Reconciling Communicative Approaches to the Teaching of English with Traditional Chinese Methods.

Chinese students experience many difficulties in developing communicative competence in English in their English as a Foreign Language (EFL) courses in China. This essay provides cultural information that may be useful for researchers and American EFL teachers of Chinese-born students, in Chinese or American universities. It first reviews the pedagogical approaches used by native Chinese-speaking teachers of English in an educational environment grounded in Confucian precepts for teaching, learning, and educational roles and responsibilities. It suggests that many of the limitations on Chinese students' learning of English stem from a traditional teacher-centered classroom and the use of rote-memory strategies. After noting the obstacles faced by Chinese EFL teachers who have tried to implement communicative approaches, this essay offers guidelines for reconciling a communicative approach with traditional Chinese methods. As the most populous country in the world, China also boasts one of the largest populations of English learners and a history of over seven decades of English teaching and learning. Traditionally, English teaching in China is dominated by a teacher-centered, book-centered, grammartranslation method and an emphasis on rote memory. These traditional language teaching approaches reflect the typical Chinese classroom for learning English; that is, most of the interaction in the classroom is from the teacher to the students. There is little student initiative and little student-student interaction. As a result, after studying English for several years, the students might have learned how to analyze sentence structures and how to translate and appreciate English literature, but they remain at a loss when they meet English speakers. Students of English can neither understand what the English speakers say, nor can they express themselves in English. This inability to apply what they have learned in the classroom greatly limits Chinese people in communicating effectively with Westerners. Since 1979, English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) teachers in China have become increasingly aware of the need to update their English