English is almost a compulsory subject in Beijing's kindergartens
as a growing number of parents want their children better equipped
for future.
At
the Beijing Sunshine Bilingual Artistic Kindergarten at Jiaomen, a
dozen children imitate their foreign teachers and practice
pronunciation.
They can clearly pronounce English words like "apple ", "banana ",
"rabbit", "panda" and each has an English name given by the
teachers.
Zhang Xi, the nursery school's youngest, aged one and a half, has
picked up more than 30 words after only two months.
Seeing her greeting people in her limited English, Zhang Yongxiang,
her father, could not hide his joy and said, "I can't believe she
learns so quickly."
According to the school dean Zhang Yuxiang, although China's
educational authorities do not require kindergartens to open
foreign language classes, the school has employed four foreign
teachers from Britain and Canada to meet the parents'
requirements.
Statistics show that there are more than 3,000 foreign languages
training institutions in China with the annual turnover exceeding
10 billion yuan (about US$ 1.2 billion).
(Xinhua News
Agency November 11, 2001)