Improving English as a Foreign Language Education in China with Creative Science

Professional English is a mandatory module in all Chinese universities, being taught alongside the students major. However, students often find learning English somewhat tedious as it can seem disconnected from their major and aspirations for the future. To try to overcome this shortcoming we have introduced the use of creative science as a means of linking language learning to exploring futuristic technologies with the aim of fuelling their engagement with language learning while at the same time helping them acquire valuable creative-thinking skills. In this paper we describe a two year trial be conducted at Shijiazhuang University where we operated this scheme with two batches of students, reporting our findings which show this approach produces significant learning gains over traditional methods. Finally, we describe our plans for developing an online EFL facility based around an i-Lab in the form of a virtual spacestation.