The new work I promised on Li Yang and his Crazy English method has finally been published and is available for free on the Web: A Survey of Li Yang Crazy English (2.6 MB PDF), by Amber R. Woodward.
For a little more on this, see Victor Mair’s recent post on Language Log: Crazy English again.
This paper, which is some 70 pages long, includes photos and even videos.
Here’s the table of contents:
- Preface
- Abstract
- Li Yang: The Man
- Li Yang’s Background
- The Establishment of Li Yang Crazy English
- Crazy English: The Method
- Precursors to Crazy English
- Crazy English Pedagogical Method
- Crazy English Psychological Method
- The Potential for Success of the Crazy English Method
- Li Yang Crazy English Politics: The Madness
- Li Yang’s Personal Ideology
- Zhang Yuan’s 1999 Documentary, Crazy English
- Crazy English Publicity
- Government Response to Li Yang
- Connection between the Method and the Madness
- Appendix
- Survey on Li Yang and Crazy English
- Transcript of Time Asia Interview
- Transcript of Li’s Responses to Criticism
- Pictures of Li Yang Crazy English
- Bibliography
This is issue no. 180 of Sino-Platonic Papers.
Further reading:
- Crazy English, Language Log, November 21, 2007
- Shanghai Daily: ‘Crazy English’ guru a bit crazed, Shanghaiist, October 11, 2007
- more Crazy English, Pinyin News
- Crazy English in the New Yorker, Pinyin News, April 23, 2008
- “Crazy English” and Chinese nationalism, Pinyin News, July 2, 2005
Maybe Li Yang is a bit of a kook, but did she really need to so nonchalantly compare him to Hitler, Mao, or Li Hongzhi?
And this paper didn’t answer the more interesting question as to how pedagogically effective Crazy English is.