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English As A Second Or Foreign Language Essay

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Introduction As the world’s economy globalizes, English becomes the first priority language among the foreign languages in most non-English speaking countries, including China. In China, there is a boost of English learning and teaching (Sun, 2013). More and more Chinese people learn English as a second or foreign language. However, according to a survey of China’s language situation that was conducted in 2006, only 1.8% of English learners in China claimed to be able to act as interpreters on formal occasions, 3.53% to converse quite fluently, 15.61% to conduct daily conversations (Wei & Su, 2012). This indicated that only a few English learners in China can speak English fluently and that many English learners do not have the ability to engage in daily interactions. The education in China is exam-oriented, but most of the tests emphasize testing students’ mastery of the reading and language forms while overlooking assessing students’ speaking abilities (Wei, 2012). And teachers tend to give students practices of the knowledge that are to be tested in the exams. Therefore, many English teachers in China tend to ignore English speaking and they give few opportunities for their students to practice their speaking abilities (Wang, 2014). In China, English language teaching still “focuses heavily on language knowledge, not language skills, with the former being defined in terms of grammar and vocabulary and being taught predominantly in the mother tongue and through textbook

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