Cai Jingshu, 14, loves English. She reads English newspapers every week and often tries to talk with foreigners from other countries. “Many of us want to study abroad and find out more about English language culture,” said the girl.
However, for Cai’s aunt, 45-year-old Bin Changzheng, studying English was a different story. When she first studied English in 1977, she and his classmates spent nearly half a year learning the 26 letters and the phonetic symbols. After the letters, she and her classmates learned some simple words, such as “desk”, “pen” and “pencil”. Then they studied simple sentences. For example, “This is a pen”. And “That is a desk”. “It was really hard for us to learn English words. There were no other materials, like English movies or music to help us,” said Bin.
Thanks to policies of the government, English studies in China have greatly improved over the past 30 years.
However, now that the country has opened its doors to the world, it needs better English. “Sometimes I feel envious of my aunt. She didn’t have to deal with so many difficult English exams,” said Cai.