Fever of Foreign Language Training Schools

Today it is very common for you to get some leaflets or booklets about foreign language training. We have witnessed an alarming increase of various training schools or organizations in the name of government affiliation or Sino-foreign cooperation and so on. Especially at this critical period of entry into the WTO (world trade organization), enthusiasm of learning foreign languages, especially English begin to spread at a tremendous speed. People try to seek the chances of improving their qualifications. As a consequence, the training schools spring up. Whereas we can’t help wondering about the service provided by the training schools, i.e., the quality of training under the bustling appearance of the training market. There, indeed, exists some problems.

First of all, most of the training schools don’t have their own regular teachers. Most people working there regard the job as a part-time one. A case which is especially prevalent for some teachers in the colleges or universities. This means that these teachers may leave the training schools for various reasons. For example, finding another school which can provide higher salary. Result of this situation is the change of teachers or recruitment of new teachers. Anyway, this would influences the normal teaching. Also there is a common impression in the teachers’ minds that these private training schools are not a place where they can work for a long time. So even if some training schools may have regular teachers, these teachers are just waiting for better opportunities except that they just want to idle away the time and have no other aspirations.

Secondly, level of teaching is quite a problem. A survey in a comparatively famous private school in a provincial capital reveals that among the thirty-seven teachers, only one majors in English, five teachers have bachelor’s degrees (the English major included), others only get degrees from colleges. This is not to say that there must be a relation between the teaching level and the degree. Whereas listening to these teachers’ lectures show that there is a great room for improvement for some teachers, though most students in this private school are from primary or middle schools. And we can imagine the negative influence on the students despite the ridiculous saying that these teachers’ knowledge is enough for those students. For the students, imitation of the teacher is a way of learning. Maybe from the very beginning, they have learned the wrong pronunciations which are not easy to correct.

Thirdly, let’s come to the management. Establishing a school is not an easy work. Various aspects have to be taken into consideration. Slack management in some training schools is not rare. For instance, some students go to other places when they should sit in the classroom and listen to the lecture. But some teachers may ignore this and do not report to the school or the students’ families as they are just concerned with finishing the remunerative tasks. Limited by the conditions of some schools, the content of those so-called audio-visual lessons is just watching some famous original films with little explanation. This is the most popular lesson for those irresponsible teachers and students who just come to class under the pressure of family. The main reason is due to the lacking sense of responsibility for some teachers. Anyway, this phenomenon is here to stay.

At last, various kinds of training schools usually promise a lot in the hope of getting more students under the pressure of fierce competition. They are set for the purpose of economic benefit as well as education. However, considering what we have noted above, a lot of difficulties may prevent these promises from being realized. Even some schools just pay lip service beforehand. It is found that in a private school, marks of the examinations are set above eighty so that parents of the students will be satisfied with the achievement in the school. Anyhow, we shouldn’t forget the fact that these training schools are a kind of business institutions.

It is comforting to believe that things are changing better and better

, however, we cannot ignore the above-mentioned phenomena. More attention and efforts to the cause of education themselves are for the interest of development of the quality. Appropriate measures should be taken. It’s high time for the authority to eliminate the nepotism and to regulate the training market. Influence of education is potential and distant. We can’t wait until the emergence of some undesirable consequences.

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