"Welcome to English Corner"
Originally uploaded by clarkalastair

In China there exsists a tradition for the modern generation, that of meeting together at set times, on set days, for set periods of time to speak, discuss and talk in English with other Chinese people and foreigners. This happens in many places, in many situations, for different reasons. Near the American/British consulates, in University English departments, in city town centers, and coffee shops across China. For foreigners to meet other foreigners, and prospective Chinese partners, for Chinese to improve their English, for Chinese people to meet prostective rich western partners. The effect is still the same. Cultural exchange, linguistic growth and confidence boosting for the Chinese youth, and a valuable and precious thing this is indeed.

Never before coming to China had I heard of such things in England, such as French Corner to meet and practice French. Maybe this is established in other ways, like student exchange programmes, school trips abroad, student language/country societies etc. But this doesn’t really have the same aim and effect. These things serve other masters, and a shame that we don’t have such a tradition for people to converge and just meet and discuss in a regular meeting.

I understand that language learning is an individualistic thing, and requires an ongoing striving and unwavering desire for improvement, but I’d like to think that an opportunity to meet teachers at school in a more informal environment, to practice speech in god forbid, French, Latin, German, Spanish or any other language, might have been a useful, but the effort might have been seen as lame by English students, and maybe unable to operate usefully, but the idea is a good one and used effectively by some lovely Chinese students.

In some more practical news, I had English corner tonight, and the system has changed so that I only need to go every three weeks, and my accompanying foreign expert teacher will be Carol, and no longer Tom and Louisa. This change in timetable reduces the number of times I need to stay at work till 7PM in the evening, taking an hour bus jounery home in a rather shattered state at 8PM, such is the emotional drain of teaching.