China's WTO entry and Beijing's success in its 2008 Olympic Games bid have aroused mass enthusiasm throughout the country for learning English. An increasing number of primary schools have begun, or plan to introduce, bilingual teaching.

Shanghai will soon establish 100 experimental bilingual teaching schools, and by 2003, there will be 200 primary and middle schools in Shanghai conducting bilingual teaching. It also plans to introduce English teaching in the curriculum of all primary schools and, hopefully, in the near future, all senior middle school graduates will be able to communicate in fluent English. Currently, 30 percent of middle school teachers in Shanghai can teach classes totally in English. Therefore, their schools will have no difficulty conducting bilingual teaching in all science subjects.

A district of Nanjing is carrying out bilingual teaching experiments in some grade-one classes at 14 primary schools.

However, some experts have questioned this practice, saying that, by starting to learn English at an early age, the children's mother tongue learning will be affected. They also believe it is too early to introduce bilingual teaching, due to a lack of qualified teachers.

Foreign Language Teaching Cannot Replace Education in the Mother Tongue

Prof. Yang Xiongli (Academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences): Presently, all educational institutions, from kindergarten to university, are enthusiastically advocating bilingual education. But I think learning a foreign language at too young an age is likely to affect the development of children's normal way of thought. When thinking in their mother tongue, the foreign language may emerge and interfere with their thoughts, which may even cause logical confusion. Some scientific experiments have proven this, although the theory is yet to be confirmed.

For most people, a foreign language is merely a tool of communication. It's enough if they can use it to communicate, and there is no need for them to unduly pursue their foreign language proficiency to reach the same level as their mother tongue. Parents and teachers should pay more attention to cultivating children's language ability.

Cheng Gang (Director of the Education Bureau in Xicheng District, Beijing): As Beijing is adapting its elementary education to international practices, the introduction of bilingual teaching is worth trying. In a certain sense, bilingual education will provide Beijing's 1 million primary and middle school students with good opportunities for practice. But education involves a language art. When Chinese teachers give lessons in a foreign language, their teaching skills may be affected. It's not realistic to widely practice bilingual teaching at present, because even a teacher with good English language skills may have difficulty giving lessons entirely in English. Therefore, bilingual teaching can be only a scientific concept for the time being, rather than an action for all schools.

Wang Huichun (mathematics teacher at a Shanghai middle school): I doubt how much a six-year-old child can understand in a class taught in English. In particular, a mathematics class is not aimed at teaching students how much one plus one equals, but at cultivating their mathematical thinking. Even in the mother tongue, we often have to spend a lot of time explaining a mathematical problem; I cannot imagine how we can do so in English. Qualified teachers are another problem. At present, teachers are trained exclusively in their respective subjects. As a result, English teachers may not be able to teach mathematics or other subjects. So how can the quality of a class be guaranteed when a mathematics teacher is asked to give lessons in a foreign language? The weak mathematical knowledge foundation of primary one and two students will produce a negative effect on their future studies.

Bilingual Teaching Is a Trend

Li Lichun (Director of Beijing Future Star Experimental Kindergarten): Bilingual teaching is a feature of my kindergarten. In practice, we place more stress on oral English. For instance, we let children perform short dramas written in English. In this way, they learn English naturally while performing their roles in the play.

From my experience in pre-school education over the past 10 years, learning English at a young age won't necessarily produce negative effects on the mother-tongue study of children. As we are living in an environment of pure Chinese conversation and traditional culture, it's impossible for us to give up our culture and language. We have been trying to arrange the curriculum in a proper way. For instance, we create an English-speaking environment for children in the morning, and a Chinese-speaking environment in the afternoon.

On the other hand, we are not in a hurry to teach them to write English letters and words, because they can learn them after they have a good grasp of the Chinese phonetic alphabet. Our goal is to let children get used to an English-speaking environment so that speaking English won't be a psychological obstacle for them. More importantly, children can learn more about other cultures and other nations through foreign language study, thus widening their field of vision.

Zhang Enhai (Deputy Principal of Beijing No.80 Middle School): Bilingual teaching is a feature of the new era. Although giving lessons in English has not been practiced in an all-round way, we saw a good start in the teaching of certain subjects in English by some teachers. For example, while giving lessons on American history, a teacher in my school uses the original textbook written in English, and teaches the class in English, which has been well received by students.

Bilingual teaching may not suit all subjects, such as Chinese and political science, which are better taught in Chinese. The practice may not be limited to classroom. Creating an environment for learning and using a foreign language is more important. For example, all signboards on campus can be in both Chinese and English.

Bilingual teaching may also not suit all students, because they vary greatly in their competence in learning a foreign language. Bilingual teaching cannot start at a randomly selected stage of education. Taking the cultivation and stability of logical thinking into account, bilingual teaching should be introduced when children have a command of their native language.

Bilingual teaching may not suit all schools. Only schools with enough qualified teachers can introduce it. Bilingual teaching is yet to be popularized because appropriate teaching methods have to be explored and an overall environment for foreign language learning has to be formed.

Nevertheless, future educational undertakings will become more international, and exchanges between schools throughout the world will increase. Given this, speaking a common language is important and, to this purpose, bilingual teaching is an inevitable way.

Yang Li (a parent): China has entered the WTO. Improving the English level of the entire nation has become an urgent task. For this, more attention should be given to English teaching for children.

It's a well-known fact that from birth to six years old is the crucial period for the development of human's language competence. The more language stimulus children get from parents, the stronger their language competence will be. An education in both Chinese and English at an early age is conducive to removing obstacles to language learning for Chinese children.

My child began learning English in kindergarten. The elementary education of the kindergarten helped cultivate my child's enthusiasm for learning English after she entered primary school. But Chinese primary school pupils have very few English classes and little time to practice English in school. If our children begin to receive bilingual education from the very day they enter primary school, their English proficiency will surely improve quickly. Therefore, I urge the Ministry of Education to attach importance to English teaching for children, because having children begin learning English at an early age is of great significance to the future economic construction of our country.

Zhou Hui (a student of Beijing No.2 Experimental Primary School): I'm a sixth grader. When I was in kindergarten, every day my mum taught me a few Chinese characters as well as their meaning in English. As time passed, I became keen to learn English. Sometimes I gave mum and dad a quiz by speaking some English words and asking them what their meaning is.

To me, the earlier we begin to learn English the better the learning effects will be, and we are likely to develop a stronger interest. I often study English together with my dad. I always learn new English words faster than him, and remember them longer.

On October 1, my classmates and I went to fly kites in Tiananmen Square. We met some foreigners and I talked with them in English. Through our conversation, I learnt that they are tourists from Australia who are greatly interested in Chinese kites. I told them that I like the Australian kangaroo.

There are seven years to go before the 2008 Olympic Games. I'll study English even harder in the coming years, so I can then serve as a volunteer proficient in English.

(Beijing Review December 4, 2001)