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Sep 1st 2011, 17:55 by R.L.G. | NEW YORK
SEEING Red in China, a blog by an American teacher there, makes a provocative argument. Behind the eye-catching number that 300m people either are learning or have learned English in China is a depressing reality. Classes are extremely poor, the teachers themselves not fluent in English. Rote memorisation is the norm—a fact Tom, the blogger, buttresses with his own experience of reading Chinese texts out loud, for hours every day, at Beijing's specialist university for foreign languages. He says he was never once asked to produce his own sentences. Shocking if true. 一位美國老師，出于對于中國教育的憤怒，在博客上發表了一篇具有挑釁意味的文章。在中國3億英語學習者的背后隱藏著一個讓人沮喪的事實。上課非常的無聊，老師們本身并沒有真正受到純正英語的浸染。死記硬背就是標準，Tom--這位在北京的學校體驗過每天連續讀幾個小時英語的教育課程的博客作者，深深地體會到這一點。他說他從未被要求去說自己的句子。如果這是真的，那太悲哀了。6 By the by, he makes another provocative point: that rural literacy in Chinese (not English) is in fact far worse than authorities say. Farmers simply don't use the written language enough to maintain their knowledge of thousands of characters. 順便說一下，他還指出了另一個事實：中國農村的教育狀況比官方所宣稱的糟得多，農民基本不會使用文字來表達他們千年來的文化習俗。1 I don't have anything like the experience to judge, but Victor Mair, who does and who passed it on to me, believes it rings quite true. Any Sinophones or Sinophiles in the audience care to comment or disagree? 我沒有親身體會過，所以我不能妄下結論。但是Victor Mair，這位體驗過，并且傳達給我的人，相信這是真的。有中文系的人或中國愛好者來談一下嗎？2 |
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