English is almost a compulsory subject in Beijing's kindergartens as a growing number of parents want their children better equipped for future.

At the Beijing Sunshine Bilingual Artistic Kindergarten at Jiaomen, a dozen children imitate their foreign teachers and practice pronunciation.

They can clearly pronounce English words like "apple ", "banana ", "rabbit", "panda" and each has an English name given by the teachers.

Zhang Xi, the nursery school's youngest, aged one and a half, has picked up more than 30 words after only two months.

Seeing her greeting people in her limited English, Zhang Yongxiang, her father, could not hide his joy and said, "I can't believe she learns so quickly."

According to the school dean Zhang Yuxiang, although China's educational authorities do not require kindergartens to open foreign language classes, the school has employed four foreign teachers from Britain and Canada to meet the parents' requirements.

Statistics show that there are more than 3,000 foreign languages training institutions in China with the annual turnover exceeding 10 billion yuan (about US$ 1.2 billion).

(Xinhua News Agency November 11, 2001)