Teaching English as a foreign language in China: looking back and forward

In the past 30 years, China's open-door policy and rapid economic growth have been accelerating English as a foreign language (hereafter EFL) teaching in an unprecedented way. To facilitate the learning process for students, English teachers in China have switched from using traditional ways of teaching English to adopting a variety of modern English teaching methods from the West (Rao, 2002). Of all these imported methods, Communicative Language Teaching (hereafter CLT) is the most popular and widespread one in Chinese schools. However, conflicts have appeared in the process of this transformation. On the one hand, the Chinese government and education administrators are aware of the importance of English communicative competence as contact with foreigners speaking English increases. On the other hand, some problems in the current English teaching prevent teachers from getting their students involved in the communicative activities in their teaching process. They still cling to the traditional teaching methods and techniques. In this paper, I trace the development of EFL teaching in China, analyze some difficulties and challenges that EFL teachers and learners must face, and look at the prospects for EFL teaching in China in the future.