双语教学英语版本科毕业论文-幼儿双语英语教学初探.doc

on bilingual instructions in english teaching for children by wei ruilian a thesis submitted to xian university of finance we should take full advantage of the best period to obtain “pure pronunciation” and create a lot of real language environment for perception, training young childrens imitating ability and promoting childrens english speech and handle. 3. bilingual instruction and children english teaching bilingual education is a broad term that refers to the presence of two languages in instructional settings. the term is, however, “a simple label for a complex phenomenon“1 that depends upon many variables, including the native language of the students, the language of instruction, and the linguistic goal of the program, to determine which type of bilingual education is used. students may be native speakers of the majority language or a minority language. the students native language may or may not be used to teach content material. 3.1 problems2 involved in childrens english teaching with the development of economy and more communication between different countries, english learning becomes more and more important. in the field of english education, many aspects have been improved, such as teaching environment, teaching instrument, teaching skills, teaching theories, teaching methods and so on, while its no doubt that there are still some problems exist in present day. firstly, in the face of stiff competition, teachers often pay much attention to the perfect scores of their students and often ignore to cultivate the students learning skills. secondly, in china, the roles of students and teachers in english class have not been changed yet. thirdly, we are lack of english environment, as we learn english; we usually just read the english not to use the english papers. whats more, english is a 2 杨敏，2005(5):浅论幼儿英语教学方法j，江西教育学院学报 6 kind of language, and language learning should base on culture. although bilingual teaching for children has taken effects, yet there still exist many unsolved problems. the following are four main existing problems: (1) psychologists have found that children could obtain quite complex language system and children in their three to four years old are generally regarded the best time for language development according to the law of children language development, which indicates children at this time have had the potential to learn english. however, in the real life practices and theorists researches do not match with each other. people always hold the attitude to use the outcome teaching research without digesting or considering the circumstances and uniqueness of children language development. they lack the ability to think or do the research independently that they are in the track which is extended totally by others. (2) the teachers disqualification is the direct problem in present childrens english teaching, in other words, their professional standards can not meet the demand of teaching with bilingual instructions. the pre-school period is the key and best time to require a language. in this period, a professional teacher is desperately needed to guide children so that they can lay a solid foundation for future development. those who are qualified for bilingual teaching should be both majors of pre-school education and english. at present, most of the teachers for children arent trained for teachers by normal colleges. they generally choose english as their major in the college school, but have little training as professional teachers do. so they have no access to the uniqueness for different children in the language development, not to say getting to know children psychology. many bilingual teachers do not have a deep understanding for bilingual teaching and their knowledge is shallow. whats more, they can only open english class simply as a result of lacking ability for listening and speaking, chinglish, poor sentence structure. additionally, putting emphasis on class simulation, memorizing excessively and neglecting forming their interests may put children in a passive situation. teachers are responsible for how to use english as a footstone to lay the foundation for future most extensively. (3) teaching materials are not suitable for teaching. there is variety of teaching materials in the market that it is really tough to find one suitable for children. some may cost thousands of rmb that retards the bilingual development greatly, and most of others are not strong enough to create an emotional atmosphere for english learning. emphasizing on pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar but doesnt take the rich cultural background sound a little virtual and it doesnt work well in real life circumstances. those teaching materials edited by the kindergarten itself cannot promote the development of childrens 7 language upgrade their ways of thinking due to the limits of knowledge and continuity of system. the deal teaching material should be one at reasonable price, from easy to difficult and integrate with local culture and mandatory euramerican culture. only in this way can children put what they have learned into practice and realize the difference in thinking patterns between china and foreign countries. experience the achievement in using english can further motivate childrens interests in learning english. (4) lack of fund also contributes to the difficulties in bilingual teaching for children. the teaching facilities are seldom updated and training teachers or recruiting foreign teachers also account for a good sum of money which exposes great challenge for education environment. language requiring is actually a process for endless practicing which needs supportive environment, so it calls for advanced teaching facility, excellent teachers and fund resource to back it. on the other side, funding can greatly strengthen the research and extension for bilingual teaching ideas. at present, teaching for children havent gotten rid of the mode designed for middle school students and had no specific educational ideas. most of the teachers just apply the methods and targets for middle school students mechanically and its own distinctiveness does not gain enough attention. it is well believed bilingual teaching for children will produce great breakthrough as long as abundant fund is invested in this area. all in all, there are still some problems1 existing in china education. therefore, english teaching in china should be reformed. i am willing to conclude the existing problems into four questions. 1. students: “why do we take bilingual classes?” the combination of first language subject matter teaching and literacy development that characterizes good bilingual programs indirectly but powerfully aids students as they strive for a third factor essential to their success: english proficiency. of course, we also want to teach in english directly, via high quality english-as-a-second language (esl) classes, and through sheltered subject matter teaching, where intermediate-level english language acquirers learn subject matter taught in english. 2. students: “why do we learn english in a bilingual class?” children, as the receiver of the second language, have some difficulties to adopt a foreign language without any interpretation of their mother tongue. whats more, the intelligence of the children is not mature enough to accept a foreign language directly. thus, it would be better and helpful to learn english in a bilingual class. 1 武梦辰，2005(1)：幼儿双语教学面临的挑战j，教育实践与研究 8 3.teachers：“what is the textbook in a bilingual class?” it is much better to use the bilingual textbook than pure english book. bilingual textbook can be a guide to help the children obtain english easily and have a better understanding of the english. 4. students and teachers：“how is a bilingual class going on?” for the easy part, teachers should use english to explain so that the whole class has a good english learning environment. and thus, children can understand and absorb english directly and quickly. while for the difficult and complicated part, teacher can use the native language to interpret so that students can acquire knowledge effectively. all in all, teachers should use english as much as possible rather than native language in a bilingual class. it can lead bilingual teaching to achieve the best effect. 3.2 relationship between bilingual teaching and childrens english learning how can let bilingual go well and can have been under development? what the existence conditions between the bilingual teaching of the teacher and students bilingual study？ 3.2.1 significance of bilingual instructions in bilingual teaching class, if it is only the teaching of chinese language or the teacher is fully in chinese teaching in class, which may have a lot of help for pupils chinese learning, but for the pupils, they would just contact in english, what is more, pupils are in learning language of best time, the teacher do directly result is not the primary school students english play well, for the childrens english learning, it can produce very bad influence. so in order to make the bilingual teaching smoothly and help pupils for bilingual education, must be combined with chinese and english and, to achieve the best effect. in bilingual teaching class, if it is only the teaching of chinese language or the teacher is fully in chinese teaching in class, for the pupils, its hard to understand, and not easy to accept, so it will affect the students for learning english motivation and affection. in order to mobilize students english learning of the enthusiasm and initiative, must be combined with english and chinese teaching, such already can give full play to students age and feature allows the their english study to achieve the best effect, and also improve the students motivation in english study and interest, achieve the best effect of bilingual 9 teaching. so the relationship between bilingual teaching and childrens english learning is complementary to promote each other. 3.2.2 benefits of bilingualism and theoretical foundations of bilingual education bilingual education is grounded in common sense, experience, and research. common sense says that children will not learn academic subject material if they cant understand the language of instruction. experience documents that students from minority-language backgrounds historically have higher dropout rates and lower achievement scores. finally, there is a basis for bilingual education that draws upon research in language acquisition and education. research done by jim cummins, of the ontario institute for studies in education at the university of toronto, supports a basic tenet of bilingual education: childrens first language skills must become well developed to ensure that their academic and linguistic performance in the second language is maximized. cumminss developmental interdependence theory suggests that growth in a second language is dependent upon a well-developed first language, and his thresholds theory suggests that a child must attain a certain level of proficiency in both the native and second language in order for the beneficial aspects of bilingualism to accrue. cummins also introduced the concept of the common underlying proficiency 3.3 issues to be noted in bilingual instructions 3.3.1 motivation to learn a second language research1 shows that learning motivation is of two kinds: tools of learning motivation and bleedings of learning motivation. the former refers to that learners hope get social recognition or get economic interests through the foreign language learning, the latter is the desire to like purpose language community members, and understand their way of life, values and culture and knowledge system through 1 shin, f. (1994), attitudes of korean parents toward bilingual education， be outreach newsletter, california state department of education, 5(2), pp. 47-48 10 mastering the language, and become t a member of the community of language . motivation of students learning and using the second language of primary and middle school is mainly the latter. strong learning motivation will enhance the study enthusiasm, thus improving the learning efficiency. 3.3.2 second language knowledge and skills on bilingual teaching bilingual teaching is not the same with language teaching (namely the second language teaching), which can be started and ranged from the zero point, so does not bilingual teaching. in the immigration country or different culture happened in countries geopolitical contact, where has a good environment for second language learning, both teachers sides and students sides have bilingual backgrounds, bilingual teaching are naturally well opened up. in our country, on the whole school teachers and students of foreign language degree are uneven; now bilingual teaching in full swing obviously is not realistic. but, in some big cities, it is possible to choose in some good condition of foreign language education, the overall level of foreign language of teachers and students can take the lead in high school in bilingual teaching. 3.4 evidence1 on the effectiveness of bilingual instructions there are numerous studies hat document the effectiveness of bilingual education. one of the most notable was the eight-year (1984-1991) longitudinal study of structured english immersion strategy, early-exit and late-exit programs for language-minority children. the findings of this study were later validated by the national academy of sciences. the study compared three different approaches to educating lep students where the language of instruction was radically different in grades one and two. one approach was structured immersion, where almost all instruction was provided in english. a second approach was early-exit transitional bilingual education, in which there is some initial instruction in the childs primary language (thirty to sixty minutes per day), and all other instruction in english, with the childs primary language used only as a support, for clarification. however, instruction in the primary 1 willig, a. (1985), a meta-analysis of selected studies on the effectiveness of bilingual education，review of educational research, 55, 269-316 11 language is phased out so that by grade two, virtually all instruction is in english. the third approach was late-exit transitional bilingual education, where students received 40 percent of their instruction in the primary language and would continue to do so through sixth grade, regardless of whether they were reclassified as fluent-english-proficient. although the outcomes were not significantly different for the three groups at the end of grade three, by the sixth grade late-exit transitional bilingual education students were performing higher on mathematics, english language, and english reading than students in the other two programs. the study concluded that those students who received more native language instruction for a longer period not only performed better academically, but also acquired english language skills at the same rate as those students who were taught only in english. furthermore, by sixth grade, the late-exit transitional bilingual education students were the only group catching up academically, in all content areas, to their english-speaking peers; the other two groups were falling further behind. (1) with the development of commodity economy, its necessary to associate the economic development with the world, which raises a means problem in mutual understanding and mutual communication. this method is one of the important aspects of the language problem. therefore, training and the use of foreign language talents have become very urgent questions, on the other hand, with the development of commodity economy, the relationship between people becomes more and more closely, the conflict of interest becomes more and more obvious. a person, who wants to better survive, must improve their value and communication skills, especially language ability, and this is the only way to be easier. if a person is able to master one or more foreign languages, not only can learn foreign advanced technology, but also can be in a strong position in the commodity competition. as a top talent education, which is training social elites, must conforms to and adapt to the world trend, involved in international mainstream, fostering and bringing up a high quality team, training a large number of talents with the abilities of international awareness, international knowledge, international association .bilingual education is in kindergarten to adapt to the development of the times and is a important way to improve the foreign language communication of young generation. (2) the mature of brain development and the adjustment of the language organs are gradual process of formation, but one of the most appropriate and the most rapid age stage is namely the critical period. both scientific research and practice experience prove that the language acquisition has its critical period. 12 as we all know, children of school age in life is bigger, the fastest stage of plasticity learning and memory, especially in the development of the language and the most significance. however, the current primary school set up foreign language in grade four and every week has two courses .this teaching plan to the students is older (already 10 years old) and every week of class time is scarce, and which is difficult for students to learn and grasp good foreign language. therefore, in accordance with the development of language rules, from kindergarten age three children start to learn a foreign language is appropriate. at this age they accept and reflect language quickly, especially memory is good. the experiment proves that young children learn two languages, which concludes both native and foreign language, is possible. not only enrich their