Opinion | After the "earthquake", what now?

By Philip Yeung, A university teacher

PKY480@gmail.com

Finally, the unthinkable has happened. Long overdue, China has banned excessive homework and for-profit tutoring schools. Chinese children can now reclaim their lost childhood, and parents can claw back their hard-earned cash. This is a once-in-a-lifetime, do-or-die game-changer, a gutsy move inconceivable anywhere else. I salute the Chinese Government.

It is a thunderbolt from the blue, catching education tycoons with their pants down. In one felled swoop, it has gutted the tutoring industry, leaving the erstwhile darlings of this sector out of favor and out of cash.

But banning these money-making outfits is one thing. Something must be found to fill the void. Elite colleges and universities, at home and abroad, will continue to demand high scores from their applicants. As long as this cut-throat competition remains, parents with deeper pockets will seek ways to give their kids an edge. It will drive the tutorial services underground. Already, private tutors are making their way into wealthier homes. But as a get-rich-quick business model, the golden days of the tutorial schools are gone forever. The whole industry has become uninvestable, in and out of the stock market.

China's urgent and ultimate goal is to improve the quality of education for the masses. If China wants to become a nation of innovation, it needs root-and-branch reform. The curse of Chinese education is quantity over quality, repetitive and punitive learning totally hijacked by public exams.

Take English. The one-dimensional grammar-and-vocabulary approach has led to a learning bottleneck, inflicting pain, perplexity and dead learning on hundreds of millions of second-language learners. We are using a 15th-Century method for learning a 21st-Century language.

Chinese and English are not cognate languages. Where a German student only needs six months to get a handle on English, it takes their Chinese counterparts 16 years if not more. We need a method tailor-made for Chinese and other Asian learners. We need a contrastive awareness.

In fact, we need a whole new Cognitive Awareness to leapfrog the learning process. All revolutions, including learning revolutions, begin with a cognitive awakening.

That cognitive awakening comes in the form of a conceptual approach that simplifies a complex foreign language. A conceptual method, by design, is a tool for observing, analyzing and application. It cuts through the thicket of alien grammar rules. Each concept represents a new idea about looking at and using the language. Language is multi-layered. A purely grammar-led approach that pays no homage to the culture, psychology as well as linguistic peculiarities is incomplete and superficial learning.

The vast resources China has poured into the teaching and learning of English have produced pathetic returns, so disproportionately bad that in certain regions, there's talk of deleting English from the core curriculum. Its students can't write and are afraid to open their mouths, much less think in English. When Chinese students communicate in English, they feel diminished like third-class citizens. They badly need "empowerment" English that is anchored by experiential learning, not fill-in-the-blanks dreary drills that have nothing to do with a living language.

The problem is rooted in local English teachers who are themselves stunted language learners. They lack phonetic training, a reading habit or an urge to keep learning plus learning through living. Generation after generation, they pass on their pedantic knowledge to millions of students, drilling them in what is basically a dead language, with zero captivating content, learning words without context, and relentlessly teach-to-the-test.

Students never taste the joy of learning the world's only international language. Functionality, proficiency and pleasure are all beyond their reach. No wonder Chinese students gravitate towards STEM subjects, as they are outclassed in humanities and the arts. Chinese rarely reach top leadership positions in Fortune 500 companies, unlike their Indian counterparts.

What then must we do?

First, no real reform without teacher-training reform. Up and down the system, Chinese teachers cry out for retraining.

But how do we retrain them? Not by the old and dismal rote method that has plagued Chinese schooling ever since education became a modern enterprise. To inspire students, teachers themselves must be inspired. They must realize and relish the unique do-it-itself flexibility of English. Learn its rules yes, but also learn to break them too, as English often indulges us to do. Don't learn English slavishly. A lively sense of play is vital in language learning.

The Conceptual Approach is transcendent learning. It is beyond grammar.

It arms students with analytical ideas for breaking down the complexity of a foreign language, connecting the dots, and making its confusing variety comprehensible. It is experiential, with content culled from living. It is functional, translating into practical skills, not useless examination learning. It is a higher order of learning empowering students to observe, analyze, synthesize and creatively apply what is learned. It is learning based on understanding, not passive remembering.

The sins of English teaching in China are infamous: a lethal hyper-literal, one-word-one-meaning approach to a highly ambiguous language where context is king. Unlike Chinese, in English, writing and speaking are intimately related. In fact, good writing in English is writing for the ear and enlivened by a conversational tone.

Conceptual learning shines the light on neglected areas beyond grammar. It is a 360-degree look at English that decodes the DNA of English, its authentic elements, its peculiar appeal, and its unique functionality.

In short, Chinese learners across the country are hungry for discovery-driven Empowerment English that is conceptual, experiential and functional. Nothing less will do.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.