Crazy English (film)

Crazy English is a 1999 Chinese documentary directed by Zhang Yuan. The film premiered along with Zhang's Seventeen Years at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival. It established Zhang's position as a "legitimate" director after years of working independently from, and often at odds with, the Chinese authorities.

In contrast to earlier films, like East Palace, West Palace (1997), Crazy English was produced with the cooperation of the state-owned Xi'an Film Studio, which enjoys a "presented by" billing in the film's credits.

Subject

The film follows one of the People's Republic of China's most popular motivational speakers, Li Yang, the founder of "Crazy English". Li is known for his stadium-sized presentations where he exhorts his audiences to engage in mass recitations of English phrases and idioms, often with a strong nationalist bent: "Conquer English to Make China Stronger!". Li, however, has also courted controversy. Despite the fact that he teaches a foreign language, Li has never left China, a fact not revealed in the film until the end. Other common criticisms, including accusations that Li Yang is a "nationalist huckster" and that his methods do not actually improve English-speaking ability, receive a much more subtle presentation in Zhang's film.

Crazy English

Crazy English (Chinese: 疯狂英语; pinyin: Fēngkuáng Yīngyǔ) is a brand name related to a non-traditional method of learning English in mainland China conceived by Li Yang. Li believes that the traditional way of learning English in China is ineffective. Li Yang's method places heavy emphasis on practicing English orally. His method can be described with the slogan "By shouting out loud, you learn." Students practice his technique by going behind buildings or on rooftops and shouting English. They also go to his rallies and shout together; this helps them overcome their shyness (everybody is doing it, so nobody is embarrassed). In many ways it remains similar to the traditional pedagogic practices of Chinese education in that it still relies on repetition and recitation. Members of the school administration in China often disapprove of the method because they believe it goes against the traditional Chinese values of modesty and restraint.

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