"Careless statement" or ignorant reading? The educational experts award teachers with teaching certificates, they set up our schooling systems, they create/oversee our college entry and English language proficiency exams, they manage CELTA, TESOL etc.

Now, many young Chinese, who wish to learn English, do not get the one language learning opportunity, because of their local system. Some of those fine people have their ambitious goals to either get into the English speaking countries' tertiary education or immigrate to one of those nations. Sadly however, they hit the wall called "English language" for the reasons that I have mentioned. So, teaching English with the help of Chinese to those youngsters is, in my professional opinion, unsuitable and perhaps irresponsible as some Chinese English teachers drill their students with 40-50 random English words that are all matched with Chinese characters daily to achieve the highest possible score in the proficiency and college entry tests to the western country.

Furthermore, on the topic of young learners of English in China, there are so many primary and secondary kids that cannot master a natural sentence in the language they have been learning for a few years intensively (in Chinglish). What do you think is their problem? You've clearly been here for quite some time. Would it be that they are shy or nervous when meeting with a foreigner? Or, would it be that they just haven't memorized the line they need to convey their idea? Or, would it be that they simply do not have the skill to make one sentence independently for they have always had the Chinese aid?

That brings me to the breakdown of how the users of English as the second language are often identified; beginners, elementary, independent (intermediate), and proficient (advanced) ones. The ability to deal with some social exchanges in English without another language may provide one with the independent status. Now, do you really believe the bilingual classroom approach improves students' chances to be classified as independent?

Last but not least, young people, who have learnt English with the two-language system, often suffer from the stress when communicating in English; the ones that are more comfortable than their unfortunate peers impose on us the ones they communicate with. Listening to my fine and hardworking Chinese coworkers is many times enlightening but also painful since they use English just like their own language (Chinese).

To conclude, I can only say that teaching English with a bilingual approach is fit for adult learners that aren't at independent level in English. Otherwise, I wouldn't corrupt the young minds for their own sake. Doing favors to students or the system backfires more often than we may think.