Case Study of a Foreign Language Training Centre in P. R. China

English as a second language (ESL) training in China has never been as marketable as it is today, especially in the last five years with China's entry into the WTO and its successful bid for the 2008 Olympic Games to be held in Beijing. An examination of ESL performance in China is therefore very timely. Specifically it is useful to discover whether the original intention of the government in adjusting from knowledge-based English learning to communicative ability-oriented English training has been achieved by encouraging the establishment of nationwide non-government foreign language training entities across the country. In this study a typical foreign language training centre in a north-eastern Chinese city was investigated and analysed in the form of case study.