CRI听力:Shanghainese Speaks Better English than Hong Kong Citizens

Reporter: Education First, an international education company has recently yielded its fourth English Proficiency Index report, which is based on the data from 750,000 adults, aged 18 and above, who took English tests in 2013.

Christopher McCormick is Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs with EF.

"If talking about the overall sample-size, they are even. This year we have 750,000 and last year also 750,000. We have seven years now that we've been collecting data on that, so we are in an access of where over 5-million test results have been included in our study so far. And that really helps us to track the changes over time: what countries are really taking the lead and moving ahead in these last seven years."

In last year's English Proficiency Index report, the Chinese mainland ranked at 34th place among a total of 60 nations. This year, China's position ranks 37th on a list of 63 countries and territories, which is still categorized by the report as a low proficiency level.

Christopher McCormick thinks that Chinese people have already improved their English skills year on year despite a decline in relative positions.

"China has actually been a very strong performer throughout the ranking history. So year on year China's ranking is getting better, but it is not the only country that is also improving. So the relative positions in the 1-to-63 ranking also change as other countries also improve."

Though China remains low on the English proficiency index, the Chinese city of Shanghai stands out for the first time ever, and has surpassed Hong Kong in terms of English language proficiency.

Christopher McCormick offers his analysis.

"Hong Kong has unique challenge because it has efforts at trilingual education. So if you add something, you have to take something away. So that could be one factor. And far more international cooperation is taking place in China. There are more international companies arriving here. There are more Chinese companies going overseas and working across borders. More people in China are traveling than ever before. And that's all new. And all of those factors can be drivers for improving English proficiency faster than what you are seeing happen in other places."

This is the fourth edition of Education First's English Proficiency Index report, which has been issued annually since 2011. Christopher McCormick expects this report may exert an expected impact.

"So the EPI was created in a spirit of trying to provide more information to make decisions, to make policy decisions, to shine alight on the actual reality of English proficiency in a country and give people a chance to think where are we in relation to other countries. What we are doing is going to help promote English as a valuable tool for a success, for prosperity, for communication and collaboration."

The report also shows that adults in Denmark are the best non-native English speakers in the world, followed by those in the Netherlands and Sweden.

For Studio Plus, I'm Xu Fei.