Teachers say mistakes 'not uncommon'
A Beijing university has stopped using an English language textbook that allegedly contains more than 80 mistakes, a case experts say exemplifies the poor quality of such teaching materials churned out by Chinese academics.
An English textbook used by Beijing Forestry University (BFU) during 2015-16 academic year for non-English majors is found to contain as many as 80 mistakes, including grammatical and typographical errors, the Beijing-based newspaper Legal Mirror quoted an unnamed resident of Beijing as saying on Saturday.
For example, in a sentence on Page 4 which reads "you can expect to be generating, processing as well as exchange information," the correct usage should be "exchanging" rather than "exchange," said the resident, adding such mistakes occur several times in the book.
The textbook, which is designed to help college students prepare for the College English Test (CET), an English proficiency test that many Chinese college students are required to take before graduation, was also used by other universities, said the report.
Students from BFU reached by the Global Times said that some of the examination papers for previous CET tests printed in the book are also wrong.
A staff member of the Peking University Press, the publisher, told the Global Times that the publishing house is currently reviewing the book, but insisted that the claim of 80 mistakes is exaggerated.
"We will decide whether to retract all the books or stop selling the 100 books in the store after we finish the review," said the staff, refusing to disclose the total sales volume of the book.
A teacher at BFU's School of Foreign Languages told the Global Times that the school has stopped using the book published in January 2015.
BFU's bookstore has stopped selling the book since Monday, said a bookstore employee. But the book was still available for purchase as of press time on amazon.cn, jd.com, taobao.com and dangdang.com, the four most popular e-commerce platforms for book sales.
An English teacher who has worked in BFU for 30 years told the Global Times that errors in textbooks are "not uncommon."
Shi Bing, another teacher at BFU, said he found 30 percent of 100 textbooks and teaching-related materials used by Chinese colleges, including those recommended by the Ministry of Education, contain mistakes, the Beijing Times reported in November 2015.
Xie Dengpan, a teacher at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times that nowadays some teachers rush to publish textbooks in order to get promoted or gain a higher professional title, without ensuring the quality.
"However, there should be zero tolerance toward such textbook mistakes," he added.
