EVALUACIÓN DEL VOLUMEN DE LA DEMANDA

Chinese people began to study English language in China more than a century ago (Adamson & Bolton, 2004). In the late Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty in China, Western missionaries from Europe and USA came to this ancient country which had closed its door to the Western world for centuries.

The very first contact between English speakers and Chinese of which we have an extended record occurred in 1637, when an expedition of four ships under the command of Captain John Weddell arrived in Macau and Canton, and it is this expedition that gives us the first detailed account of the British in South China. (Bolton, 2002, p. 183)

In its long history, China kept isolated from the outside world for centuries until the defeat in the First Opium War (1839-1842) and the Second Opium War (1856-1860). In 1842, the Qing Dynasty signed the Treaty of Nanjing with Britain. China was forced to open up five ports including Shanghai to foreign trade and missionaries and ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain (until the year 1997). From then on, China signed a series of treaties with Western countries, and the government of Qing Dynasty

103 unwillingly began to have economic and commercial exchange with the outside world. Missionaries were allowed to reside within China and mission schools were protected by the treaties (Pletcher, 2011).

English speaking missionaries opened mission schools and provided EFL education to Chinese people. Robert Morrison, a British missionary, opened the first mission school in 1835 in Macau (Ford, 1988). Missionaries considered English as a necessary means to spread the religious beliefs to Chinese people. In mission schools, the medium of instruction was English. By 1925, more than 250,000 children studied in 7,000 Christian elementary schools, and around 26,000 in middle schools run by missionaries (Deng, 1997).

The Imperial Examination was the civil service examination system in Imperial China to select candidates for the state bureaucracy for more than 1000 years. However, in 1905, the Imperial Examination was abolished. With this abolition, more students went to the mission schools for the business opportunities that English learning could bring, especially in the coastal cities (Deng, 1997). For example, they could easily find lucrative jobs in foreign companies, customs service or telegraph service as “English-speaking compradores” (Adamson & Bolton, 2004, p. 26).

The reformers of the Qing Dynasty also began to provide EFL education with the intention of realising technological improvement. For them, English was a useful tool

104 to learn about advanced science and technologies from the Western countries. In 1862, the first government foreign language school was founded in Beijing, which was known as Tongwen Guan, or Interpreter’s College in the English (Adamson & Bolton, 2004; Dzau, 1990; Sun, 1996). The opening of Tongwen Guan was the indication of the Qing Dynasty’s first attempt to learn from Western world after years of reluctance and resistance. Two other institutions were founded in the following years: Guang Fangyan Guan (School for Dispersing languages) was founded in 1863 in Shanghai; and the Jiangnan Arsenal was founded in 1868 also in Shanghai (Adamson & Bolton, 2004). In 1903, English became a recognised subject in the secondary school curriculum;it then became mandatory and remained a mandatory subject for a long period thereafter (Cleverley, 1985).

Figure 1 summarises the features of EFL education in Mainland China during the period from the late 19th century to the year of 1911.

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No EFL education before the late 19th century in Chinese

society

First mission school in 1835 in Macau

Foreign language schools run by the Chinese government in

1860s

The whole Chinese society was closed to the Western

world for centuries

Imperial Examination serving the Imperial bureaucratic system was

abolished in 1905 After defeat in wars, China

was forced to open to the outside world from 1842

More and more students went to foreign language

schools

Learning English helped people get lucrative jobs

EFL education did not develop significantly in the late Qing

Dynasty

EFL education in the late Qing Dynasty

(Late 19th century to 1911)

106 From the late 19th century, Chinese students began to study abroad (Adamson & Bolton, 2004). After the World War I, the Chinese government signed the Treaty of Versailles, which allowed Japan to receive territories in Shangdong province. The Japanese expansion in Asia triggered the large scale student protestation against Japanese imperialism and the Chinese government at the time. The anti-Japan sentiment reached the peak at the May Fourth Movement in May 4th 1919 (Pletcher, 2011). Many students turned to English speaking countries for their pursuit of education. USA then gained increasingly popularity as the destination for Chinese students to study abroad (Adamson & Bolton, 2004). After the May 4th movement, many Western educators came to China, such as John Dewey, E. P. Cubberly, W. H. Kilpatrick, Von Driesch, Bertrand Russell, Paul Monroe, and Rabindranath Tagore (Cleverley, 1985).

Chinese people started to gain access to the Western ideas of democracy through learning foreign languages (usually English). In coastal cities, English was the language of business, commerce, finance and education. Reading newspapers in English or seeing English language movies in cities like Shanghai was fashionable (Fu, 1986). Also a foreign language was already a subject required in the college entrance examination in that period (Yeh, 1990). The Kuomingtang (KMT) government in that period issued four foreign language syllabi between 1913 to 1948 before their defeat in 1949 (Zhang & Shen, 2001). English was required to be taught in secondary schools based on the time allocation of four to five hours a week.

107 In the first half of the 20th century, Chinese society experienced chaos and havoc caused by wars, including Second Sino-Japanese war and the Chinese civil war. Due to the unrest of the society and the limited living condition of masses of the population, EFL education did not make much progress in the whole country, especially in the rural areas. However, in urban areas, EFL education still flourished, people were still willing to allocate money and time to learning English for the economic opportunities and financial benefits (Ross, 1993).

Figure 2 provides a summary of the events that happened in EFL education under the rule of Kuomingtang government from 1911 to 1949 in Mainland China.

108 The Kuomingtang government issued four foreign language syllabi from 1913 to 1948 The May 4th movement in 1919 Chinese students studied in

foreign countries from the late 19th century

EFL education flourished in urban areas EFL education did not develop much in rural areas

EFL education did not make much progress in the whole country

because of wars and chaos More students

went to English speaking countries for

education

EFL education under the rule of Kuomingtang government

(1911-1949)

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