English instructors are in high demand in China, where language institutions are scrambling to keep up with the country’s burgeoning demand for English instruction. The Chinese English Education market grew by 298 percent in only one year, from 123.6 billion RMB in 2016 to 489.7 billion RMB in 2017. Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, China’s four biggest cities by population and GDP, are pushing the market for English consumption. This is based on a 65 percent English penetration rate. These cities saw more than half of their residents get additional foreign education outside of school in 2017, with 86.5% of that education being focused on English. This is very remarkable! As a result, industry analysts predict Chinese students in 2019 would spend 947 billion RMB, almost twice as much as they did in 2017.
Demand in the Chinese market is greater than the supply of English instructors.
There is a projected shortage of 100,000 English instructors in China during the next several years. China’s primary school students are required to take English classes beginning in their third year for a period of four years, middle school students for a period of six years, and in their first two years of university for a duration of two years. Studying English for 2,000 hours total is the most of any course. Due to these changes in Chinese education policy, 60% of English instructors in primary schools now have more than 50 pupils in their class, while 90% of middle school English teachers have more than 40 students in their class. As a result of the increasing number of Chinese youngsters desiring to study English, many kindergartens and private schools now offer classes in the language. This is so that children may begin school more competitively by beginning their English education as early as possible by looking for the finest instructors. This sluggish economy has made it even more important for youngsters to obtain a good education so they can get good employment when they grow up. Consequently, many businesses that hire English instructors raise their pay and perks in order to attract teachers from Japan and South Korea, in order to meet the increased demand.
Chinese parents are the primary force behind the spread of the English language in China.
Because they want their children to have the best English instructors in China, Chinese parents are very picky when it comes to their kids’ tutors. They also respect their children’s opinions about their tutors. Chinese parents have a special preference for teachers from the North American continent. This is because North American parents think that their children would be more involved in school if their teachers have excellent pronunciation and dynamic teaching methods. In addition, a lot of parents dream of their children going to school in the United States or Canada one day.
Parents also care about the teacher’s nationality, namely whether or not they are from a well-known English-speaking country. A student’s socioeconomic standing may be determined by the quality of their English instructor. Because of this, employing an outsider is a luxury and confers social standing recognition on the foreigner. It’s because of this that parents will still choose foreigners over Chinese natives who are fully competent of teaching English. Aside from that, parents may prefer a native speaker of the English language from a well-known nation where the language is a second language, such as Russia. The nationality of the instructor is also heavily weighted by parents, who value the abilities and experience of the teacher as well as how their kid feels about them. This is because nationality is seen as an indication of quality and social position, whereas ethnicity is not.
Chinese students’ use of English as a second language Parents in China are ready to put up with a lot.
Demand is driven by parents who are prepared to spend a lot of money on their children in order to give them the best chance at success in the future. This is shown by the fact that Chinese parents annually spend 13 billion RMB on education outside of school. As a consequence, families have to spend a significant portion of their family income on language lessons for their kids. 73 percent of parents polled said they spend at least 10,000 RMB, or $1,580 US dollars per year, on English lessons. Because parents are spending more on their children’s education than on their own in the Chinese market, the consumer segmentation is now moving from adults to young children.
Most parents only need to study English because it’s part of their work to have good English abilities, or because they wish to better their personal or professional lives by learning English. Among the other motivations for learning Chinese include aspirations such as becoming a Chinese teacher, advancing in one’s profession, enhancing one’s social standing, and going for business or a long-term assignment overseas, as well as personal comfort while abroad. Many people in these groups, however, are single unless they are studying out of need and have no or few family costs. To give their children the greatest possible start in life, families’ primary focus is on their children’s education. ESL (English as a Second Language) schools were first established to teach English to adults, but as the demand has moved towards children, educators and schools have adjusted their teaching techniques and structures in line with this development.
Chinese market segmentation for English language education
Schools and businesses are the two main distribution routes in China. In the same way that businesses are divided into offline and online divisions, educational institutions are divided into international, public, and university divisions. They mostly work in language institutes and schools that cater to expatriates.