Learning English supports opening-up

A member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, has proposed that English no longer be a compulsory course for the national college entrance examination.

The CPPCC National Committee member said that since only 10 percent of surveyed college graduates said English is useful to them and given the translation software available, English should no longer be a set requirement along with Chinese and math.

The proposal, if adopted, would put an end to the nation's tradition of foreign language teaching and learning that dates back more than a century.

English is still the most commonly used language in the world, and will continue to be so in the future. China is the world's second-largest economy, largest trade partner of more than 120 countries and regions, largest destination for foreign investment and largest source of international travelers. The reason why China and the world can interact so closely and deeply is to a large extent due to the use of English as a communication bridge. It is difficult to imagine how students would understand China and the world without foreign language education.

Were primary and middle schools no longer to teach English as they have been over the past decades, it would be predictable that only the students from better-off families would be able to afford expensive extracurricular language courses, and it would become more difficult for their counterparts from lower down the social ladder to master the language, putting them at a disadvantage.

That many Chinese students cannot use English fluently after learning it for years at school should not be attributed to the language itself, which is arguably one of the easiest languages to learn and to use, but to the poor methods used to teach the language. It is no secret that English teaching in Chinese schools focuses more on preparing students to get high scores in exams rather than having the ability to use the language in real world situations.

Many people inevitably need to understand and use English. It would be more sensible to improve how English is taught in schools rather than simply stopping teaching the language.