China English Or Native-speaker Norms:a Survey Study Of The Attitude Held By Chinese EFL Learners In China And In The UK

This study aims to explore Chinese EFL learners’(students in the UK and in China) attitidues on China English and native-speaker norms and their preferred teaching norms in ELT classrooms.The research questions to be addressed in the study are as follows:1. What are Chinese EFL learners’attitudes to China English?2. What are Chinese EFL learners’attitudes to native-speaker norms?3. What are Chinese EFL learners’attitudes to preferred teaching norms in ELT classrooms?The subjects involved in the study are40students altogether:students in China (20)who have finished university and students in the UK (20). The group of Chinese students in the UK are doing their Master degrees in Sheffield in the UK and have stayed there for1year or more than1years.The research has adopted a mixed research methods:a combination of qualitative method (questionnaire) and quantitative method (interview). Altogether,40participants (twenty are students in China and twenty are Chinese students in the UK) have taken part in the questionnaire part, and40participants (two are China-based and two are UK-based) have been interviewed.Questionnaire distribution and interview are completed in different time. First of all,20questionnaire are given to China-based students by e-mail and20questionnaires are printed and handed out to UK-based students. Secondly, interview part is conducted after collecting data from questionnaire. Two participants in the interview are selected from the two groups in the questionnaire. It takes each participant10minutes for the interview and the process is recorded.The principal findings of the research are:Chinese EFL students (both in China and in the UK) are not clear of what China English is:both of the group regard China English either as the "direct translation" of Chinese language which is usually grammatically wrong, or vocabularies to express things with Chinese characteristics in order to communicate with people from other countries. Overall speaking, they hold a negative view toward China English.The majority of Chinese EFL learners prefer to learn native-speaker norms in terms of pronounciation and grammar because it can give them more confidence and can help them communicate better. It could be seen from the data that on the issue of a near-native pronunciation of English, the number of Chinese students in the UK (16) is larger than that of the students in China (13) who are in favor of a near native pronunciation, which might indicate that after a short study abroad, students abroad are concerned of their pronunciation and they would like to sound like native speakers. In adddtion, both of the groups’students prefer to learn the grammar rules that native speakers use, even the informal ones native-speakers use in daily life.The majority of the students prefer British English or American English as the teaching model in ELT classrooms in China. Most of the Chinese EFL learners in both groups prefer to learn "British English" in the classroom though the number of Chinese students in the UK who prefer this is relatively higher than that in China:18versus14."American English" is also a choice of preference to use among both of the groups but is more popular among students in China. Chinese students comparatively accept more China English in the classroom than Chinese students in the UK.China-based students are more in support of learning China English (65%) while UK-based students are more against of learning China English (65%) in ELT classrooms.The implications of the research are:If teachers could promote China English and make both students and teachers realize it is an acceptable and respected variety in international communication, China English will gain its status in future. In recent years, many scholars have shown respect for the varieties in the Outer and Expanding circles. It is believed that when English is used as a lingua franca for international communication, these speakers own their lingua franca English, and the model of lingua franca approach is also proposed by Kirkpatrick. But the dilemma is how to make it accepted and respected. As He&Zhang (2010) proposed, the teaching model of English in China should still adopt Standard Englishes, but China English could be introduced into ELT classrooms when it is codified systematically. It is thus believed that the problem of Asian Englishes to achieve fully standardized status is "codification"(Jenkins,2007b:91; D’Souza1999). Jenkins suggested that in order to make local classroom models accepted internationally, the grammatical, lexical, phonological and discoursal rules must be found in the dictionaries and grammar books. If we could make more effort to standardize "China English"-in definition, pronunciation, grammar, pragmatic norms, the codified form would be recognized by the government authorities and native speakers. China English will then be more likely to be accepted among students and teachers, and makes it possibile to be the option in ELT classrooms. The limitation is that, due to the context, where it is not easy to access many Chinese students in the UK, the sample size of the research is not large enough,therefore, it could be argued that the findings might not be robust enough.