ELT at Tertiary Level─An Undergraduate Perspective

With the advocacy of communicative approaches in ELT coming from the English world, teachers of English in China find that their traditional Chinese teaching methods are being challenged. Educators and scholars express different opinions concerning the strength and weaknesses of traditional teaching methodology, but by and large, the overwhelming consensus is in favor of reform. The new syllabus promulgated by the State Educational Commission attaches more importance to the cultivation of students' communicative competence; journals and newspapers carry articles to urge the change; new textbooks with emphasis laid on communicative skills have been published and put to use in many institutions of higher learning; the commercial and business world is joining the chorus. Despite this, many teachers of English still use the traditional teaching methods with the new textbooks. As a teacher of English, I understand that, as well as an intrinsic reluctance to initiate change, they also have uncertainty about students' acceptance of and enthusiam for the new teaching approaches, and they have doubts about the benefits such approaches are supposed to bring to the learners. This article probes into the question of whether the existing ELT program and its overall lingustic input at tertiary level is really appropriate to the students' needs by examining the question from a different angle-the perspective of the undergraduates themselves.