The statistics of English in China

Abstract

In the mid-1980s, Crystal (1985) lamented that there were no reliable figures available for the number of learners to whom English is taught as a foreign language in many regions of the world, and that ‘China has always been excluded from the statistical reviews, because of the shortage of information from inside the country’ (Crystal, 1985: 9). More recently, Bolton (2008: 6) similarly notes that because of ‘the absence of accurate language surveys’ academics have to make educated guesses regarding the total number of those learning/knowing English. The figure of the total English learners/users in China has been estimated to be somewhere between 200 and 350 million (cf. Bolton, 2003: 48; Kachru, 1997; McArthur, 2003; Zhao & Campbell, 1995; Graddol, 2006: 95). Fortunately, a national language survey in China conducted at the turn of the century does provide some hard statistics on the number of English language learners/users in the world's most populous country, and also sheds some light on the realities of use of English and English proficiency among the Chinese people.

‘A more inclusive mind towards the world’: English language teaching and study abroad in China from intercultural citizenship and English as a lingua franca perspectives

“…English is taught from kindergarten, to primary school, to secondary school, and as a compulsory subject in Chinese higher education to both English and non-English majors. It is estimated that there are currently over 400 million English learners in China (Wei & Su, 2012).…”

Key Learning Styles of Teaching English to Students from the Asian-Pacific Region

“…Thus, Chinese speakers of English are an important stakeholder in the linguistic marketplace of global English. It is useful to understand how Chinese learners of English themselves view and experience ELT in China [6,7]. You can assume that if English speakers are engaged in teaching English to Asian students, most likely, there will be a confrontation style of teaching and learning.…”

English as a Global Language in China

“…In 2003, China already boasted the largest English-learning population in the world, with over 200 million children in China, or about 20 % of the total in the world, learning English in schools and about 13 million young people doing so at universities (Jiang 2003 ). In 2010, the total number of people who had learnt English was said to have reached about 400 million (Wei and Su 2012). 4 This fi gure is roughly equivalent to the total number of native English speakers in the world (Seargeant 2012 ).…”