Mute English is a term coined in the People's Republic of China to describe a phenomenon where people cannot speak English well and have a poor listening comprehension as a second language, typically through the traditional method of English language teaching where English is only taught as a subject. The phrase is a calque of the Chinese phrase "哑巴英语" (yǎbā yīngyǔ in pinyin). The phenomenon is sometimes referred to as Dumb English.
Mute English occurs primarily due to an emphasis on literacy, grammar, and correctness in language education. Efforts to mitigate Mute English in China have resulted in numerous commercial products including TEFL schools and teach-yourself courses, international exchanges, and the eagerness with which Chinese students strive to practice their English with foreign visitors.
Though any language can have its form of mute speakers (e.g. Mute Polish), the phenomenon of 'Mute English' in China, Japan and Korea is a massive, acknowledged problem, one which the school systems and students are attempting to address.
A related concept is the less-common Deaf English.
Speech Patterns
In places where Mute English seems to be most prominent, the English education is often described as "a communicative language taught as if it were a dead language, like Latin". There is little to no emphasis on developing speaking abilities of the students under the system. As a result, Mute English speakers struggle with piecing together basic sentences despite having gone through roughly eight years' worth of formal English education. Their pronunciation is typically described as "choppy" with a "robotic inflection".
Typically affected by Mute English are countries that use East Asian languages, which belong to various language families while English belongs to the Indo-European Language family. These language families are considered to be very far apart from one another because they all have significant phonetical, semantic and syntactic differences. Hence, to be able to master English, a great amount of effort is required from the learner.
Some of the difficulties Mute English speakers have been observed to have are difficulties with the /rl/ combination of consonants. For example, when they pronounce the word "world", it comes off as sounding more like "word" or "ward". They also tend to struggle with minimal pairs such as /ɛ/ versus /æ/, because these sounds do not exist in their language, so they often have trouble differentiating and pronouncing words that only differ by a minimal pair (i.e. "bet" and "bat").
Mute English in China In spite of the rising quality and heightened efforts in English education in China, it has not translated into good English proficiency, with many fresh graduates complaining that they were unable to carry out simple communicative functions since the late 1980s even after years of studying English, resulting in 'mute english'.
Prominence of English in China Under the new post cultural revolution Chinese leadership, a large pool of English-proficient personnel was deemed to be required for China in securing its access to global scientific and technological advances in propelling towards modernisation. This resulted in a venture to expand the provision and improve the quality of English learning teaching since the 1970s, through a series of reforms carried out in areas such as curriculum development, syllabus design, textbook production, teacher training and pedagogy.
Since the mid-1990s, English has become one of the three core components in China's College Entrance Examinations, known as Gaokao, alongside Chinese and Math. In 2001, the Chinese Ministry of Education launched Chinese-English bilingual education in tertiary institutions to meet the needs of economic globalisation and technical revolution, potentially train competent and multi-talented candidates for the new century, and to further improve the overall quality of higher education in China. Today, millions of Chinese take English proficiency tests every year to secure employment or professional promotion in lines of work that do not necessarily require substantial or any use of English.
As such, English is seen to have a vital role in national and personal development and has a spreading acceptance in the country as the language of prestige, social progress, cultural refinement, and economic development, in which English proficiency is emphasised to be one of the most important and defining characteristics of talent in present-day society.
English Pedagogy in China In China, English is considered to be one of the core subjects. Students study it for eight years from elementary through high school. A typical English lesson in China would span four hours a week; three hours for intensive reading and one hour for listening. Occasionally, some teachers will allocate 30 minutes of speaking practice once every two to three weeks. However, a big factor that contributes to the rise of Mute English is the teaching pedagogy of Chinese teachers of the English language. This section will cover some of the major mistakes that teachers make in the classroom or within the Chinese education system.
Overuse of Chinese during English lessons In a 2011 study conducted by Yuru Shen, she observed 15 teachers for a month. She noticed that 80% of the teachers used both English and Chinese in their lessons by first speaking in English then translating the instruction or learning material into Chinese. Another 13% of teachers just lectured all the way through in Chinese, only using English to read passages or exercises. Only one teacher used English most of the time and used Chinese only when trying to explain a difficult point to the students to better facilitate their understanding. Furthermore, all informal conversations between student and teacher are held in Chinese. 90% of the teachers observed used a "Grammar Translation" method which inadvertently taught students instead to be able to translate things from Chinese to English. This then does not strengthen the students' foundation or mastery in the language and the main focus of learning English then becomes the mastery of grammar via translation. Consequently, students do not properly learn how to express themselves and instead mistakenly believe that the study of English is the study of translation between English and Chinese. Moreover, 64% of English majors at Leshan Normal University agreed that there was too much use of Chinese during English lessons which could have affected their overall mastery of the language. Therefore, when Chinese is overused in the classroom it undermines a student's ability to learn English in its communicative or expressive form.
Lack of native English speakers as teachers The need for native speakers in English is very important because it helps to foster good pronunciation and communicative habits when speaking the language. Furthermore, learners will have a clear point of reference and could potentially mimic the speaker's pronunciation. There are not many native speakers of English in China or even teachers who managed to achieve a native-like fluency in the language. As a result, these teachers struggled to explain basic grammar rules or vocabulary in English. The initial lack of native English speakers in China was due to several deep-seated political sentiments that China had towards the British as the ex-colonisers and the Americans as the new imperialists in the Korean War. Furthermore, students in China are more used to a prescriptivist approach to their education and as a result may not be too receptive to the teaching methodology of native English speakers in explaining rules. These two factors have greatly affected Chinese students' ability to acquire English as a second language.
Lack of communicative opportunities In June 2011, a survey on "Hierarchical Teaching" was conducted by the writer and her colleagues in Leshan Normal University. It was between 18 and 20-year-old students who had eight years worth of English education in local Chinese schools. None of these students had ever been to an English-speaking country, nor did they presently have any opportunity to practice English for communicative purposes outside of a school setting. The survey showed that 49.44% of the participants did not get to practice their speaking skills at an individual level. Moreover, as mentioned in the above section about prescriptivism in the Chinese syllabus, there is a very strong focus on test-taking. As such, students are not particularly interested in the workings and communicative aspects of English as a language, but instead are more interested in how their knowledge in English will transfer onto test papers. As such, the focus of English teaching is removed from speaking skills and is instead focused on growing the skills required for written tests. As a result, 94% of students found that the compulsory oral courses were not of use in their future careers. The evident lack of spoken opportunities for English, coupled with no motivation to master English as a language, it is no wonder the spoken proficiency of English in China is generally poor.
Deficiency of written tests As mentioned in the above section of lack of communicative opportunities, part of the problem is the test-taking culture in China. As the need for English grew rapidly, companies started to vy for communicatively competent students, putting pressure on schools to produce such talents. This then escalated testing in English. All possible forms of test-taking in China, from elementary school through to university, emphasises on accuracy. These examinations focus on written grammar and vocabulary, neglecting listening and speaking. These tests have been highlighted to affect student's prospective job opportunities and whether or not they can graduate. As such, there is immense pressure from the student to perform during these tests which deviates their focus from English mastery, to just being able to score during examinations. As a result, despite years of formal education in English, the vast majority of these students are unable to express themselves in English.
Mute English in Japan It is widely known that Japanese people have difficulties in communicating in English, which is seen to be a result from the entrance examination, student's lack of motivation and teachers' insufficient communicative competence in English. Many point to this uncommunicativeness as a source of failure when referring to English language education in Japan. The situation of years of training not translating into an ability to interact with native English speakers beyond surface level causes some dissatisfaction among English teachers and students. On the flip side, in preparing the students for what is required in the entrance exams, the English education is considered more than successful.
Japan ranks 55th out of the 100 countries measured in the 2020 EF English Proficiency Index, overall tallying to 'low proficiency'.
Prominence of English in Japan After the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace and Amity with the United States, English language education in Japan started in 1854 and opened up to the West. The popularity of English in Japan today is largely due to Japan's prospering economy, the increased need for foreign language skills and proficiency brought about by industrialisation, as well as favourable attitudes towards the west that were developed during Japan's industrialisation. Fascination with the outside world and desire of internalisation can be seen through the usage of English across advertisements and products in Japan. Over the past decades, there has also been rapid adoption of English loanwords into Japanese, where in some instances differently connotes formality and degree of technicality between Japanese words and the English loanwords.