By staff reporter ZHAN NI

PUT your face into your pocket, and cry out in English with me, so that you won't lose it in the future!" Li Yang yells, while making gestures to indicate correct pronunciation, and titillating the audience into roars, whooping, and applause. Such ardor and vigor is the trademark of Li Yang's Crazy English, an unconventional method of English study that encourages learners to enunciate English as they study.

Crazy English was not readily accepted when it first emerged, as it ran counter to all traditional modes and concepts of teaching. It is in no way strange that Crazy English was initially despised and detested by the many traditional Chinese people who have long cherished the oriental virtues of restraint, modesty and moderation. But Li, a sturdy young man with bristling brush-cut hair, has never given up, despite all prejudice and opposition.

To date, Li Yang has lectured over 20 million people in China, Japan and the Republic of Korea. Over 100 members of the media from 30 countries, including Canada, the U.S and Australia, have interviewed him, and the Japanese TV station NHK has made a live broadcast of his Crazy English. A documentary film has also been shot about this latter-day legend.

Li showed no aptitude for languages during his childhood, and in his early youth he was so introverted that he was afraid to talk to strangers or go to the cinema alone. As a child he once suffered an accidental electric shock during physical therapy, but was too shy to mention it. In 1986 Li entered the Engineering Mechanics Department of Lanzhou University, but his college life did not get off to a good start. He did so badly at school work that he failed a total of 13 exams in various subjects, including English. Determined to make a change, Li devoted himself to preparing for the upcoming TEM 4, a national English exam for college students.

At first he busied himself with books full of exercises, like all his classmates, but one day he found that his study effectiveness was much improved when he read the text out loud. By enunciating what he was learning, he felt more confident and courageous, and furthermore, that he could focus his attention more closely on studying and therefore have a clearer memory of what he had learned. So every day, in a clearing on campus, he read English exercises, texts and books out loud. The effect was magic. In the TEM4 exam he attended four months later Li Yang finished all the questions within 50 minutes and won the second highest mark in his college.

Some 20,000 English learners shout Crazy English with Li Yang at the Workers' Gymnasium.

This success inspired Li Yang. He summarized his experience and gradually forged a unique method of English study that consists of listening, reading, speaking, writing and translating, and named it Crazy English. This is an effective way of improving English pronunciation, speaking, listening and oral translation. Li Yang was eager to share his experience with others who had also experienced difficulty in learning English, and one day surprised everyone who knew him by posting up a notice on campus, announcing that he would give a lecture on studying English. This lecture, the first Li had ever given, was warmly applauded by his schoolmates, despite his initial awkwardness of delivery.

After his graduation in 1990 Li Yang got a job at the Northwest Electronic Equipment Institute in Xi'an in Shaanxi Province. He went on with his Crazy English by reading English on the way to and from his office, and standing on top of the office building every morning shouting out English. In 1992 Li went to Guangzhou, and was selected from among 1,000 other candidates taking the test for a post on the English channel of the Guangdong People's Radio Station. He later became a popular English news reader at Guangzhou TV station, and the youngest member of the China Translators' Association.

In the years following Li further advanced his English via practice of Crazy English. His English became so pure that it is hard to distinguish him from a native speaker, and the advertisements he dubbed were widely broadcast in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. He is now also a noted bilingual compere in Guangzhou and a specially-invited translator at the U.S. Consulate General, and is referred to jokingly as an all-purpose translating machine.

Vexed at the thought of over 300 million Chinese people still studying English dumb and mute, Li Yang quit his job in 1994 and founded the Li Yang Cliz English Promotion Studio. In the past years his Crazy English has been accepted by 20 million people in over 100 cities in China, and inspired millions of people in their study of English.

Time Magazine once published a report on Li Yang, which read: "There was a time when diplomats needed to speak French, and doctors benefited from German. But Li Yang believes English is an indispensable language. He thinks there is one method that can help China grow strong and confident. That is to shout English out loud." This article pushed Li Yang and his Crazy English into the foreground of world attention.

With the belief that language learning will become one of the biggest businesses in the future, with Chinese and English predominating, Li Yang has set himself another ambitious target: to promote his Crazy English.Crazy Chinese world-wide and to help 300 million Chinese to speak excellent English, and 300 million foreigners to speak excellent Chinese.

Li Yang hopes that more Chinese people will go abroad to work as language teachers, as Americans and Britons have done in China, as its further opening up and increasing influence within the international community means that Chinese is becoming an important foreign language in many countries. Chinese courses are now available in many primary and middle schools in certain Western countries, and more and more foreigners are swarming to China to study Chinese.

"In the 21st century, people with a mastery of both English and Chinese will be in great demand around the world. So we must study English, and true English, in earnest. We have to grasp English before we can spread Chinese to more countries and regions of the world." For this purpose Li Yang is planning to make a circuit of foreign countries to give lectures on the Chinese language and culture. He also hopes that Chinese language and culture centers, where people may gain a better understanding of this ancient country, might be set up in foreign metropolises and leading universities.

Li has sacrificed much in pursuit of his ideal, in particular his health and private life. Overwork has resulted in various ailments such as congestion of the throat, hyperosteogeny and a slight paralysis of the limbs. This exuberant young man often dreams of retreating from the current excitement and bustle to go and rest in a peaceful place, like Lijiang, Yunnan Province for example. Such thoughts are banished, however, as soon as he catches sight of the foot-high pile of invitations on his desk.