Crazy English

Friday, April 25th, 2008

Li Yang, the founder, head teacher, and editor-in-chief of Li Yang Crazy English, is China’s Elvis of English. He teaches under the slogan: “Conquer English to Make China Stronger!”

Oh, and he teaches via a technique that one Chinese newspaper called English as a Shouted Language. You see, shouting unleashes your “international muscles”:

Li long ago expanded from language instruction to personal motivation. His aphorisms mingle Mao with Edison and Teddy Roosevelt. Li’s shtick is puckish and animated. He mocks China’s rigid classroom rules, and directs his students to hold his books in the air, face the heavens, and shout in unison — a tactic known in Crazy English and other teaching circles as T.P.R., or total physical response, a kind of muscle memory for the brain. His yelling occupies a specific register: to my ear, it’s not quite the shriek reserved for alerting someone to an oncoming truck, but it’s more urgent than a summons to the dinner table.

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