Are English classes successful?

bluesky (US)

I taught Oral English in a rural village in Hunan. The level of English of my high-school students was miserable. In thousands of students, I never met one who could speak with any degree approaching proficiency. The clearest reason to me is the poor quality of Chinese English teachers. While many of them did speak English well, almost all had very strong accents or simply couldn't speak the language they were teaching. I ended up basically teaching 50/50 in Chinese and English so that there would be some comprehension. Ideally I wouldn't have to use Chinese at all, but that would be useless—the students never understood anything beyond single words.