The Teaching of Practical English in Middle Schools

Most,if not all,educators in China nowadays agree that in teaching the mother tongue the practical side must be given due importance.This idea,indeed,is being actually and successfully carried out.But in the teaching of English the same need of practical things is not felt.Very few educators have taken the teaching of practical English into consideration.

The teaching of practical English,however,must not be overlooked.English is not a subordinate subject in our middle school curriculum;and though it is a foreign language,it is by no means good-for-nothing.It is the most useful.It is the key to foreign life and thought,the value of which is much felt by all unprejudiced minds.If it is necessary for students to learn English at all,it is necessary for them to learn the kind of English that is practical.

But as we look into the teaching of English in most middle schools,we are rather disappointed.There are about eight hours or more every week for teaching English.What do the teachers do with these eight hours?They spend three hours in teaching grammar.They spend the rest of the time in teaching classics.As a rule,they teach several of these classical books:Irving's SketchBook,Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield,Macaulay's Life of Samuel J ohnson,Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare,Scott's Ivanhoe,Defoe's Robinson Crusoe,Swift's Gulliver's Travels, The Arabian Nights Entertainment,etc.These are at present the most popular textbooks in middle schools.Nearly all the middle school graduates have studied,at least,three or four of them.If they can really master some of the above books,their English ought to be good in three things——speaking,reading,and writing.Alas!We see just the reverse.They dare not speak with foreigners for even ten minutes;they can never dispense with an AngloChinese dictionary in reading news items written in English;they are unable to write a simple letter without making two or three mistakes.Such a state of things is unfortunate.There must be something wrong.Now,what is the cause?To this question we answer at once:The cause lies in the teaching of impractical English.

The teachers pay too much attention to classics which form part of impractical English.The writer does not mean to say that Chinese students should not study classics in learning English. Far from it.We must study classics if we want to have a good command of the English language.But with the middle school students the case is quite different.To teach them English by means of classics is no less wrong than to teach Chinese to the lower primary school pupils with the“FourBooks.”They cannot enj oy them,nay,they cannot understand them.They cannot make use of them.Then,what is the use of their studying such impractical matter?It is not unreasonable to say that the teaching of impractical English is really wasting time and energy and brings about the poor result or no result for today.

Realizing the disadvantages of the teaching of impractical English,one may ask:How can we teach practical English?

To answer this question,let me offer a few suggestions which,though simple in character,are useful to the middle school teachers of English.

They are：

1.The textbooks for reading should be easy and have a relation to some branches of practical studies.

The most difficult problem for the teachers of English to solve is perhaps the selection of books for reading.In solving this problem,one thing must be borne in mind that classics are not always the best books for their students.To teach classics one hour a week for the fourth year students is sufficient.But to teach classics as the sole reading matter is absolutely wrong.The reason has already been given in a former paragraph.The best thing for the teachers to do,then,is to select those books which the average students can easily understand.Then they will find their work interesting rather than dry and senseless;they will study English as a pleasure but not as a task.Again,the books selected should have a relation to some branches of practical studies:political,commercial,social,etc.In reading books of such a nature the students learn not only English but also some practical knowledge.This is the way“to kill two birds with one stone.”Such books are not few if the teachers care to look for them.

Books to be recommended are：

(1)Social Life in America.

(2)Pushing to the Front.

(3)How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.

(4)A Scottish Schoolboy and a Journey to England.

(5)Fifty Famous Stories Retold.

(6)Science Reader I-V,by N.Gist Gee.

(7)Rising in the World,Vol.I and II.

(8)Scientific and Technological Reader.

(9)Commercial Reader I-I I I,by K.K.Woo.

(10)A manual of Commercial Correspondence and Commercial Forms),by W.P.Lee.

(11)Principles of American Constitutional Government.

(12)Stories of Great Americans.

(13)Essentials of Economics.

All the abovementioned books can be bought at the Commercial Press,Shanghai.

2.Conversation should be paid the most attention.

Conversation plays an important part in the teaching of practical English.It is the short-cut to good reading and good writing.It is also the best way to acquire a useful vocabulary which cannot be otherwise obtained.For those students who are going into business,it is all the more indispensable because of the fact that in the commercial world the ability to speak English means the first step up the ladder of success.For these reasons,it has been scheduled by the Ministry of Education,as a subject for four years in middle schools.

But most teachers do not observe the schedule.Useful as conversation is,they do not teach it at all during the whole middle school course.They boldly exclaim:“We don't want to speak English.We are not future interpreters.It is a shame to speak a foreign language;we had better speak our mother tongue.What we have to do is to teach students how to read and how to write. We can teach them to read classics and write excellent essays.To teach conversation is simply wasting time.We don't want it! We don't want it!”This sounds seemingly reasonable.But,this is only a lame excuse.The teachers themselves cannot talk correctly,and never fluently.They have gained some broken English only.Then,how can they teach conversation?Naturally they hate it and don't want it.Their own failure in talking makes their students lose the most useful part of English.But the students must talk.In order to enable the students to talk,conversation should be taught two hours a week,and an English-speaking society ought to be organized.As to the best and most efficient way of teaching conversation,it is not within the scope of this article to tell.

3.The art of letter writing must be constantly practical as part of the composition work.

That letter writing has a practical value no one denies.In the age of increasing intercourse along all lines of activities,hardly a day passes by in which one is not called upon to write letters either on business or for the mere sake of friendship.It is,therefore,necessary for the middle school students to have the constant practice of the art of letter writing.Yet,most teachers do not pay any attention to this branch of study.They only ask the students to write formal essays on such“pet subjects”as“Health”“Time Is Money”“My Autobiography”“My Native Place”“The Duty of a Student”“Time and Tide Wait for No Man”.They think that the art of letter writing can be easily acquired by the students themselves if they are able to write formal essays on these subjects.The art of letter writing,however,should in no way be neglected.

(《南京高等师范学校校友会杂志》1918年第1卷第1期)