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    English Language Education Across Greater China
    English Language Education Across Greater China
    English Language Education Across Greater China
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    English Language Education Across Greater China

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    This volume is the first to offer a comprehensive and, at the same time, in-depth examination of the spread of English and English language education across Greater China. It consists of two parts. Part 1 presents rich sociolinguistic data for easy comparisons between mainland China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao, while Part 2 explores in depth the phenomena inside mainland China to provide contrastive analysis of English language use and education in economically booming areas such as Shanghai and Guangdong and underdeveloped regions like Xinjiang and Yunnan. With the descriptive, comparative and analytical accounts of different territories ranging from nation-states to small villages in remote areas, theories on the spread of English, second/third language acquisition and identity are challenged with new concepts proposed and established.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMultilingual Matters
    Release dateFeb 1, 2011
    ISBN9781847694966
    English Language Education Across Greater China

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      English Language Education Across Greater China - Anwei Feng

      Chapter 1

      Introduction: The Apex of ‘the Third Wave ’ English Language across Greater China

      ANWEI FENG

      This volume, as the title suggests, aims to provide comprehensive coverage of English language use and education across countries and regions in Asia normally defined under the umbrella term, Greater China. The concept of Greater China has been used frequently by economists, political scientists and sociologists to refer to countries and territories including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan because of the historical ties and the growing economic, cultural and socio-political interactions and activities between them. However, the phrase is also used occasionally in a wider sense to include Singapore and other countries in Southeast Asia, and even other parts of the world, owing to their sizeable Chinese communities (Harding, 1995). In the literature of language education, this term has rarely made an appearance. Recent volumes on English language education, for example, either deal with mainland China exclusively (Adamson, 2004; Feng, 2007; Lam, 2005; Zhou, 2004) or cover many countries in Asia or the Far East that happen to be geographically close (Ho & Wong, 2003; Kachru, 2004; Kirkpatrick, 2002).

      As a concept fully laden with socio-political, economic and cultural connotations (Harding, 1995), its potential implications for education in general across the territories and for language education in particular should be appreciated and investigated. This was a major impetus to produce this volume. As the concept is perceived in various ways, to define the scope of the volume and make meaningful comparisons, we do not adopt the concept in its wider sense, but focus on countries and territories that can be seen as the ‘core parts’ of Greater China. These core parts are geographically close, demographically dominated by ethnic Chinese and culturally, economically and socio-politically interrelated. More importantly, for a volume on language education, the core parts or territories we choose to study are those that either speak Chinese as their mother tongue or use it as an official language. The rationale behind this selection criterion is that we wish to see how the use of English and English language education impact on Chinese, which is either the mother tongue or an official language in these societies, even though the former is the focus of our study. Hence, mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao and Singapore are chosen in line with this criterion and are examined in turn in this volume. Among these territories, mainland China receives most attention owing to its size and diversity of population.

      Another major impetus to compile this volume derived from reviews of the recent literature on the spread of English across cultural and linguistic boundaries. The literature is extensive and well acknowledged. However, there seems to be a lack of agreement on how the historical and current spread of English can be appropriately portrayed. One model often claimed to summarise well the history and current situation of the spread of English and cited widely, including by the authors in this volume, is suggested by Kachru (1985, 1986, 1992b, 2005). With this model, the complex phenomena of the spread of English are graphically conceptualised as three concentric circles: the inner circle, the outer circle and the expanding circle.

      At the centre is the inner circle, traditionally seen as the base of English where the language is used as the native, first or dominant language in public domains, or English as the Native Language (ENL) territories (McArthur, 2001). This circle, to a large extent, reflects the result from what is often termed the first diaspora (Baugh & Cable, 1993; Kachru, 1992b) characterized by the spread of English in the 17th and 18th centuries and involved the migration of significant numbers of English speakers from the British Isles to North America and Australasia. The most noteworthy outcome of this diaspora, juxtaposed with the spread of other languages such as French, Spanish and Portuguese during the same period, is the fact that English was established as the national language of a number of new nation states, including the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (Fishman, 1977). It is commonly suggested that this outcome is a crucial factor in the development of English as a global language.

      The outer circle, according to Kachru (1985, 2005), comprises countries such as Singapore, India, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia, where English has a long history of institutionalised functions and is used as a second/official language, i.e. English as a Second Language (ESL) territories (McArthur, 2001), usually in formal domains such as education, law, governance and mass media, or the language of the social elite (Crystal, 1997). This circle is often said to be the result of the second diaspora (Kachru, 1992b) that brought about the spread of English in the colonial context. Many authors, such as Crystal (1997) and Kachru et al. (2006), cover in detail the historical development of English into a second and/or official language in regions or countries including South Africa, West Africa, East Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

      The outermost circle is termed the expanding circle, comprising most countries, other than those in the inner and outer circles, including, notably, the world’s most populous countries such as China, Russia, Japan and Brazil, where English is taught and learned in most cases as a foreign language, the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) territories (McArthur, 2001). The expanding circle is usually seen as a phenomenon in the post-colonial era when the most rapid spread of English was witnessed all over the world (Bolton, 2006). Statistical data given in Crystal (1997) and McArthur (2001) show that speakers categorised as EFL users in this circle could amount to 1000 million, more than the numbers in the inner and outer circles put together. This global expansion is hugely and increasingly significant for any account of the notion of global English or the spread of English in the 21st century.

      It is widely acknowledged that Kachru’s three-circle model and his other discussions on varieties of English or world Englishes (notably, Kachru, 1986, 1992a) have contributed substantially to the debates on the spread of English, nativisation of English, English as a global language, world Englishes, etc. These notions themselves suggest the autonomy and plurality or heterogeneity of the English languages in the contemporary world. Kachru’s theory is so well-received that it has triggered a sizeable amount of literature on the three concentric circles and on world Englishes. In 1997, a special conference held in Singapore to honour him resulted in a volume by Thumboo (2000) entitled The Three Circles. Many authors, such as Melchers and Shaw (2003), use the three-circle framework to structure their work on the history of English or variety of English. In a more recent anthology on world Englishes, Kachru et al. (2006) still make use of the three-circle model as the starting point and indeed the main theme of the massive Handbook.

      The descriptive model, however, is not without criticism. McArthur (2001: 8) comments that the model ‘seems to belong to a tidier world’ rather than to the world in the 21st century. It can hardly address issues such as multilingualism, ENL varieties, the ‘native speaker’ controversies and issues related to changing ENL/ESL/EFL context as a result of mobility and globalisation in the world. In a similar vein, Crystal (1997: 54–60) lists 75 ‘territories’ that may fall into either the inner or outer circle and suggests that the distinction between the outer and expanding circles can also be highly contentious. From a sociolinguistic point of view, Graddol (1997: 10) argues that the seemingly neutral labels, namely, inner, outer and expanding, ‘locate the ‘‘native speakers’’ and native speaking countries at the centre of the global use of English, and, by implication, the sources of models of correctness’. This seems to relate the model to Phillipson’s (1992: 17) highly political argument about the ‘centre-periphery’ relations between the dominating rich and dominated countries, a central theme of his theoretical approach to linguistic imperialism. Phillipson describes the relations of the countries as the ‘core English-speaking countries’ and the ‘periphery-English countries’ where English is used or learned as either a second language, a foreign language or an international lingua franca.

      Although it is not our primary intention to engage in a detailed discussion on the three concentric circles, we are confident that the chapters included in this volume will help shed new light on the issues under debate. The chapters will provide evidence that the categorisation of the countries and regions under our investigation into the three circles may indeed prove over-simplistic because of the changing socio-political and economic contexts in these territories in the last few decades. For example, it may well be more debatable than two or three decades ago to label Singapore as an outer circle country because English is the medium of instruction in schools and other formal domains and has become increasingly the most frequently spoken language at home. In the same way, the exceptionally high status of English stipulated in the national curriculum and the popularity of using English as a medium of instruction in many schools and universities in China and Taiwan render the expanding circle label less convincing. As Bolton (2006: 294) argues, the ‘exponential spread of English’ in the last two decades was so unanticipated that ‘a list of the major ten ‘‘English-knowing’’ societies in the world would include not only India but also China’.

      In this introduction to the volume, we wish to appropriate a metaphor, the ‘third wave’, and use it, instead of diaspora or the three circle model, to describe the current surge in the spread of English in the changing contexts of the contemporary world. This metaphor is borrowed from Alvin Toffler1 (1980), an American sociologist and futurist, who authored the book, The Third Wave. Based on the concept of each new wave pushing the older ones aside, Toffler used the term to refer metaphorically to the post-industrial society, which he predicted to be the information age characterised by a knowledge-based economy and an acceleration of changes that are driven by social demands worldwide for greater freedom and cultural diversity. It should be clearly stated here that the three waves conceptualised by Toffler do not correspond either in time or cause to the three ‘English waves’ we are discussing in this chapter. No one seems to have associated the concept with the spread of English. We appropriate the concept purely because we deem the ‘wave’ metaphor as more appropriate and effective than diaspora, or any other term, to catch the overall force of the current surge in the spread of English in the world, which pushes the older waves (the historical spread of English in the earlier times as described before) aside and penetrates into every corner of the earth. This new wave is both mightier because of the sheer size of the affected area and population in the world and more unpredictable because of increasing interactions and thus tensions between different cultural, ethnic and social groups in different sociopolitical, cultural, economic and educational contexts. Therefore, few can forecast how long it will last, what impact it will have on traditional nation states and what fundamental changes it may bring about for mankind, although attempts to forecasts the future of English are sometimes made (e.g. Graddol, 1997, 2006).

      The appropriation of the metaphor for use in describing the spread of English is not only due to its capability to catch the power, height and width of the current surge. Its use also suggests that the driving force of the surge is more multifaceted and less traceable than that of previous waves, the first and second diasporas (Kachru, 1986, 1992b, 2005). In each diaspora, with the semantic implication of the term, mass movement of speakers from English-speaking countries to a new territory or colony was the norm and, as mentioned before, this movement usually resulted in a coercive relationship of power between the settlers and the aboriginal people or between the colonisers and the colonised. This largely undisputed cause/effect description helps explain why diaspora is widely accepted as a term to refer to the two historical events. However, very few have used the term to refer to the current phenomenon of the spread of English,2 even though many agree that the world has witnessed the ‘exponential spread of English’ in the last two decades or so (Bolton, 2006). The hesitance to label the current spread as diaspora is apparently because the recent surge differs fundamentally from the previous two as it involves much less dispersal of native speakers of English to countries, particularly those in the ‘expanding circle’ where English is increasingly used for communication and taught in education institutions. The appropriation of the third wave concept is thus necessary for describing the current situation.

      The third wave concept we adapt here also suggests that, historically, we see three major surges in the spread of English on a global scale, with the first two corresponding to the two diasporas3 widely acknowledged in the literature and the third to the recent surge in the last two decades and beyond. In conceptualising the three waves on the basis of the existing literature and models to describe the history of the spread of English, we are able to represent the causes and effects of the three historical surges. The first wave was primarily the result of mass migration of English-speaking peoples. It has been extensively discussed, leading to the formulation of descriptive models such as Quirk’s (1988) demographic model. It can be argued that the notion of diaspora is perhaps the most appropriate as far as the first period of the spread of English on a global scale is concerned. The second wave was on an even larger scale. However, as Brutt-Griffler (2002) points out, there was a limit to the migration-based colonialism. This wave was caused by a convergence of ‘a transition from colonies as a refuge for Europe’s surplus populations to the establishment of political and economic hegemony over entire peoples’ and ‘England’s attainment of domination over the world market’ (Brutt-Griffler, 2002: 114). This, for Brutt-Griffler (2002), was a new form of colonial control. In this context, the spread of English to Africa and Asia was prompted by political and economic means, not demographic. Therefore, the terminology used in the literature on the spread of English for this period often includes hegemony, subordination, dominance, imposition, conquest, English for the social elite, centre and periphery, and thus the notion of linguistic imperialism (Phillipson, 1992; Canagarajah, 1999), instead of the seemingly politically neutral term, diaspora, has dominated the discourse on studies of the second wave and further into the post-colonial period. Quirk (1988), however, sees the large-scale acquisition of the English language in this context as an ‘econocultural’ feature of the language by which the spread of English was for economic and cultural/intellectual reasons.

      The third wave is unprecedented and the term, diaspora, is clearly even less relevant. This wave also involves the mobility of people on an unprecedented scale, but, unlike the first, it is a two way, or more precisely multidirectional movement brought about by various forces of globalisation. The language used for communication between internationally mobile people is English in most cases. Out of this context has grown the literature on ‘English as an international language (EIL)’, ‘international English’ as a variety, ‘English as a lingua franca (ELF)’, etc. It is important to note, however, that in the post-colonial era, one does not need to travel to use or to acquire the language.

      The commonplace perception that English is the most important language used globally has prompted governments in the ‘outer and expanding circles’ throughout the world to make language policies that favour bilingualism or multilingualism, which literally means ‘macro-acquisition of English’ (Brutt-Griffler, 2002). It has also motivated individuals, particularly ESL or EFL users, to make all efforts to acquire and use English. In analysing the African case, Mazrui and Mazrui (1998:

      78) conclude that nowadays more and more people learn English ‘simply because it is the most important language globally’. Graddol (2001) believes that of all continents, Europe has been the most affected by the rise of English since World War II. Official statistics prior to 2004 show that more than 90% of all secondary school pupils were learning English. In some countries, mostly Eastern European countries that joined the Union in 2004, most schools have rapidly replaced Russian with English as a school subject (Modiano, 2006). The same is true in South America. Despite suspicion about the implications of the spread of English and some xenophobic legislative attempts by some countries to curb the advance of the language, the continent has witnessed a rapid growth of English as the primary foreign language taught in schools and used in societies. The avid demand for acquiring the language is clearly manifested by the ever-increasing number of private language schools that offer regular or crash courses in English (Rajagopalan, 2006). The exponential growth of the spread of English in Asia has been even more striking. This could be illustrated by the astronomical figure of Japan’s US$20 billion investment in ‘English conversation’ education or of some 300 million people toiling at English lessons in China (Honno, 2006).

      To return to the concept of wave, we feel confident to claim that the current exponential growth is perhaps the apex of the third wave, and indeed of all waves, as in human history English has never penetrated so widely and deeply into the hearts and minds of individuals and societies, particularly the societies outside the ‘inner circle’, and it is difficult to imagine that the apex will repeat itself in the future. We believe the chapters included in this volume help justify this claim with sufficient evidence.

      The chapters in this volume are divided into two main parts. The first part, comprising five chapters, presents panoramic and penetrating overviews of the sociolinguistic and, in most cases, historical profiles of the countries and regions under investigation. As defined at the outset of this chapter, these territories consist of mainland China, Singapore, Taiwan, Macao and Hong Kong. This part is intended to allow an easy comparison of the overall situation, policy and practice among the countries and regions under study. The second part consists of seven chapters that ‘zoom in’ to examine different regions in mainland China, mainly due to its size and diverse population. It starts with a chapter that presents an insider’s perspective of key national policy documents on English language education for the new century and moves on to case studies that give detailed accounts of English language use and education in different settings, including economic and political centres such as Shanghai, Pearl River Delta Region and Xi’an, and less-developed regions or areas in Guangxi, Xinjiang and Yunnan. As the introductory notes in the following pages will show, chapters in the second part differ in terms of the approaches to interpreting phenomena as they are unfolded and to examining issues, while keeping the common focus on English language use and English teaching and learning.

      Readers do not have to go very far to find the answers to the questions raised earlier: the question of whether the spread of English has reached its apex; the question on the tension between the role of English and politics; and the question on the notion of linguistic imperialism. In Chapter 2 , Gil and Adamson provide a panoramic view of the historical and sociolinguistic context of English language use and education in mainland China. On the basis of an analysis of the history of English in China, they conclude that ‘the role and status of English in China have reached unprecedented heights, although fundamental cultural and political tensions remain’. The tensions they refer to in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) era are illustrated by the sudden shift on a national scale from English to Russian in the early 1950s, the swing back from Russian to English in the early 1960s, the victimisation of English teachers during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and the current ‘mania’ for English, or in short by the pendulum swings between economic modernisation and politics. Indeed, their historical overview reminds us that the unprecedented popularity and promotion of English in the country can change rapidly as policy making and policy changes are usually driven primarily by the political agenda of the country above anything else. Currently, political stability, economic development and internationalisation appear to be balanced despite some resistance and resentment to the unusually high status given to English. How or, more realistically, how long this balance can be maintained remains to be seen.

      The Singapore story as it unfolds in Chapter 3 differs from the PRC story in many ways. Tupas also starts with a historical overview, but he points out that utilitarianism or pragmatism that aims for economic advancement and political stability has remained the ultimate ideology for nation-building and education initiatives. ‘English-knowing bilingualism’ has played a crucial role in its endeavour to achieve these aims. Given the context in which English, generally perceived as the language of ‘pragmatism’ and a ‘neutral lingua franca’, is used in all formal domains and as the medium of instruction in all schools and universities, with the ‘mother tongues’ of the ethnic groups being taught only as school subjects, not surprisingly English has gradually encroached into more and more homes, resulting in more than 28% of Chinese, Malay and Indian families speaking English at home in 2005 as opposed to 23% in 2000. The reverse trend is true with ‘mother tongue’ use. For Tupas, this is a ‘worrying’ situation. Besides this, Tupas lists other issues such as bilingual elitism, subtractive bilingualism, inequality in language access and lack of attention paid to cross-cultural dimensions in bilingual education.

      In terms of English language use and education, as Chen and Hsieh reveal, Taiwan has apparently gone very far, to the extent that the government has even made English ‘a quasi-official language’ on the island. The prestigious status of the language in society, which has led to an exponential increase in its use in many important sectors of society and in many schools as a medium of instruction, coupled with the fact that each year tens of thousands of students go abroad to study in the ‘inner circle’ countries, has created not only the social and economic elite, but also a huge middle-class population of English-knowing bilinguals. There is at least some indication that Taiwan is moving towards being an ‘outer circle’ country in linguistic terms. While sufficient evidence is given to the popularity of the language in society and the rigorous responses by the government and local authorities to the demands for English language education, Chen and Hsieh remind us that the current ‘national obsession’ is creating a linguistic divide that further disadvantages the socially and economically underprivileged and contributes to reproduction of a coercive relationship of power.

      The story of Hong Kong is complex in theory and in practice. Because of its economic, political and cultural positioning in the region, Li indicates that Hong Kong has to invest heavily in its ‘biliteracy and trilingualism’ policy. Despite the popularity of English and the heavy investment in the language, not many learners in Hong Kong are found to be competent in English. Li believes that this is largely due to the immense linguistic distances between English and Chinese and the lack of a favourable environment to use English. Of Li’s arguments, two are particularly pertinent to the overview of the literature on ENL/ESL/EFL and world Englishes presented earlier in this chapter. While most scholars with an interest in the linguistic situation of Hong Kong take the metropolis as a society where English is used as a second language (ESL) owing to its long colonial history and common use of English in formal domains, Li holds the view that Hong Kong shows many characteristics of a society where English is used as a foreign language (EFL). His argument is primarily based on the observation that few Hongkongers use the language for intra-ethnic communication. A second argument related to the first is a bold challenge to the notion of ‘Hong Kong English’. To Li, some key conditions are yet to be met for the English used in Hong Kong to qualify as a localised variety of English.

      Among the territories under discussion in this volume, Macao is unique in that it was formerly a Portuguese colony. However, Young points out that with the recent economic boom fuelled by the gaming industry, English, a non-colonial and non-official language, has surpassed Portuguese to become the most important language for cross-cultural communication. Using Kachru’s (1992a) model of linguistic functions for her analysis of the spread of English in Macao, Young presents evidence of the ever-increasing interpersonal, regulative and creative functions of the language in that society. In schools, English has become a compulsory subject from pre-primary level onwards, and is the medium of instruction for most subjects at tertiary level. However, she finds that English curriculum development has been affected by the lack of a long-term English education policy and the diversified educational system. Macao policy makers are clearly facing the dilemma or paradoxical situation that lack of a unified policy has resulted in varied levels of English proficiency, but unification of the system would lead to ‘intrusion’ on administrative and educational freedom that the current society values.

      Part II starts with Cheng’s chapter on the English Curriculum Standards (ECS) promulgated by the Ministry of Education in China in 2001. The unique value of this chapter lies in the fact that few can avoid evaluating or at least mentioning the ECS documents when they examine English language education in the country in recent years. Cheng, as a policy maker, presents an insider’s account of the context and rationales behind the series of policy documents for both primary and secondary schools. He argues that the ‘standards’ and the teaching approaches ‘advocated’ in the ECS, though often criticised as unrealistic, are socially and theoretically sound. Theoretically, as Cheng argues, international research evidence in the bilingualism literature shows that bilinguals have cognitive advantages over monolinguals and the advocated approaches to English language teaching and learning prove effective when they are used appropriately to address contextual factors. Socially, there is a common perception in China that English is the global language and citizens in China should master the language for sustaining economic development as a society and for overall intellectual development and career advancement as individuals. An interesting phenomenon Cheng observes is that despite the flexibility suggested in the ECS with regard to achievement targets for regions less developed economically and less accessible to resources, few regions or provinces show willingness to lower the ‘standards’. Positive changes as a result of the new curriculum are already evident and will become even more apparent in time.

      Chapter 8 by Zhang and Wang follows Cheng’s chapter well. As one of the most developed regions in the country, South China has always taken the lead in economic development and in education. After a brief historical overview, Zhang and Wang describe the unique position of the Pearl River Delta region and its frequent contact with the outside world through hugely profitable economic activities, including the money-spinning China Export Commodities Fair held biannually in Guangzhou. The value of English is apparent and the demand for English-knowing bilinguals is high. In many primary schools, the standards set in the ECS for English language education, which are said to be too demanding for many school elsewhere, do not seem to stay abreast of the increasing need for bilinguals in South China. The schools often offer many more English lessons per week than the periods officially required. Despite issues such as examination-orientated approaches and inequality in English provision, the ECS has had a push effect on professional development, teaching resources, textbook designing and teaching methodology. It is worth noting that, in addition to ‘authentic’ situations such as interactions in English with business people or tourists from abroad, many opportunities are created by schools and other education authorities to make pupils use English to ‘do things’. Examples include conversing in ‘English corners’ (designated areas in a school compound or in parks or squares where one can go to practise speaking English), celebrating Western festivals such as Christmas in English, competing in English speech contests, etc. All these illustrate the unique status and role of English in schools in prosperous regions.

      Qiang, Huang, Siegel and Trube in Chapter 9 describe a partial English immersion model that was developed in Xi’an more than a decade ago and has since spread to other parts of China. The popular model implemented in over 50 kindergartens, primary and secondary schools is a good reminder that, resources permitting, English language provision can be far more rigorous than is stipulated in the ECS. Like Chapter 8 , Qiang et al. give quite a detailed account of the theoretical ground of the programme and principles in implementing the model. The very existence of this model, which allows 50% of the school time to be immersed in English, not only suggests the popularity and rigour of English provision, but also a high tolerance level by the authorities for the use of English as a medium of instruction and communication despite opposing voices in the bilingual education discourse and in society (see Feng, 2005, 2007; Hu, 2008).

      Chapter 10 by Zou and Zhang presents empirical data to show how parents in Shanghai, another major economic and political powerhouse, perceive the importance of English and what measures they take to ensure that their children do not lose out in the ‘national movement’. The perceived importance is historically, economically and socially constructed and parents are under enormous pressure to outsource extracurricular lessons and activities to ensure that their children receive the best English education. By analysing empirical data collected from a relatively large-scale survey, Zou and Zhang conclude that there is indeed a clear correlation between pupils’ test results and family background, more so in terms of parents’ education background than in terms of their social and economic status. Interestingly, they observe that ‘[a]lthough Shanghai is not a society (not yet) where English is frequently used in any formal or informal domain, the societal involvement, the numerous English programs accessible to the public as well as to school children, the ever-increasing number of native English speakers and highly proficient non-native speakers have created a de facto English as a second language environment’. Both Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 give an account of extensive English language use in schools and in modern societies that challenges the distinction between EFL and ESL and the three-circle model.

      Moving on to Chapter 11 by Huang, we read the story of Guangxi. This region (Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in full) is traditionally labelled as one of the most underdeveloped regions in China with the largest population of Zhuang-speaking people. However, its economy has been booming since 2004 when the first China-ASEAN Exposition was held in Nanning, the capital city of the region. The region has gradually become the export-import hub linking China with 10 neighbouring countries. The rapid economic development stimulated by the exposition, together with other economic and cultural initiatives, and ever-increasing investment drawn from foreign companies have drastically pushed up the status of English in the region for the obvious reason that it is used as the lingua franca with business people, investors and tourists from ASEAN countries and beyond. Huang’s research in the region suggests that even in Guangxi, traditionally labelled as underdeveloped, English is widely perceived as the key to economic advancement for the region and to individual life prospects. In schools, the ECS promulgated in 2001 by the central authority is being taken seriously, but often at the expense of the mother tongue, Zhuang, in Zhuang-dominated areas.

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