"Generally speaking, various levels of government are increasing their investment in English training, but they have also become more selective when choosing a training company, taking into consideration course content, teachers and services," Tse said.

"Now training investment is increasingly being tied to the outcome."

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Power to shift attitudes lies in language

Editor's note: Wen Jun is vice-president of Beijing Foreign Studies University, where officials have been receiving English training since 2001.

Ministers and provincial governors are serious about their English training. For many of them, it's a real challenge.

Our morning classes start at 8 am, and students start to practice as early as 6 am by listening to English tapes while taking a walk on campus.

During the 15-week group program (since it started in 2001), officials lived in dormitories at the Chinese Academy of Governance, and teachers could hear them reading aloud in the evening whenever they passed by. Some even spoke to their wives and children in English when they went home for the weekend.

Norman Pritchard, a teacher at the university, tested the students' vocabularies at the beginning and at the end of the 15 weeks.

Some of the students had improved significantly, with their vocabulary growing by 5,000 to 6,000 words.

Pritchard later wrote an article for China Daily to applaud the attitude of the officials and said they had changed his impression of Chinese politicians.

One characteristic they all shared was motivation enormous and intense. They worked for 15 hours a day to learn English, he wrote in the article.

This motivation was driven by a genuine desire to develop their language skills, not for reasons of personal satisfaction but because they sincerely believed it would make them better able to serve the people of their beloved province and enhance the image of the China, Pritchard added.

Wen Jun was talking to Jiang Xueqing.