The prevalence of English has been growing exponentially over time in China. Especially after the Beijing Olympic games, the English study trend has become even bigger than ever before, being the most significant language in China besides Mandarin.
Also, the English language keeps playing a vital role for a person who plans to pursue further education because the best educations in the world, at least for now, are still from those Western countries like the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and even Hong Kong, etc., which are all using English as their tutorial language.
China is the top source country for international students in those countries since many Chinese people are working hard on learning English for pursuing their dream school.
What’s more, to seek a better career in China, a qualified English skill is still one of the key requirements.
Accompanying China’s rise on the world stage in recent years, the connections of commerce and culture with other countries are growing. Chinese companies nowadays really need talents possessing excellent English capability for facing challenges at the international level.
So how do Chinese learn English nowadays? Thanks to the blossoming English Second Language market, various new channels for English study are appearing, both offline the online incorporating the latest technology. There are 3 most common ways for Chinese to learn English: mobile Apps, live-streaming courses, and private English language schools.
1. Mobile Apps for English study
This is probably the most popular way for Chinese people, especially for students and ordinary working people.
In the beginning, most English learning apps are just mainly focused on helping people recite words because they think, in most Chinese minds, possessing a good vocabulary base is the most priority and is the easiest part to accomplish by the individual, which is considered the entry for the English learning.
Generally, various other advanced functions are built by developers, functions like English reading, listening, speaking, and even gaming, making the Apps cover more and more aspects of English learning and then can truly help people improve.
Shareable Features
In modern society, people love to share things, like food, scenes, selfies, and even study. I don’t know people from other countries, but the Chinese are keen on sharing their study habits.
Every time they’ve finished the daily vocabulary learning, or English reading, through the mobile apps, they will share the result on social media like WeChat Moments and Weibo, showing how many words they’ve learned today, how much time they’ve spent, how many days they’ve continued, and so on.
They believe this will give them extra motivation if other people know they’ve persisted in the learning habit for a long time and will regulate their learning contents, pushing them to gradually study even more.
But for some, they are more enjoying letting their peers and friends know that they’re spending time doing something positive, like learning English, so they can receive lots of praise comments like “wow, you’re so diligent”, “Keep going”, “I should learn from you”, etc.
Although undeniably, there is a vanity factor, I think receiving positive comments is another kind of motivation, which also can help people learn well.
Popular English Learning Apps in China
Daily English Listening (每日英语听力)
Mainly focus on offering people various English audio, topics including daily news, culture, music, etc. Also, all materials will be included in the scripts in both Chinese and English, so users can directly view them if they have trouble understanding the audio contents. Many students love to use this kind of material to do the listening practice.
Fun Dubbing (英语趣配音)
This Apps is providing a really creative way for English learners to practice their oral English. There are tons of cinematic clips for users to dub in English. During the process, users will spontaneously imitate the tone of characters, greatly improving their pronunciation.
Speaking English Fluently (英语流利说)
Compared to Fun Dubbing, this one is more about training your oral English in a gaming way. Motivating users to practice English by inducing them to pursue higher scores. Lots of people will easily get addicted and unconsciously improve their speaking capability.
Shanbay Word (扇贝单词)
This is an App that helps people recite words. Most people think memorizing English words probably is the most tedious part of learning English. However, Shanbay Word is providing a highly customized study process based on your own foundation, making it much easier to confidently learn English words.
BaiCiZhan (百词斩)
Another vocabulary learning Apps, which is offering people a much more fun way to study English words. This Apps is showing strong social features, allowing you and other users to compete and improve together.
2. Live streaming English course
Live streaming technologies have been explosive in the past several years. Almost everyone in China has tried to visit live-streaming platforms.
In the beginning, live streaming in China is mainly for entertainment like gaming, personal show, and so on. Gradually, the categories are expanding, becoming more varied. Teaching English is now the most common type of live streaming.
Numerous people are benefited from it because of its incredible interaction feature from screen to screen, greatly improving learning efficiency without costing too much money.
Authentic and cost-effective
Compared to mobile Apps way, the live streaming way is a much more authentic way since there is truly a teacher in front of your screen teaching you English in real-time, just like having a class in school.
I think the only difference is you can’t touch the teacher through your screen, but you absolutely can ask questions with your mic, can record the whole course for review later, can have discussions with people in the same class, etc.
The charge of a live-streaming course is not very high mainly because it doesn’t require space rental costs for accommodating dozens of students.
All the teachers need is just a computer with a camera and a microphone and then they can begin the class. The actual price really depends on the size of the class.
If it’s inquiring 100 students, it must be cheap since it’s hard for a teacher to pay much attention to everyone so the interaction may be less, lowering the tutorial quality.
On the other hand, if it’s a small class tutoring, like 5 to 10 students, the teacher can be more focused on each one in the class and teach in a more detailed and solid way so the price will be relatively higher.
3. Private English language institutes
Attending a private English language institute can be a huge deal because normally it will require you tens of thousands of yuan merely for one year course. Not everyone can afford it but it’s still one of the most common ways to learn English in China.
However, what you can’t imagine is that some people are willing to pay for the course, even though they know it’s way out of their budget.
Because, nowadays, Chinese people start to realize that investing in something that could upgrade themselves, such as learning new skills, books, courses, etc., will gain so much more pleasure than on entertainment things. They are spending money in a smarter way than before and viewing things more futuristically.
Reasons people like English language institutes
Admittedly, there are certain advantages of those private English language institutes that are really attracting Chinese.
For one thing, those English language institutes are providing a fantastic atmosphere, pushing everyone in the institutes to open their mouth and speak English.
This is so important because it’s extremely hard to find, or create, an environment in China that can make people use the language for communication, which is why Chinese are so bad at oral English.
For another, studying in English language institutes is utterly different from the traditional Chinese way which is more examination-oriented.
It includes more practical content, aiming for different English using scenarios, like traveling, working, shopping, and so on. Chinese people like it because somehow they will blame the Chinese current education system for being not practical but stereotyped and they’ve been so tired of those silly test methods.
Last but not least, the Chinese consider attending the English course not just a way to learn the language, but also a social purpose.
Social purpose
I believe whatever industry you’re involved in, or whatever job you’re doing, there are definitely certain needs for using English, which is the main reason causing people from all different industrial backgrounds to be gathering in the same room, from programmers to designers, from businessmen to housewives.
Many Chinese are enjoying this kind of situation because meeting more and more people can greatly enhance their connection resources, in Chinese called “Guan Xi”. Sometimes you may gain benefit from it to your own business, or sometimes you may get an important opportunity for your career.
Popular English language institutes in China
EF (Education First) (英孚教育)
Another big player in China. It’s charging a bit less than Wallstreet English, but still expensive. Because the overall teaching methods are so homogeneous, nowadays EF seems to spend more resources on brand building, trying to create better brand awareness in China.
meten (美联英语)
Unlike EF and Wallstreet English which are more about practical English, meten is offering courses for helping people pass exams like Toefl and IELTS. So people also will consider meten a training institute.
Conclusion
English learning has been one of the most difficult for Chinese people. Even though it is reported that there are more than 400 million people studying the English language in China and most of them are taught English from a young age, less than 3% of those people can really use English for daily communication.
However, besides those ways I’ve mentioned in this article, I strongly believe as the technology and internet develop, there will be more and more effective and efficient ways for English learning, bringing a variety of new methods for Chinese. The English second language market is still growing.
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