Owners and staff at the 1,400 net cafes in Shanghai have been required to take English lessons for the 2010 World Expo.

The two-day training course aims to enable the staff working in Shanghai's Internet cafes to speak simple English in talks with foreigners, said Ai Hao, assistant secretary of the Internet Service Association of Shanghai.

"It is expected that a growing number of foreign tourists will visit the city's net cafes during the World Expo," she told Xinhua.

The first batch of 144 owners and staff from 36 Internet cafes in Xuhui District began to take training courses covering English tips, information about the Expo and customer service techniques on Tuesday.

The whole program will finish by the end of October.

Ai Hao said every cafe should send four staff members on the training course, including the legal representative, the owner, a web administrator and a waiter.

But some net cafe owners doubted the effectiveness of such a short program.

"I can't imagine how can we master everything on the course in just two days," a manager of an Internet cafe in Changning District surnamed Weng told Shanghai Daily. "Most of our employees only have a high school diploma."

"In some cases, all they know are the 26 letters of the English alphabet," he said.

Meanwhile, some are also complaining about the charge for training as every participant will need to pay a tuition fee of 400 yuan (58 U.S. dollars).

"Even if it's free, we would prefer not to take the lessons," said a net cafe owner surnamed Li in the Pudong New District who said his cafe is understaffed for the time being.

Source: Xinhua