viewed as one of the surest ways to improve one's career opportunities. And these attitudes are expected to yield significant demand for education-related products and services in the years ahead.
China is a country that has historically placed great value on education. Yet its current fanaticism for learning English is unique. “It's a phenomenon,” said Zhou Chenggang, a former BBC correspondent who is now vice-president of New Oriental, a private Beijing-based company that runs a network of English teaching services around the country. “The biggest motivation is that they know it will help their lives.”
In China today, the keenest students of English tend to be those cramming for foreign exams, with the aim of going abroad and winning scholarships. To do well on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), a test of verbal, quantitative and analytical skills, for instance, a Chinese student must be familiar with up to 20,000 words. And someone taking the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) needs to learn around 7,500 words, Mr Zhou estimates.
Students in the capital, where the country's best universities are located, are known for reading and watching everything they can get their hands on. This hunger for learning is expected to generate huge growth in the market for English education products, which includes teaching services, textbooks, test preparation manuals, dictionaries and information technology products and services. The demand for classroom instruction has been increasing, too, though spending power in many Chinese cities remains limited. New Oriental estimated its total enrolment was 750,000 last year, up from 450,000 in 2003. And the demographic range of students is widening.
Mr Zhou of New Oriental says that in the 1990s nearly all students learning English were preparing for specific foreign exams such as GRE, TOEFL and the International English Language Testing System to give them a chance to study abroad or raise their prospects of a job at a multinational company. These days those studying the language include children, older people and those with a general interest. English texts are now the fastest growing sector in China's book education market and account for up to 8 per cent of the retail book market, according to Xin Guangwei, a publishing industry researcher and author of Publishing in China.
Numerous foreign education and publishing companies have been positioning themselves to cash in. Their success, however, will be determined by the extent to which they can access the market and how well they can outperform and co-operate with Chinese publishing houses.
There is considerable Sino-foreign co-operation in the market for learning English. Oxford University Press and The Commercial Press, one of China's oldest publishing houses, together produce a bilingual English-Chinese pocket dictionary. Oxford University is also involved in producing English coursework materials for China's classrooms.
Gunawan Hadi, Asia vice-president of McGraw-Hill Education, says his company has been working with Chinese publishers to develop English texts and reference materials. He adds that the company's China revenues have grown steadily in the past five years. Other foreign publishers such as Pearson Education and Cambridge University Press have also been trying to target the country's English enthusiasts.
Gordon Brown, the UK finance minister, said during a recent trip to China that Britain's education exports were now the fastest growing export earner, having nearly doubled in five years to ￡10.3bn equivalent to about 1 per cent of the country's gross domestic product. Mr Brown said that education exports would be vital to the UK economy possibly reaching ￡20bn a year in 15 years time and that China is expected to be the primary driver of growth. Many believe that China already has the world's largest number of people learning English. “In 20 years time, the number of English speakers in China is likely to exceed the number of speakers of English as a first language in all the rest of the world,” Mr Brown said during a speech in Beijing. “I believe this is a huge opportunity.”
Those on the crest of the wave of learning are endlessly creative about study methods. Jessy Zhao, a 23-year-old from China's western Xinjiang region who is now studying for a Masters in education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, covered her dormitory room wall with memos with English words she wanted to remember.
“There was a movie that I really liked a lot when I started to learn English, so I tape recorded the conversation and repeated it again and again just for fun,” said Ms Zhao. Students can be particularly obsessive about memorising vocabulary. Maggie Cheng, a student of English at Beijing Foreign Studies University, recalls how someone from her home town was given two Oxford dictionaries by her family as study aids. She ended up using one as a reference guide and the other for memorising. “She would read a page and then rip a page for a sense of accomplishment, I guess,” Ms Cheng says.
There are many study aids available to Chinese students. Aside from the internet and English books sold in stores, outdated foreign newspapers and magazines are often for sale at a discount from street vendors and underground hawkers.
Ms Gao of Beijing Normal University has been studiously flipping through issues of Time magazine because the “stories are real rather than a sham”, she writes in an e-mail. “I read every book I can, I'm very interested,” explains Ms Gao, who spends long hours in the library. “I think books help broaden our modes of thinking and knowledge.”
中国：疯狂英语
一个普通的早晨，高珑(Gao Long，音译)躲进北京师范大学灰色建筑群之间一个白雪覆盖的公园，自己练习英语。
还有几个学生也在练习。在低于零度的气温中，一些学生坐在长凳上低声默念，其他一些学生则一边踱来踱去，一边高声朗读。他们来这里练习英语口语，躲开与许多室友共享的宿舍，那里拥挤不堪。
“在公园里你不会打扰任何人，因为大家都在高声朗读，”戴一副眼镜的本科生高小姐说，“你得依靠自己，别人只能给你个门道，或者教你些方法，但最终还得靠你自己。”
高小姐花时间在这里朗读英语课文，课本上有密密麻麻的标注。她时不时停下来，纠正“pesticide”等难读的单词，希望能够发音准确。她说，随着天气转暖，大学里会有更多学生来公园练习。不计其数的中国青年怀着同高小姐一样的好奇心和干劲，要掌握英语这门语言。在这个“秉持自我完善价值观”的国度中，学习英语常被视为改善个人职业发展最可靠的途径之一。而且预计在未来几年中，这种态度将引发对教育相关产品和服务的大量需求。
巨大动力
中国是个历来重视教育的国家。但当前这种学习英语的狂热态势却是绝无仅有的。“这是个不同寻常的现象，”前英国广播公司(BBC)记者、新东方学校(New Oriental)副校长周成刚表示，“最大的动力是，他们知道这对自己的生活有利。”新东方是一家总部位于北京的私营机构，经营着一个遍布全国的英语教学服务网络。
周先生说，在当今中国，最渴望学习英语的，往往是些为了出国或赢得奖学金，而拼命准备参加外国考试的学生。例如，对中国学生来说，要在美国研究生入学资格考试(GRE)中取得好成绩，必须熟记多达两万个单词。GRE是一项对语言、数量和分析能力的测试。而周先生估计，对于报考托福(TOEFL)的学生来说，需要学会约7500个单词。
中国几座最好的大学都坐落在首都北京，而北京的学生以阅读和观看任何能到手的东西而著称。这种饥渴的求知欲预计将为英语教育产品市场带来巨大的增长，该市场提供教学服务、教材、考试准备手册、词典，以及信息技术产品和服务。尽管中国许多城市的支出能力仍然有限，但对课堂教学的需求也一直在增长。新东方估计该校去年的总入学人数达75万，高于2003年的45万。学生的构成范围正在扩大。
新东方的周先生表示，上世纪90年代，几乎所有学英语的学生都准备参加某项外国考试，如GRE、托福和雅思(IELTS)，以使自己有机会出国留学，或提高在跨国公司任职的可能性。如今，英语学习者包括儿童、中老年人，以及对英语感兴趣的人。据出版业研究者、《世界华文出版业》(Publishing in China)一书的作者辛广伟称，英语教材是中国教育图书市场中增长最快的领域，占图书零售市场的份额高达8%。
从市场中获利
大量外国教育及出版公司一直准备从中获利。但成功与否，将取决于它们能在多大程度上打入这个市场，以及它们是否能超过中国出版社的业绩，是否与它们能够进行合作。
英语学习市场上存在相当多的中外合作。牛津大学出版社(Oxford University Press)与商务出版社(The Commercial Press)联合推出了一部英汉双语袖珍词典。商务出版社是中国历史最悠久的出版社之一。牛津大学还参与了为中国学校编写英语课程材料的工作。
麦格罗-希尔教育公司(McGraw-Hill Education)亚洲副总裁嘎纳万?哈迪(Gunawan Hadi)表示，他的公司一直与中国出版社合作开发英语课本和参考材料。他补充说，过去5年公司在中国的营收一直稳步增长。培生教育出版社(Pearson Education)和剑桥大学出版社(Cambridge University Press)等其它外国出版社也一直努力瞄准中国的英语爱好者。
英国财政部长戈登?布朗(Gordon Brown)在近期访问中国时表示，现在英国的教育出口是收入增长最快的出口领域，5年来其收入近乎翻倍至103亿英镑，相当于英国国内生产总值的1%左右。布朗先生说，英国的教育出口将成为英国经济中至关重要的部分，在15年之内，年均教育出口收入有望达到200亿英镑，预计中国将是这一增长的主要驱动力。很多人相信，中国已是全球学习英语人数最多的国家。“在20年内，中国会讲英语的人数可能超过全球所有其它地区以英语为母语的人数，”布朗先生在北京的一次演讲中说，“我认为这是一个重大机遇。”
学习方法层出不穷
那些学习英语乐此不疲的人在学习方法上有无穷的创造力。23岁的杰西?赵(Jessy Zhao)来自中国新疆，目前正在温哥华的英属哥伦比亚大学(University of British Columbia)攻读教育硕士学位，她在宿舍的墙上贴满了便条，上面是她想要记住的英语单词。
“在我刚开始学英语时，有一部电影我非常喜欢，于是我用磁带把对话录了下来，一遍又一遍地反复听，就是为了好玩，”赵小姐说。学生们可能特别沉迷于背记单词。北京外国语大学英语系的学生玛吉?程(Maggie Cheng)回忆说，与她同乡的一个女孩，家里人给了她两本牛津字典作为辅助学习的工具。这个女孩最后把一本当做参考指导书用，另一本则用来记单词。“她会读一页然后撕掉一页，我猜是为了获得一种成就感，”程小姐说。
中国学生可以得到许多学习辅导资料。除了互联网和书店里卖的英语书外，街头小贩和地下摊贩还经常打折出售过期的外国报纸和杂志。
北师大的高小姐一直专心浏览《时代》(Time)杂志，因为“(里面的)故事都是真实的，而不是杜撰的”，她在一封电子邮件里写道。“我会尽可能去读每一本书，我对此非常感兴趣，”高小姐解释说，她花大量时间呆在图书馆里，“我认为书籍帮助我们拓宽思维和知识面。”
