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Chinese tutors not strict enough for UK system: report

"Teachers from China are described as `lovely,' but their lack of familiarity with the English system of discipline, target setting etc. is a problem."

National Centre for Languages report

Plans to hire staff from China to teach Mandarin in English schools could be scuppered because of their difficulty in coping with unruly pupils, a report for the government said on Thursday.

About 100 Chinese teachers are expected to arrive to teach the subject in English state schools by the start of the new academic year in September next year and more are expected to follow.

But Cilt, The National Centre for Languages, said in a report for the Department for Children, which runs education policy, that Chinese nationals already working in English classrooms already found the environment difficult.

"Teachers from China are described as `lovely,' but their lack of familiarity with the English system of discipline, target setting etc is a problem," its report said.

"They also tend to have different, perhaps unrealistic, expectations of pupils. Concerns are expressed about Chinese teachers' abilities to manage pupils, particularly whole classes or where there is a tendency for students to be disruptive," it said.

The government is pushing to increase the teaching of languages such as Urdu and Mandarin, particularly because of China's evolving status as a world power.

But the report said schools wanted exam boards to make the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), the national exam taken by all pupils at age 16 in England and Wales, to be easier in Mandarin.

Schools have said the current test is too difficult even for the most able pupils.

One in three private schools offer the language compared with just 9 percent of state secondary schools.

Language learning in schools in England is compulsory only up to the age of 14, when pupils begin the two-year GCSE course.
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