Con

Wang Chuantao

Iqilu.com

It seems that English-language culture has permeated every part of Chinese people's lives. It is always useful to learn another foreign language, but China's mania for English is extreme, especially when people rarely use the language after graduating. Learning English is not only a great burden for students, but also a waste of society's educational resources, and even threatens students' study of Chinese. The English learning mania suggests that the Chinese language will suffer, and that Western culture is overwhelming and smothering Asian culture.

Chinese people's ability to use Chinese has declined in recent years. In a study on college students majoring in liberal arts, 66.2 percent of such students made basic writing mistakes; 86.5 percent made style errors; and all of them made grammar mistakes. Excessive focus on learning English is one of the reasons for these students' poor grasp of Chinese, as English classes take up time and resources that are meant to be used for learning Chinese.

More than 6 million people take the College English Test (CET) each year. English exams are also an important part of postgraduate entrance exams, qualification assessment exams and exams that allow students to study overseas. It seems unreasonable to force so many students to learn English, or to deny those who do not pass the CET a diploma or degree. This is particularly true as there are many fields in which English is rarely used. There are over 100 million Chinese people learning English. However, according to insiders, no more than 2 million are able to speak it fluently, which means that most Chinese English-learners do not master what they are taught, even though they have spent considerable time, energy and money on their language studies.

To dampen the excessive mania for learning English, I suggest making English less important in the examination system, forbidding English education during pre-school and primary education, and making English an optional course at the university level.

Chinese and Chinese characters are our nation's cultural symbols, and essential parts of oriental civilization. We have to end this mania for learning English to safeguard our culture. If the English language continues to dominate, Chinese will be weakened in the future.

Pro

Zhao Feng

College student

In my opinion, the fact that everyone is learning English is a kind of progress. As long as one is willing to learn, anyone can study English. If effective language-learning environments are formed, students can easily master a foreign language.

By learning a foreign language and consuming foreign media, including books, newspapers and movies, we can come to understand foreign cultures, foreign ways of thinking and how foreigners see China. Sometimes, we can learn new ideas from foreign media and broaden our minds.

Pro

Hong Dan

Netizen

English became popular so quickly around the world because it is not simply a foreign language, but a practical and fundamental communication tool. English learning mania is not a phenomenon unique to China. English has become the world's lingua franca because it has simple pronunciation and grammatical systems, not because it is a symbol of superior nations. As international discourse becomes more common, people from different countries or nationalities need a common language to communicate with each other. This is why we learn English.

As a developing country, China is embracing the world with a positive stance. Talents who are capable of meeting the challenges of globalization are in scarce supply. Besides being capable of observing issues from a global perspective, such talents have to master the world's lingua franca. 

Con

Qing Chuan

China.com.cn

The purpose of learning English is to communicate with the world and learn foreign knowledge and ideas. In this regard, it is important to learn the language. But how many Chinese people can really communicate fluently in English? It has been shown that many college students rarely use English in their careers after graduation, even though they spend a lot of time learning it in school. If learning English is not important to one's major, what's the point of learning it?

Learning English does not do as much to enhance a student's thinking and abilities as is done by learning math, physics or chemistry, since language is only a communication tool. For many professions, including education and medicine, there are more important things to focus on than English. Forcing students to spend too much time on English wastes their time.  

To embrace international society, we need not only passion and courage, but also wisdom and sense. Chinese people should learn English, but more thought needs to be put into how students are taught English, and whether it should be included in so many tests. English mania takes away from those efforts.