Using English to teach Chinese

Article: English to teach Chinese

You can read the article online at The Straits Times (I think it is available for non-subscribers for 7 days from publication, after which you need to be a subscriber to read it.)

My thoughts on this?

I remember how I first started learning Japanese. The teacher taught in English. Because when you know nothing about a language, there is a need to start from a common starting point. But once I picked up enough basic vocabulary and grammar, the teacher started teaching fully in Japanese, using English only when I still couldn't understand the simple explanations given in Japanese.

I guess it should be the same for all languages (including Chinese). When you first start learning the language, there is no harm using a common language to help teach that new language. But once you have a basic grasp of the new language, teaching should be done in that new language, because as with all things, practice makes perfect. Any opportunity to use that new language (listening, speaking, writing, reading) only serves to improve your skill in it. If you keep giving people the easy way out (allowing them to revert to English, for example), they lose the opportunity to improve, they don't see the need to improve (since they can always switch back to English). Without practice and without necessity, how are they going to improve?