[My Story with GDUFS]Susan And Christopher's Story（Susan's）

This year, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS) celebrates its 50th anniversary, and I was delighted to be contacted by my former colleague, Li Haili, and invited to contribute some of my memories to this celebratory volume. I was not, of course, present in the earliest years, but it is now over 30 years since I first worked there and was privileged to take part in some pioneering work in the development of material for language education in China.

It was in spring 1982 that I was recruited by the British Council to work on an exciting new project. I was to be part of a team, headed by Professor Li Xiaojiu of the Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages (as it was then). Professor Li had taken on the ambitious project of producing a new kind of English language textbook for Chinese students: Communicative English for Chinese Learners (CECL). Over the years, the team grew and changed and benefited from the work of many different people (some of them writing in this book). When I joined the project, however, it consisted of several carefully selected Chinese teachers, together with myself and another British colleague, Gail Langley.

So, in September of 1982, Gail and I flew into Beijing where we were met at the airport by a teacher from Guangwai, who introduced herself as Xiao Fu. My first impressions of China were of Xiao Fu’s smiling face - and of all the horses and carts that we saw trotting along the road from the airport to the city centre. What a contrast to the traffic jams we had encountered on our way to catch our flight from Gatwick airport! After a few days of sight-seeing, we flew from Beijing to Guangzhou, landing at a small airport which appeared to us to be in the middle of paddy fields. On arriving at the campus, we were delighted to find ourselves in such a rural place. Even today, Guangwai is a green oasis in the midst of traffic and main roads, but in those days it was well and truly in the countryside, far away from the city of Guangzhou and surrounded by bamboo groves and grazing buffalo. There was even a nearby 'lake' – actually a reservoir - where we used to swim whenever we had free time.

But free time was something that we did not have a lot of. The CECL project had very tight deadlines and there was a great deal to do. Gail and I were amazed by the sheer amount of material that was needed for just a single unit of the book. However much we produced, it seemed as if the students would just eat it all up! It seemed to us that Chinese students spent much more time with their textbooks than the students we were used to teaching in Europe. This impression was confirmed when, walking or cycling around the campus, we bumped into students with books in their hands and apparently talking to themselves in English! What they were doing of course was reciting passages from their textbooks in order to learn them by heart. We were, in fact, impressed by the level of English proficiency attained by these students who had very limited access to examples of spoken English and whose only contact was through their teachers and their textbooks. Professor Li, however, was less than impressed when we praised their skills; she thought them too bookish, and was keen to offer them a learning experience that would leave them better prepared to communicate in the wider world. This was more of a challenge than it would be today. On returning to the campus in 2014, I could see that - in China as elsewhere - the advent of personal computers and global social media has changed the way in which students can relate to the world. The students who walk around the campus these days have instant access to a range of English language material - at a single keystroke or tap of the screen. Back in 1982, no such technologies were available.

A key principle of CECL was that it should contain as much 'authentic' English language material as possible. The meaning of 'authentic' in relation to teaching materials has been much debated, and we spent many hours with the CECL team discussing this point; in my head I can still hear the echo of the discussions which rang around the CECL office in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. They sometimes became very heated, but the team shared a strong sense of humour and our sessions were usually accompanied by much joking and laughter. I was fascinated by the way the conversation slipped in and out of the three languages. Today, I would see that as a wonderful opportunity to study code-switching, but in those days I was just too busy with CECL and the need to get on with the job. Professor Li was a demanding project leader, but she herself worked harder than any of us. On several occasions, we left the office saying that we needed to 'think about' working on a new exercise or activity – then came back the next morning to find that she had produced the new material overnight.

Of course, Gail and I were not the only 'foreign experts' on the campus and – quite apart from our value to the various projects we were working on – we all provided a rich source of entertainment for our Chinese colleagues. The campus was a tightly-knit community and very little went unobserved. Many of us were not used to such close observation, and it took us some time to realise it was there. When a group of us went for a midnight swim in the reservoir, for example, we were naïve enough to think it was a coincidence that the next day we heard tales of legendary monsters who lived in that water. Our shopping habits, too, must have been amusing to the observer. Every week, a little van took us into the city of Guangzhou – some of us to sit and drink beer in the luxury of the Dong Fang hotel, some of us to take on the challenging task of shopping. In my diary for that year I wrote:

‘Shopping here takes on a whole new dimension. We foreign teachers emerge from the Institute like an army on the forage; we spot and swoop and carry home in triumph. On the bus back we discuss each other's purchases with primitive attention. The rule is: if you see it and want it, buy it - because it won’t be there tomorrow…’

My biggest 'secret', however, was that I had met the man I was later to marry! At the beginning of my second year on the campus there was a new arrival of 'foreign experts', including one very tall man from the north of England who had brought his eight-year old son. On first meeting, I decided that I didn't like him at all and so, if we had met in England, that would have been the end of the story. Campus life, however, was relentless in throwing people together and it was very difficult to avoid meeting each other. So by the time we left China in July 1984, Chris, Bill and I flew out on the same plane on our way to life together in London. My ‘surprise’ announcement to the CECL team came as no surprise at all. ‘Oh yes,’ they said. ‘We knew about it all along. We were wondering when you would get round to telling us’

35 years later, in 2014, Chris and I came back to GDUFS to do some work with Professor Wu Xudong and the team that was updating CECL. It has been a delight to get to know the campus all over again and to discover that some things have changed a lot, whereas others have remained the same. But that’s another story.

Information of the author:

SUSAN MAINGAY –Guangzhou 1982-1984

Dr CHRISTOPHER TRIBBLE - Guangzhou 1983-1984

Chris & Susan are currently lecturers in Applied Linguistics at King's College, London