Hu's Article

In going with this week's theme of communicative language teaching (CLT), Guangwei Hu, in his article "Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports: The Case of Communicative Language Teaching in China, shows how CLT is used in China to teach English.  While it would seem like CLT would be a good choice for Chinese learners of English, Hu points out that CLT conflicts with traditional views on education in Chinese culture.  Hu states that since Chinese education is primarily based on Confucian thinking that education is seen as"a goal in itself [that] has been internalised throughout Chinese society, even by those who themselves have not received any schooling" (Hu 97) and that CLT conflicts with this way of thinking because it does not strive for necessarily the fully mastery of the language.  I find this very interesting, as it seems that CLT can be very helpful in learning another language, especially in the ever-expanding world of global business, but I can also understand why the Chinese would not want to over-turn hundreds of years worth of practice and philosophy of education because of something that would make learning easier.  It's interesting, to me, since we as Americans tend to forget how young we are in our thinking and want the quick and easy way to solve a problem or learn a concept, while so many other cultures have been cultivating ideas for centuries.