Most of the Chinese students, especially senior high school students, are asked to spend approximately fourteen hours on study and they suffer from great stress because of the competitive gaokao. In order to get high scores in examinations, both schools and students make full use of every minute. Based on the data from the focus group discussion, all the six participants shared the same opinion (line 09-12, Extract 3 below). The participants in the focus group are clearly aware of the systemic pattern of control that is part of the Chinese education –in particular the examinations and the way in which the teachers seem to only support the students they see as potentially able to gain high score results.
Extract 37 FGD_20131216_CEL 毅： … 此外，我讨厌我的英语老师。
滕：为什么？
毅： 她总是强迫我们做好多作业。如果我们没有完成，那我们就死定了。
武：她好偏心的。她只喜欢能在考试中考高分的学生。即使那些学生做了错事，
她也不罚他们。但是当“坏”学生做错了的话，哦嗬（一种叹息），你-就-死-定-了！
霆：开什么玩笑。不只是你的英语老师，所有的老师都只喜欢“好”的学生。你还 是太天真了，小伙子！
其他人： 哈哈（笑）。 那确实。你说对了。
01. E- …. What’s more, I hated my English teacher.
02. T- Why?
03. E- She always forced us to do so much homework. If we didn’t finish, we were done.
04. W- She is partial.
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05. She only likes the students who can get high scores in examinations.
06. Even if those students did something wrong, she would not punish them.
07. But when ‘bad’ students did something wrong, 08. aoho (a kind of sigh), y-o-u w-i-l-l b-e d-i-e.
09. D- Are you kidding me?
10. All teachers only love ‘good’ students, not only your English teacher.
11. You are so naïve, young man!
12. Others- Ha ha (laughs). That is true. You are right.
Besides schools, the public mainly focus on the students’ scores in examinations rather than their personal development (line 01-05, Extract 39 below). The parents also hold this opinion that only the students who get high scores in examination could be considered as a ‘good student’ (line 02-04, Extract 39 below). This notion seems to be a generally held belief for most people in China. The only indicator for a ‘good’
student is getting high scores in examinations. Or in the words of Darvin and Norton (2015), the majority of Chinese appear to accommodate to the “dominant ways of thinking that organize and stabilize societies while simultaneously determining modes of inclusion and exclusion, and the privileging and marginalization of ideas, people, and relations” (p. 44).
Extract 38 LOC_C_20130606
希： 我不知道为什么大人总是喜欢问孩子的学习情况。每次我的亲戚见到我，
他们总是问我：“最近学习怎么样啊”，“你最近考试中得了多少分啊？” “这次期 末考试你考了第几名啊 ？“ 一直问个不停， 烦都烦死了！
01． C- I don’t know why the grownups always like to ask about children’s study situation.
02． Every time my relatives meet me, they ask questions like
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03． “What is the situation of your study recently?”, 04． “What scores did you get in the latest examination?”
05． and “what's your rank of the final exam?”
06． Always! I am always bored to death.
Extract 39 FGD_20131216_CEL
武：不仅是老师，几乎所有的大人都喜欢“好”的学生。每一次，确实，是每一次，
我的亲戚遇到我，他们总会问我的分数和我考试名次。如果考好了，他们会夸我，
比如说“你真是个好孩子”和“真棒”。但是一旦他们发现我的分数不如他们预期的 高，他们会一直说“要用功哈” “不要偷懒哈”。他们知道啥子嘛？ 他们啥子都不 晓得！ 我根本就不懒。 考试结果可能受许多因素的影响的嘛！ 他们怎么知道 这是因为我愉懒？ 事实上，我都快累死了！
其他 - 是...（全部同意）
丽：我也是。现在我甚至多怕放假的。我总是得找借口离他们远点儿。
希：（他们就是）这么烦人。
01. W- Not only teachers, almost all adults like ‘good’ students.
02. Every time, yes, every time, when I met my relatives, they would ask my scores and my positions in the rank list.
03. If my scores are high, they would praise me.
04. Such as “ What a good boy you are” and “ Amazing”.
05. But once they found my scores were not high as they expected, they would keep saying “Work hard. Don’t be lazy.”
06. They know what? They know nothing!
07. I am not lazy at all.
08. The results of examination can be influenced by many factors.
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09. How could they know it was because of my laziness?
10. In fact, I am tired to death!
11. Others- Yes…(all totally agree)
12. L- Me, too. Now I am even afraid of holidays.
13. I always found some excuses to keep them away.
14. C- (They are) so annoying.
Furthermore, many classes are teacher-centered, that is, the teacher is the main focus of information and content in the class and the teacher devotes most of the time to explaining this knowledge to the students. This approach is very much focused on mechanical memorization of language structures, vocabulary etc. in a largely decontextualized manner. As a result, students are principally expected only to listen and they seldom have opportunities to make their own voice heard (Cheng, 2011).
Thus, most English teaching classes in China follow a traditional method of instructional teaching in language classroom with little exposure to the language outside class and in a more ‘natural’ context. Chinese students do not have many opportunities to practice and interact with the target language due to the limited class time (Cheng, 2011) and because the English education process focuses mostly on linguistic details and accuracy, guided by textbooks instead of on language interaction (Cheng, 2011; Wang & Yi, 2005). This method reduces the interests of English learning and sometimes they complained that the boring explanation of linguistic knowledge sounded like “lullaby” (line 07-10, Extract 40 below).
Extract 40 FGD_20131216_CEL 滕：你对目前的英语课有什么看法？
毅：无聊死了。
武：读单词，背诵课文和学习语法。一直一直。
思：我们都经历了这样的时期。 哈哈...（笑）
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希：在大学里会好一些吗？
丽：会，但也只好一点点。
武：当我听她（他现在的英语老师）讲解课文、词汇和语法的时，我总是想睡觉。
希：听起来跟摇篮曲一样。
其他人：哈哈（笑）
霆：我也这么办过 (上课睡觉)。
希：有一次，我问英语老师能不能在课堂做一些游戏或上组织一些活动。她拒绝 了。
滕：为什么？
希：她说时间有限。没有时间在课堂上做游戏。首先得完成她的教学任务。最后，
她还补充说：“考试中可没有游戏。
其他人：啊...（叹息）考试，又来了。
01. T- What are your opinions of current English teaching?
02. E- Boring to death.
03. W- Reading vocabulary, reciting texts and learning grammar. Again and again.
04. S- We all suffered through such periods. Ha ha…(laughs) 05. C- Was it much better in college?
06. L- It was, but only a bit.
07. W- When I listened to her (his current English teacher) explanations of texts, vocabulary and grammar, I would always want to fall asleep.
08. C- It sounds likes lullaby.
09. Others- Ha ha (laughs)
Moreover, teachers mostly focuses on reading and writing in class because they are
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held accountable for ensuring that their students achieve high scores in state exams, most of which focus on written answers as the main method that for demonstrating reading comprehension rather than oral expression (Lo Bianco, 2009). There is also little emphasis on listening comprehension. For instance, the full mark for most of the English examinations is 150 points of which 125 are about reading and writing, while the listening part only covers 25 points. At the same time, English examinations also include an oral component. The direct consequence of this kind of education system is that most Chinese students’ English is known as “deaf and dumb” English, meaning they can read and write English, some of them even are really good at reading and writing while their listening and speaking skills are poor, in particular students from rural China.
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