With effect from this autumn semester, all the primary schools and high schools in Shanghai will have their curriculum designs rearranged to add more English classes to the student's syllabus.
As the new scheme goes effective, students will have one English classes per day and the number of English classes given in a whole semester will be increased to more than 2,000 from today's level of about 1,000.
All the 12 grades ranging from primary No.1 to high school senior 3 will be covered in the curriculum reform.
Educators said that the move aims to scrape away the teaching convention that had created thousands of "dumb" second language learners, who could read and write, but feared or paralysed in oral English.
(Eastday.com.cn 03/27/2001)
