English as a global language in China

Abstract

While the first decade of the 21st century witnessed an unprecedented level of popularity in English across China, the last ten years have seen a fall in the status of English and a meteoric rise of the importance of the Chinese language and culture in the education system (Feng & Adamson, 2019; Pan & Wang, 2024). The changed status of English was exemplified in the 2017 English curriculum standards (2017 ECS) for senior high school students (aged 16–18). A few years after the implementation of this curriculum, this paper explores how teachers and students perceive the changed status of English as prescribed in the 2017 ECS, and what this means for the role of English as a ‘global language’ in China.