I can fry?

My students recently learned that there will no longer be any incoming English majors--the department is closing, so the freshmen this year are the last English majors to move through our college. English will still be taught, but as what they call "Public English," to the non-majors. The school officials are closing the major because graduating students have a difficult time marketing a degree in English from a medical school. The size of each incoming class has been shrinking the last few years, so this was a foreseeable event. Nonetheless, the students--especially the sophomores and freshmen--feel betrayed and distraught.

The department closing has all kinds of implications for my students and also for the future of the PC program here (it is still undecided whether there will be a new PCV here next year). It is exceedingly difficult to transfer between departments (i.e. change majors). It is basically impossible to transfer to another college or university, unless a student wants to start completely over having wasted time and tuition. There is no credit transfer system that I know of in China. The main student anxieties are that their English degree from the school, already of questionable value in the job market, will be even more worthless once the department ceases to exist. They also worry that resources and teachers will be sucked away from the department in the next two to three years. These are not unfounded fears.

Upon hearing the news, I immediately tried to think of what I could do to help or improve the situation in any way for my students. It didn't take long to realize that there really wasn't anything I could do. Actually, it is for the best that the department is closing--it does an admittedly mediocre job of preparing English majors to face the post-college world, and the current crop of seniors searching for jobs or places in graduate schools are evidence of that. Many current English majors were assigned the major arbitrarily, after arriving at the medical school expecting to train as doctors.

What I did do, in an effort to soothe my poor students, was emphasize that now more than ever their English education was in their own hands. They had to practice and study on their own as much as possible. Also, it was something of a lesson in life--unexpected, and often bad things happen, and one must make lemonade from all those lemons. Many of them took it to heart, and The English Adventure Club was born.

This club is the new incarnation of a Reading Club that students had founded in the fall with my help, but that had foundered for lack of good ideas about what a Read Club could do. It is not feasible for the students to all get copies of the same article, to read at the same time, much less the same book. Their access to the Internet is very limited and is not free. The English library is small, and the main library on campus is still under construction. So the new Adventure Club aims to include all aspects of language learning in activities that are (hopefully) enjoyable.

Tonight was the second meeting of the club. I have been very impressed so far with the advanced planning and organization of the leadership. A sophomore named Bear with a high, nervous giggle and a huge smile is the president who does most of the legwork. Tonight's program included tongue-twister and singing contests, a word play game and a pronunciation exercise facilitated by yours truly. The club has a song, which we sing at the start and end of each meeting. It was also the chosen song for the singing contest. The song is called "Proud of You," by Fiona Fung, and if you haven't heard of it, don't be surprised. It was originally written in Chinese, and then translated into English. The melody is simple and there are no few grammatical errors, but it is slow and sweet and very appealing to my young students.

The first contestant was one of my favorite students, a wiry sophomore called Paul from Guangdong (the part of China that speaks Cantonese as a first language). Each singer gave a little introductory speech before they began, where they stated their wish that we would all enjoy their singing, and that they would try their best, despite the fact that they were very nervous. Paul stood up, and I had to bit my lips to choke back the laughter--one of the lyrics of the song is "I believe I can fly," but he made the common confusion of the "l" and the "r" sounds. He sang with such passion, though, I just couldn't laugh. It was really sweet. I believe he can fry, too...