Analysis of Perceived Difficulty Rank of English Skills of College Students in China

Abstract

A widely known fact of English education in China is that after years of learning, most Chinese students still can not speak English or understand spoken English. This phenomenon is called “mute English” in China’s academic community, a phenomenon that has been frustrating both English instructors and learners ever since English was listed a compulsory subject in high schools and mandatory course in universities in China years ago. “Mute English” or “English mute” is due to many factors, which would require more than one study and constant research efforts to arrive at a full understanding. This study analyzed the perceived difficulty rank of five English skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating in the hope of discovering the relationships among these skills to find out how these skills interact with each other, thus providing some hints on improving China’s current English teaching approaches and reducing the mute English phenomena.
Data analysis shows that of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translating, Chinese students perceive translating and speaking the most difficult skills to command, whereas reading is perceived the least difficult one. However, no significant difference is found between translating and speaking between English majors and none majors. Such perception differences in these English skills alert us that we need to restructure our design teaching approaches and course contents for an effective teaching approach of oral English in China and to reach the ultimate goal of the application of foreign language learning.