The Feasibility of Strong Bilingual Education in International School

This essay discuses the feasibility of adopting strong bilingual education in some international schools in China. It will ex-plain the theory, pedagogical principles,benefits and assessment of CLIL pedagogy.

Overcoming Language Barrier——Bilingual education in Dongxiang County,Gansu

Education has been underdeveloped in Dongxiang Autonomous County, Gansu Province, which is the only region in China where ethnicDongxiangs live in compact communities. In primary schools there, only about 20% of the pupils achieve a passing grade for the two basic subjects of Chinese and mathematics, less than one-third of the average local rate. However, this has changed markedly thanks to a bilingual education experiment.

Research on Localized English Education for Transnational Left-behind Children in the Context of English Global Localization: A Case Study of Wenzhou Overseas Chinese Hometown

With the increasing development of English globalization,the trend of combining English with local cultures has become more evident.This research focuses on five schools in the Wenzhou overseas Chinese hometown to investigate the current status of English education from the perspectives of teachers,students,and textbooks.The aim was to propose bilingual education strategies for the education of transnational left-behind children(TLC).By examining the situation of English education in this specific context,this study sought to address the unique challenges faced by TLC and provide effective educational approaches.Interviews,observations,and document analysis were employed to gather data by means of questionnaire research methods.The findings of this study settled on the improvement of bilingual education for TLC and insights into enhancing English education in multicultural settings.

On General Issues of Bilingual Education for Minority Ethnic Groups

Minority language literacy is an important issue in national education policy for any multi-nationality country.China sticks to the policy of safeguarding the rights and interests of ethnic minority groups to use their own languages and writing systems.In education,considering communications among different nationalities and the development of minority ethnic groups,a bilingual education policy is being implemented by insisting on teaching students in their own ethnic languages;when the mastery of their own languages has been achieved,bilingual teaching will be employed.There are three types of bilingual teaching for minority ethnic groups:teaching in their own languages,with Mandarin Chinese added;teaching in Mandarin Chinese,with minority languages added;teaching both in Mandarin Chinese and in minority languages.The biggest problems to be solved in implementing bilingual education in ethnic minority regions are the editing of language textbooks and supporting materials for minority ethnic groups and the training of ethnic minority teachers.

BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN THE U.S.

What is bilingual education? Why is it an important issue in the U. S.? How did bilingual education develop in the U. S.? What are variations on the bilingual concept? What is its present situation? I became more and more interested in bilingual education in the U. S. The prefix bi- of the word bilingual implies that two languages are used. The Bilingual Education Act (Title Ⅶ, Elementary and Secondary Education Act) in the U. S. makes this explicit:

Higher Education in Taiwan:An Observation Through the Perspective of English Language Teaching

Globalization has developed into an ideological discourse that drives change,because of the perceived immediacy and need to adapt to a new world order.It has a significant impact on the political,social,economic,cultural,and educational aspects.A visible transition has also been occurring in higher education.The world has grown extremely competitive because of the expending of globalization.Universities all over the world have to enhance their competitiveness through Englishization in higher education.Taiwan is experiencing educational reforms in higher education,in a way in which it is similar to other Asian nations,in order to maintain its competitiveness in the world.This article focuses on how globalization exacerbates competitiveness around the world,particularly in the educational sectors.The aim of this study is to review and to define how globalization is affecting higher education and in what way it has an impact on education policy in the context of Taiwan’s higher education.The effects of globalization on global citizenship will also be examined,in order to give a full reflection.

Exploration on Way out of Achieving Chinese-English Bilingualism from Early Childhood in China

Worldwide,there has been a number of researchers studying how children acquire two or more languages since bilingualism or multilingualism were increasingly prevalent.China,a monolingual culture is a late participant engaged in the field of bilingualism studies.Recent years witnessed a growing number of Chinese parents who attempted to raise their children bilingual by speaking English to them at home,however,relevant research on bilingualism acquisition in China lagged behind.This article reviews existing studies on early child bilingualism acquisition and bilingual parenting,displays language context in China,and explores solutions to difficulties Chinese parents face.Different from their counterparts in culturally diverse context,these Chinese parents living in a monolingual environment were confronted with unique and more challenges:the quality of English they speak as a second language to children;the quantity of English input;the monolingual environment in China;and resistance to English by children.Solutions are proposed to tackle these issues respectively.

Understanding and Explaining CLIL and CLIL in China

English, now being an international communication medium, has been promoted as the most important foreign language in school curricula in many countries. As English competence is regarded as a new kind of literacy that enables the "world citizens" to participate in the global community, various educational reforms in many countries have been implemented and new teaching approaches are introduced, aiming to provide quality English instruction for school children (Cha and Ham, 2008). Among them is a bilingual model-"content and language integrated learning (CLIL)", which serves as the umbrella term for approaches that give emphasis both on language learning and subject knowledge learning. This paper aims to start with a brief discussion of the global role of English in terms of its impact on school curricula and language policy making in EFL and ESL contexts. In the next section, further examination on sociolinguistic and cultural issues of bilingual education in EFL context will be presented and specific reference will be made to English education in China. After that, major concepts of CLIL and cognitive development theories will be drawn on to explore the benefits and potentially problematic areas in bilingual education.

Discussion and Practice of Blended Teaching in Basic Theory and Application of GSM-R

In order to accommodate the trend of high-speed railway signaling integrating with communication techniques,Basic Theory and Application of GSM-R is a crucial curriculum for students majoring in Traffic Information Engineering and Control and Transportation Engineering.It helps students to master the latest theory and application of train-ground communication techniques.However,with the application of the next generation railway mobile communication technique,several advanced communication techniques are presented in the form of English materials.It is of great significance to have a bilingual teaching mode for this course.This would contribute to cultivating research-oriented and professional talents with international competitiveness.Through the blended teaching reform of bilingual education,the proportion of topic selection of interdisciplinary research papers by postgraduates has increased from 6%to 15%.In this article,the characteristics and the current problems of bilingual teaching are discussed from theory to practice in three aspects:the production of bilingual courseware,the supplement of English materials,and the guidance of research topics.Additionally,corresponding teaching reform schemes are proposed in this article.

What Constitutes Quality in Minority Education?A Multiple Embedded Case Study of Stakeholder Perspectives on Minority Linguistic and Cultural Content in School-Based Curriculum in Sunan Yughur Autonomous County,Gansu

While quality in education has long been a significant issue,definitions of quality are often taken for granted rather than argued for,allowing the possibility that the criteria used by researchers and planners to judge quality may differ from local stakeholders’perspectives,particularly regarding the place within quality education of the knowledge,culture and language of non-dominant groups.However,there is an accumulating convergence of research that calls for assessments of quality in education of non-dominant linguistic and cultural groups that engage local stakeholders’understandings.This paper presents a recent study that attempts to do this,investigating the perspectives of students,parents,teachers,and administrators in Sunan Yughur Autonomous County,a multiethnic,multilingual district in rural Gansu,inhabited by several nationalities.Over one hundred participants in three schools were asked what was important for children to learn in school;including what aspects of local(minority)knowledge,culture and language should be taught as part of school-based curriculum.The study found three educational visions in local schools:regular urban education;Chinese-medium,multicultural education;and bilingual,multicultural education.The study also found that stakeholders support the latter vision,which reflects society’s actual cultural and linguistic pluralism,as well as much research on quality education for non-dominant groups.The paper concludes with a call for a comparative approach,both domestic and international,towards the investigation of quality education of non-dominant groups in China.