基于CBI理念的中国双语教学模式研究及实例分析

【摘要】 本文试图研究在CBI理念下如何完善中国双语教学模式这一长期以来关于双语教学可行性争论中颇受争议的论题。本文在仔细地研究了Met的五大内容教学法模式成功原因后,发现在学生需求、师资力量、学生英语水平、教材、课堂教学以及教学评估等所有的教学因素中,学生需求是起决定作用的。而剩下的五大因素都是补充因素,它们围绕学生需求,根据内容或者语言主导的原则而变动。基于这一发现,本文提出了选择双语教学模式的时候应当遵循平衡原则,即所有教学因素达到一种平衡的状态才能确保双语教学模式成功实施。本文比较了中国和其他英语为母语国家语言环境,指出在中国不仅是学生需求,同时师资力量,学生语言水平也都是决定因素。这三大决定性因素首先需要在内部相互妥协,达成一致才能继续和补充性因素合作。于是,本文进而提出了与平衡原则略有不同的妥协平衡原则。该原则可用于检测现行双语教学模式中各教学因素间是否达到了平衡,并可作为检测后如何提高该双语教学模式的依据。本文尝试着将妥协平衡原则运用于检测上海工程大学的三门双语课程。这三门课程分别代表了中国目前最典型的三种双语教学模式。通过分析问卷、访谈等方式收集到的数据,本文对此三种模式进行了评价并且根据妥协平衡原则就如何提高这些模式分别给出了建议。

CHAPTER ONE    INTRODUCTION      

Bilingual  education  has  been  a  controversial  issue  in  Chinese  foreign  language education  reform  for  many  years and  how  to  improve  a  bilingual  education  model  in Chinese special context is still in a state of mess.      

Due  to  the  special  social  contexts,  bilingual  education  in  foreign  countries  like Canada  and  America  has  a  much longer  history  than  in  China.  Among  thousands  of methodologies, Content-Based Instruction (CBI) enjoys a great popularity. It has numerous models. Most of CBI models have been tested and retested in large scale. So it is valuable to draw lessons from CBI models to Chinese bilingual education. As professor Yu Liming pointed  out  in  2003,  China  could refer  to  the  CBI  models  to  tackle  the  problem  of  the separation  between  language  and  subjects  of  the English  learning  in  universities  after observing the CBI in the University of Ottawa. 

An investigation of some principles behind the success of the five main CBI models might inspire us of how to improve bilingual education models in China. 

1.1 Background of the study  

There  are  two  incentives  stimulating  me  to  conduct  such  a  research.  One  is  the important role of bilingual education in college English reform. The other is the possibility of solving problems in Chinese bilingual education through CBI. 

Bilingual  education  provides  a  solution  to  the  current  examination-oriented  college English. Its improvement is an indispensible part of the college English reform. Chinese students  started  to  learn  English  in  middle  school  in  the past  and  today  they  start  in elementary school, however, they are found lost in the long process. Yu Liming (2007:75) finds in his interview with a number of college students, there are five obstacles in their English learning:  

(1)  lack  of  learning  aim  (2)  lack  of  interest    (3)lack  of  learning  pressure   (4)lack  of  sound learning approach (5) over-dependence on textbooks.  

He ascribes the blame to examination-oriented English education in China. The main aim of learning English formany students is to get a high mark in CET4 or CET6, a certificate important  for  hunting  a  job  after  graduation.  The  side effect  of  CET4  and  CET6  is  so overwhelming that the college English emphasizes too much on the language itself and it forgets that language is a medium of communication in essence. Therefore, language itself becomes  the  end  of learning  instead  of  a  vehicle  for  absorbing  other  knowledge.  Liu Runqing (1999:87) anticipates a transformation of college English for juniors and seniors where content instruction will be substituted for language skills instruction in future. He explains as follows:  

Firstly, language itself is a symbol system and the sense of its beauty lies in the content it carries; secondly, human beings are an intelligent creature that will suffer mental famine if the demands for their intellectual development are not well satisfied.  

Bilingual education is defined as a school education where second language or foreign language  becomes  the communication  medium  of  teaching  subjects  like  mathematics, physics, chemistry, history, etc. (Wang Binhua, 2003). Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching  and  Applied  Linguistics  (2000:44)  defines  it  as  the  use  of  a second  or  foreign language  for  the  teaching  of  content  subjects.  So  bilingual  education  can  theoretically satisfy students’ intellectual development needs. It offers a proper way out of the current dilemma of College English and can shoulder the responsibility of leading Chinese College English  to  the  new  trends  already  stated  by  Liu  Runqing above.  In  bilingual  education, English  is  no  longer  the  end  of  learning  and  the  improvement  of  students’ English proficiency is a byproduct in the process of absorbing subject knowledge.  

However, there are indeed many difficulties in the actual implementation of bilingual education  in  Chinese  context. Many people  even  doubt  the  feasibility  of  bilingual education in China. Teacher resource and students’ English proficiency are the usual targets of critiques. Some criticize the lack of qualified teachers who can take the dual roles of language teacher  and  subject  teacher  (Yu  Liming  &Yuan  Duping2005;  He  Jianju  2009). Others argue that a prerequisite for a successful bilingual education is that students must pass CET6 or get a score above 80 of CET4 (Yu Liming &Han Jianxia 2007). To some extent, the critiques exist because we lack a complete and persuasive bilingual education model which  can  make  a  balance  between  students’  special  needs  and  the  limits  of bilingual teaching conditions in China. As the teaching contexts vary from place to place in China, it is also not practical to have a standardized model for the whole country and the best  one  should  be  the  most  suitable  one  which  can  coordinate  the  contradiction  of  all teaching elements in local contexts. 

CBI  combines  subject  instruction  with  language  instruction  well.  It  has  numerous models which are born in local teaching context. As a result, it can satisfy local students’ needs and achieve fruitfulness. 

What we should learn from CBI model is not to copy its existing models mechanically, but to study the rule of its success to find out how it could create so many popular and effective models. We should make full use of these rules to improve the existing bilingual education models in China or create new models in local contexts. We believe we can solve the problems in the bilingual education gradually with the help of CBI concepts. 

1.2 The Research Question and the Significance of the Research 

In order to make sure this is a sensible study, it is necessary to gain a clear idea of the research question and the aim of this study first. 

The research question of this study is: how could we improve the existing bilingual education models in China according to the Compromise-Balance Principle (CBP)? This paper  creates  CBP  based  on  Chinese  reality  and with  the  help  of theoretical  supports  in CBI  concepts.  It  digs  the  details  in  seven  aspects  of  three  classic  bilingual  courses  and applies  CBI  to  check  them  in  Shanghai  University  of  Engineering  Science  (SUES).  It checks  the  effectiveness of the  three  courses  first  and  later  examine  the  following  six teaching  elements  respectively:   students’  needs, students’  English  proficiency  to  attend the  class,  bilingual  teacher  resource,  classroom  instruction,  teaching materials,  and assessing  ways.  It  tries  to  make  suggestions  for  the  improvement  of  the  three  courses according to CBP. 

Interview  and  questionnaireare  the  main  methodologies  used  to  gather  useful information. 

This in-depth study of the bilingual education in SUES will serve as a pilot check of the feasibility of improving Chinese bilingual education models and it tends to draw more attention to this problem so as to promote the development of Chinese bilingual education. 

CHAPTER TWO       LITERATURE REVIEW 

This chapter is a preliminary chapter for going about the following study. Since this study is a tentative research on improving bilingual education models in China under CBI concepts, an indispensable base for understanding it is to get an overview of CBI concepts which includes the definitions of CBI and the rationale behind CBI. Apart from the basic theories of CBI, the definition of bilingual education, the previous literature on bilingual education models in China should also be reviewed.  

2.1 An Overview of CBI Concepts 

Content-Based  Instruction  is  of  growing  importance  in  both  second  and  foreign language  education  in  the United States,  Canada  as  well  as  other  European  countries. Though the definitions and implementations vary slightly in different countries, what they have  in  common  is  the  fact  that  this  approach  has  gained  wide  acceptance  and enjoyed increasing popularity since the 1980s. So it is necessary to investigate this term. 

2.1.1 The Definitions of CBI 

As  the  term  Content-Based  Instruction  or  sometimes  Content-Based  Language Instruction itself indicates, Content plays an important role in this approach. It is the core which  distinguishes  it  from  a  number  of  EFL  approaches. Among  the  numerous  CBI definitions, the following are wildly recognized ones. 

CBI is the teaching of content or information in the language being learned with little or no direct or explicit effort to teach the language itself separately from the content being taught (Krahnke 1987). 

CBI refers to an approach to second language teaching in which the teaching is organized around the  content  or information  that  students  will  acquire,  rather  than  around  a  linguistic  or  other  type  of syllabus.  In  CBI, students  will  be  presented  with  interdisciplinary  material  in  a  meaningful, conceptualized form in which the primary focus is on the acquisition of content area information (Briton, Snow & Wesche,1989). 

Content-based  language  instruction  is  an  integrated  approach  to  language  instruction  drawing topics, texts, and tasks from content or subject-matter classes but focusing on the cognitive, academic language skills required to participate effectively in content instruction. (Crandall, JoAnn &Tucker, G. Richard, 1990). 

The three definitions above are the most original ones which can be regarded as the ancestors of CBI definitions and the foundation for its future development. Many relative theories  concerning  CBI  stem  from  them.  These  three definitions  explain  CBI  in  a comparatively abstract way. In a broad sense, CBI can be concrete as Stryker and Leaver stated in 1997: 

CBI can also be at once a philosophical orientation, a methodological system, a syllabus design for a  single  course,  or  a framework  for  an  entire  program  of  instruction,  and  totally  integrates  language learning with content learning.   

This definition guarantees flexible implementations of CBI as long as the concurrent learning  of  content  and  language happens.  Perhaps  that’s  why  Longman  Dictionary  of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (2000:101) explains CBI as follows: 

It is a programme in English as a second language in which the focus is on teaching students the skills  they  will  need  in regular  classroom,  i.e.  for  learning  in  the  CONTENT  AREAS  such  as mathematics, geography, or biology. Such a programme teaches students the language skills they will need when they are mainstreamed.  This  definition  uses programme  as  the  key  noun  to  explain  CBI,  because  CBI  usually appears in the form of supportive pragrammes with the aim to help minority students to be mainstreamed. 

No matter how the definitions vary from one another, the central tenet of CBI is that students  learn  language  when they  use  it  to  study  something  else  in  a  sustained  way.  In other words, the essence of CBI is that content is taught and learnt in a language which is not mother tongue of the learners. It changes the traditional “learn to use English” into “use to learn English”.  

CHAPTER SEVEN CONCLUSION    

Since  we  have  stated  that  CBP  can  be  applied  to  construct  or  to  improve &nbilingual education  models  in  China  and  each  model  should  be  unique  because  the  local  context varies greatly, we want to gather major findings of the three bilingual courses discussed above first and make suggestions on their improvement one by one according to CBP later. Besides, applications of the research, limitations and recommendations for future research will also be presented in this chapter.

7.1 Major Findings in EEA and Application of the CBP to It      

Table 7.1.1 includes the useful information of EEA gathered from the data analysis in Chapter 6. Now we want to find out whether there are problems in this bilingual course and how to improve it according to CBP by referring to the whole picture of EEA. 

7.1.1 Major Findings in EEA 

53%  of  EEA  students  think  this  course  is  difficult.  77%  prefer  traditional  language course  than  bilingual  course and  53%  think  traditional  language  course  is  better  for language  improvement  than  bilingual  class.  However, 80%  of  them  believe  bilingual course in better for the improvement in subject content than Chinese subject course. 77% of them think they have improved their language a little in the course and 100% think they have improved a little in subject content. 

From the above discussion, we think EEA is a successful bilingual class since the percentage  of  students  who  think they have  gained  fruits  in  both  language  and  subject content is very high. We will check the teaching elements in it according to the CBP. 

80% of the EEA students come to the class because it is a compulsory class and 80% of them do not care or hope the university set more bilingual courses for them. Only 40% of the students believe the bilingual course will benefit their future plan after graduation. 60% of them say they want to learn subject knowledge and improve English proficiency at the same time.  

7% of the students think their teacher is knowledgeable in subject content and 100% of them think their teacher can instruct subject content in English clearly. 60% of them say they have learned both subject knowledge and language from the teacher. 

We know there is no special language proficiency test to know students’ English level before the class from the qualitative analysis, and 67% of the students have not passed any language proficiency test. However, 96% of them say they could follow the teacher and 93%  of  them  think  they  have  achieved  the  requiredEnglish  level  for  attending  this bilingual class. 

CHAPTER VIII CONCLUSION 

We  think  the  CBP  is  of  great  significance  both  to  the  improvement  and  the construction  of  bilingual  education models  in  China.  Though  we  have  tried  our  best  to propose it based on BP drawn from Met’s CBI continuum, we still think there is several limitations in this research. The limitations lie in three aspects, which we would list in the following paragraphs for future research. 

First  is  the  specific  content  of  the  teaching  aim.  Since  we  have  not  got  the  exact teaching aims of the three courses which results in a lack of a much more specific analysis of  the  survey.  It  should  contain  not  only  the extent of  English  permeation  but  also  a classification  of  different  levels  of  subject  content.  However,  teaching  aim  is a rather complicated element to be specified and the part of subject content will be totally different from one to another. 

Second is the flexible implementation of the complementary elements. We have said that in the CBP, the complementary elements should cooperate in a flexible way to help realize the teaching aim through which they correspond to the decisive element. Since the complementary  elements  of  different  bilingual  courses  can  be  implemented  in  different ways, it seems  that  they  are  over-flexible  to  control.  It  is  better  to  find  some  common standards for them to follow. However, to answer the question what the standards should be is a difficult question itself. 

The third is that it lacks more applications of the CBP to find the flaws in it. What we have tried is to apply it for the improvement of the existing three bilingual courses EEA, FTFS and FEC in SUES. Though the three are representatives of the three typical bilingual education models in China, it still needs much more trials in various universities in China. 

We hope the CBP could trigger more insights of how to improve bilingual education models in China and the CBP can be improved with the help of more scholars who care about the bilingual education in China .
 

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