Many Chinese think they need to go abroad to become proficient in English, but that’s not so at all, says Shanghai College English teacher Dai Jiaqi who just won a national foreign language teaching competition.

Dai, 30, outshone 28 other English teachers, regional champions, to take first place last month in English audio-visual teaching in the fourth teaching contest organized by the Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. It aims to promote reform of English-language teaching at Chinese universities through competitions.

Dai, a lecturer at the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, formerly known as Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade, has a fine and long tradition of English teaching. Armed with communicative competence in English, graduates from this school enjoy a competitive edge in job-hunting.

Dai demonstrates that a dedicated student can learn English well without going overseas. And many people cannot afford to do so.

Dai himself has traveled abroad but not studied abroad.

“Students at university always told me they were struggling to learn English and found it very painful,” Dai told Shanghai Daily. “As an English lover, I want to make others’ lives a bit easier. That’s why I chose teaching as my career.”

Dai gets frustrated with students who want easy shortcuts to learning and passing English proficiency exams.

“I tell my students, if they want to practice English, just ask for a favor (find a native speaker to partner with) and stop complaining that there is no language environment for English learning in China,” Dai said. “Look how many tools students have, like QQ, WeChat and Skype. Those who complain are just too passive in learning.”

China has made an enormous investment in English-language education. There are around 400 million English learners in China but the latest survey showed that adults’ proficiency still lagged behind that in many other Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and India.

China’s mainland ranked 34th out of 60 non-English-native countries and regions and is in the low-proficiency tier in the study released by EF Education last month. The survey is based on a free online English test, including listening and reading skills, taken by 750,000 adults.

“As an English teacher, I think the results are disappointing especially when China has invested so heavily in English teaching in the past years,” Dai said.

“Chinese students’ problems lie in the fact that they always want to find a shortcut in English learning and that they are too utilitarian,” Dai said.

Dai’s method

When he teaches freshmen, Dai’s very first class is always orientation on how to learn English and improve in university by practicing pubic speaking, pronunciation, written skills and other ways.

“Even so, many students would come up to me after classes and ask me to recommend several exercise books that can help them improve English in a short time to pass exams,” Dai said.

The competitive, test-oriented education system and the competitive social environment make students ultra-pragmatic and not as interested as they should be in learning, he said.

To reduce the burden on Chinese students, the Ministry of Education said this month that it plans to remove the English test from the national college entrance exam by 2020. Many colleges will still require English proficiency.

Prior to that, the Beijing Education Commission decided to give less weight to the English test in the college entrance exam. Starting in 2016, it will account for 100 points, not 150 in the overall score. Shandong Province lowered the total score of English test in the college entrance exam from 150 to 120 and canceled the listening comprehension section.

Dai is opposed to lowering the status of English in the national exam. “How can students use English if they can’t even understand what others are saying?” he asked.

The final competition round had two parts: the first involved giving a 20-minute lecture to 12 non-English majors, while the second part required contestants to describe in 10 minutes a teaching plan using audio-visual materials.

For the first part of the round, Dai drew the topic of “The Science of Stress,” a BBC video documentary. He cut the three-minute video into three logical separate segments to help the students learn the material better in a short time.

“Languages are media. I always think English teachers should teach beyond language and arouse students’ awareness of and curiosity about the content of what is taught,” Dai explained.

After watching the first video clip, Dai asked students to recall their own stresses in daily life. This was aimed at warming them up and getting them involved in the topic.

“At the very beginning of the class, you should make students realize the topic is important to them and will have an impact on them, so they will listen to you and follow you in the rest of the class,” Dai said.

In the second video clip, students learned about how stress was created, and discussed it. In the third clip, they learned about solutions and discussed them.

“I think teaching is very similar to cooking. There are so many teaching resources in Information Age and the important thing is the way teachers handle them,” Dai said.

At the end of the round, Dai asked students to discuss the topic of stress with each other, using phrases and ideas they learned in the videos. This is known as transforming input knowledge into output capability.

Dai said studying overseas is one way to learn English but most Chinese learners who cannot afford to do so, need to find a lifelong, sustainable way of English learning.

Dai recalled his university days when he posted advertisements around the campus to find an international student to practice English. In return, Dai taught the international student Chinese.

Teaching family

Dai was born into a family of teachers in Zhoushan City in neighboring Zhejiang Province. He did his undergraduate work in English education at Zhejiang Normal University, graduating in 2006.

He did postgraduate work in interpreting at Shanghai International Studies University, where he is continuing his on-the-job PhD work in English education.

To improve his English in university, especially pronunciation, he got up every morning at 6am and listened to radio programs for about an hour.

Altogether he has taught for around 10 years.

To attend the national competition, he had to become the Shanghai champion first, and all the other teachers were highly competitive. While preparing, he was also teaching full-time.

Now Dai has begun his PhD studies in learner autonomy, how learners can keep learning on their own.

Moreover, he has a baby on the way.

“I will encourage my child to form the habit of reading from a young age, which I think is beneficial for a person’s whole life,” Dai said.

Dai himself is a bookworm. The first apartment he bought in Shanghai was to store all his books that had occupied most his teacher’s dorm room. He collects dictionaries, and owns around 70.

His favorite books are “The Count of Monte Cristo,” “Frankenstein” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

“Books help build one’s inner beauty and strength,” he said.