Making English Work / From China to Japan, via English
Learning good English pronunciation does not require native-speaking teachers, according to Yiping Cheng, 32, research manager of the Trade Marketing Group of the online Service Group at Microsoft Co., in Tokyo.
"In Shanghai's primary schools, English is treated equally with Chinese language and arithmetic. I studied English at least a few hours a week," Yiping said, explaining that all teachers of English in Shanghai schools were Chinese. "Students learn basic English pronunciation of the alphabet and simple words at primary school."
Although they don't study grammar at primary school, they get English pronunciation lessons from teachers who specialize in the language. Students learn English grammar from middle school onward, just like in Japan.
Yiping, who says she preferred sports to studying during her primary school days, became interested in learning English thanks to an inspirational teacher at middle school. "I studied English hard, as I wanted to please her," Yiping said. She said she acquired her English listening skill by herself at the school's language laboratory, which could be used freely by students. "I listened to a lot of tapes recorded by native speakers of English," she said.
Eventually, English became her favorite subject and she studied hard to pass an entrance examination for the prestigious Shanghai University. There she majored in economics, and passed Grade 6 of the national College English Test (CET) when she was a third-year student--a must for students who aim to advance to graduate school.
"After I passed Grade 6, my motivation to study English faded," Yiping said. She thought she needed to study another foreign language. "Studying German and Japanese were popular back in 1995. As I was not interested in studying German, I chose Japanese as my second foreign language."
While studying at Shanghai University, she attended a night course at Shanghai Foreign Language University to study Japanese twice a week. But her Japanese-language teacher--a Chinese businessman who had lived in Japan for more than 10 years--told her it was better to go to Japan if she really wanted to study the language.
With this in mind, she worked at a Japanese company in Shanghai for a year after graduating. As she had to pass Level 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test held by Japan Educational Exchange and Services to enter a Japanese graduate school, she studied Japanese while working and passed Level 2 of the test there.
On the recommendation of her Japanese boyfriend, whom she first met off-campus in Shanghai before realizing that he was studying Chinese at her university, she applied to enter Kobe University's graduate school to continue her study of economics.
"My boyfriend comes from Kobe and he said there were three good universities to study business administration at--Hitotsubashi University, Kwansei Gakuin University and Kobe University. I chose Kobe University as it is expensive to live in Tokyo and studying at private universities costs a lot," she said.
Yiping visited Japan in 1998 and attended a Japanese language school in Kobe. "I could not speak or listen to Japanese so well when I came to Japan," she said, explaining that she passed Level 2 mainly because she was good at grammar. But she passed Level 1 of the test and won admission to the graduate school within six months of coming to Japan.
But it was difficult to find jobs in those days. "I wanted to work at a Japanese manufacturing company but learned that such companies rarely hire graduate students," she said. Instead, Yiping got a job at a small marketing company in Tokyo thanks to a recommendation from a professor. She worked for the company for two years, while also taking private English lessons with an American teacher for three hours on Saturday mornings to allow her to have a job interview in English at a foreign-affiliated marketing company. She got the job and worked for the company for 4-1/2 years before moving to her current position with Microsoft Co. last September. In the meantime, she married her Japanese boyfriend.
Her job at the company is conducting surveys on the effectiveness of on-line advertising. "Microsoft has a portal site called MSN. Our surveys assist on-line advertisement sales around the world, as they need concrete figures to prove the benefit of advertising," she said. E-mail is the main communication tool in the company, she added, with about half of the e-mails in English.
"As our company's basic network was created in the headquarters in the United States, a lot of information and many newsletters are in English," Yiping said. In surveying global projects, English is indispensable.
"English is used in telephone conferences and writing reports," she said. But she thinks her English ability is not good enough to make presentations in front of clients from overseas, and is now attending free English lessons offered by the company.
"Although my work is hectic and needs overtime, I like my job here. I feel I'm working on the world stage, and it's fun," she said. Her only regret now is that she gets few chances to speak Chinese.
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This column features interviews with professionals who use English in their jobs, experts and others interested in the language in the hope of offering insights into learning the language.
Readers are invited to offer themselves as candidates to be featured in this column or recommend an acquaintance. E-mail dy-edu@yomiuri.com.