A very interesting poster of a movie came across me with the tag “Think in American English”. The poster belonged to one of the blockbuster movies of 2013 American Dreams in China - the movie that represents China in the 80’s. We get to have a glimpse of China’s social and economic condition at the time via the students that the country produces. At that point of time, there used to be a shared dream of all its students i.e to study abroad or say to study in an American university. This is because America used to be their door of opportunities.
The movie shows the endeavor of the students to get enrolled in top colleges of US for a much better career and future ahead. In this endeavor, TOEFL was actually their passport to such colleges. The protagonists of the aforementioned movie failed to make their way to American University but ironically they started selling their American Dream to the young minds, who entertained the same dream, by preparing them for TOEFL.
Lets take a sneak preview of TOEFL as an exam and China’s take on it.
TOEFL, the most widely accepted English assessment test that measures one’s ability to understand English at University level, has its great influence here in China as well. Sometimes, it becomes a bit difficult for Chinese students to learn reading, writing and speaking in English because unlike many other languages they don’t have the standard Latin alphabet but logographic. In logographic, the symbols represents the words. For them, English is all anew a different world of words. Thus, it requires a whole lot of extra effort from their part to make their way to TOEFL.
Thinking about the fundamental differences in both the languages and the future prospects of English as a language, it has become a priority in China to teach English to its population. The schools have been asked to start teaching English to students right from grade 3. English teaching has now become part of the education system of China. Apart from the government’s practices, the parents too have started arranging private English classes to their kids. In the digital world today, their is no dearth of educational apps that brings an engaging class session live at just a click of a button. There are many apps prepared specifically keeping TOEFL preparation in mind. The sole aim of such apps is to touch each and every aspect of English to make you well-prepared for the much awaited day.
When TOEFL was introduced in China in 1981, only 161 students took the test and you will be amazed to know that till date more than 3 million Chinese students are there who have taken it. With this impressive number, China has now become one of the largest countries in the world that sends its students abroad.
Today, most of the countries have English as their second official language; in case, it is not their native one. And, in order to reap the fruits of globalization you need to know this language completely as Karl Marx once stated one would find friends everywhere in the whole world if one could just sing “The Internationale”. The language English has now become that “Internationale”.
In this context, China is making an all out effort and a research states that by 2025, the number of people speaking English in China would exceed the number of people who have English as their first language. Looking at the efforts of authority of China, zest in its students and so many English institutes around it, I really hope that next time whenever our poor protagonists take TOEFL, they nail it with impressive TOEFL scores.
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