Shanghai and Beijing stand out among Chinese cities as the top two in terms of English proficiency, scoring respectively 53.93 and 53.56, even higher than Hong Kong's 52.70, according to English Proficiency Index (EPI) released by English educational institute Education First (EF) on Tuesday in Beijing.
Christopher McCormick, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at EF told the press that the report was based on statistics covering 911,000 English learners from 70 English as a second language countries. Northern European countries Sweden (scoring 70.94), Holland, Denmark, Norway and Finland take the first five places with very high English proficiency. Among all the 70 countries, China takes the 47th place though Chinese people have showed great interest in learning English. The report saw a significant increase in Latin American countries due to their national English programs such as Chile's English Opens Doors Program, Panama Bilingual Program, Mexico's Project 100,000 and Brazil's English Without Borders Program.
English will be key to China's One Belt, One Road initiative, said McCormick. The initiative refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road proposed by China in 2013 for improved cooperation with countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Although countries involved in the initiative score from high to very low in EPI, how would these countries score on a Chinese test, he asked. China and its partners need to improve their English, the most widely used language for future cooperation.
He also gave some suggestions for China to improve English proficiency like focusing on practical communication skills from day one, investing in technology and online learning tools as well as supporting workplace and private sector training for adults.
