POLICY AND PRACTICE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CHINA’S UNIVERSITIES: A CASE STUDY OF 30 CHINESE KEY UNIVERSITIES

Xianjing Gong
Associate Prof. Dr., Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, CHINA
Email: gongsumei@mail.hzau.edu.cn 

Abstract

The globalization and growth of China’s direct investment in the world demand talents competent in foreign languages. Since the beginning of 21st century, how to plan foreign language education became a big concern both for the policy makers and foreign language scholars. This paper first studies the evolution of foreign language education policies from English-dominated foreign language education policy to emphasis of languages other than English from 1980s’ to 2016. The changes of foreign language education policies reflect the change of Chinese national interest and ideology. In the 1980s’ English-dominated foreign language education policy in universities is motivated by attracting investment, internationalizing the academic system and becoming an equal member in the world affairs. After more than 30 years’ development, Having a say in world affairs, outbound investment in Asia and African countries and spread Chinese culture and language urge China to adopt a new worldview to replace past European and American-oriented worldview. The foreign language education policy begins to fund teaching languages other than English to meet the different needs and establishes many foreign language teaching and studying programs. Then, the paper studies the actual educational practice of Chinese Key universities in responding to the changes of policies by analyzing the foreign language courses offered by the universities in terms of type of courses, nature of courses and specific academic units which offer the courses. It finds that very few Asian and African languages course are offered in Chinese universities. The mismatch between policies of foreign language education and the actual practice in Chinese higher education reflects the conflicts between the interest of national development and individual’s development and conflicts between the needs for advancing academic discipline knowledge and the languages’ practical market value. Also, it is caused by lack of teachers in languages other than English due to the English-dominate education policy at the outset of Chinese reform and opening. The paper concludes that Chinese higher education needs more flexible language teaching system and national support both in policy and actual practice to meet the needs for the competence in languages other than English.

Key words: Foreign language education, Policy, Chinese Universities