Some Chinese Kids' First English Word: Mickey

Five-year-old Wei Ziyun chose “Robot” as his English name after the title character in the Walt Disney (DIS) movie . Now a Disney English learning center in Shanghai is teaching him how to spell it. “Robot” and his classmates are learning the colors of the fish on Mickey Mouse’s boat and the articles of clothing Goofy needs when the weather gets cold. They should be more than proficient in English by the time the $4.4 billion Shanghai Disney Resort opens in about five years. “I want to come here every day,” the boy says after one of his twice-weekly lessons. “It’s fun to learn English.”

Disney opened its first English-language academy in China in 2008, and demand for English instruction has increased so much that the company has in the past year tripled the number of its schools, to 22. “It’s a very efficient way of marketing their brand as well as the amusement park,” says Shang Yang, chairman of Shangyang Enterprise Management Consulting. “They’re starting years early, brainwashing Chinese children and cultivating them as potential clients in a very indirect, yet penetrative, fashion.”