Thoughts on the Investigation of Bilingual Teaching Practice ?the Effectiveness of Bilingual Teaching and the Strategy for its Continuous Development(58431)-英语教育-(194)-21英语网

The globalized economic development and the popularization of the Internet have brought about confrontation and communication between different cultures. Imposed now on many countries, particularly the developing countries, it’s a serious question: in the process of economic globalization and city internationalization, how do we pick up and take advantage of the advanced technology and culture from developed countries, to develop the education in our country while keeping in our own excellent culture and tradition.

Along with the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy, China has joined WTO, and has been developing the ever-increasing exchanges with the rest of the world. English, as the world’s major international language, has been receiving more and more attention on basic education in Chinese schools. In a backdrop as such, bilingual teaching, as a supplement to the English language teaching in China, has gained appreciation from the public including schools.

One of the goals of implementing bilingual teaching should be to strengthen the English language teaching to cultivate a great number of high-quality talents who have a good command of English. On the other hand, through subject study and communication in touch with the latest scientific and technological information, the students receive new knowledge and technology more rapidly in a non-mother-tongue environment. In this practice, students are able to develop their capability in comprehensive utilization of the language as well as the knowledge in the subject matter area for cross-cultural communicating and problem-solving.

Pinghe is one of the first bilingual schools in Shanghai. We have been exploring the bilingual teaching practice for more than ten years, during which we have discovered some effective methods, learned lessons, gained some experience and had some rational thoughts.

1.Rational Positioning of School-Based Bilingual Teaching

The theory and practice of bilingual teaching have a high standard. For school teachers, in terms of curricula, textbooks, and students, bilingual teaching is rather demanding. Blindly following the trend tends to end up with halts immediately after trials. When Pinghe was founded back in Year 1996 with its mission statement as‘Elite World Citizens of High Caliber’, based on which English teaching was given a proper level of priority in the process of school-based curriculum designing and textbook selecting as well as the evaluation of course management. Pinghe now has a total of 1520 students from 25 countries and regions with the predominant local students from 27 provinces and autonomous regions in this country. Our parents are by and large senior executives of international corporations, returned scholars from abroad, and elites in all walks of life in the country. Their choice of Pinghe is an expression of their recognition of the mission statement of Pinghe and their appreciation of the school feature,particularly after we introduced the IB program in 2002 and began sending excellent students to the top-notch universities in the world 3 years later. The mission statement of ‘Elite World Citizens Of High Caliber’ has transformed to be the best conjunction between educational pursuance and diversified choices of the market, and we are now becoming more confident in sticking to our mission statement for sustainable development based on our school feature. In such a context, bilingual teaching becomes consequently an important supplement to the study in non-mother-tongue environment as well as a spacious platform for the development of the teachers and students alike. If the choice of ‘bilingual teaching’ made by Pinghe ten years ago was based on building a school with merits, by this time we have already crossed the blind zone in recognizing and practicing bilingual teaching. Training ‘Elite World Citizens of High Caliber’ has become the guiding principle of our self-conscious thoughts and initiative choice.

2.Conscious Action of Training Bilingual Teachers

The quality of the bilingual teachers has always been considered a ‘bottleneck’ issue. In our years of practical exploration, Pinghe has been focusing on the development of an excellent team of bilingual teachers. As of now, 40% of Pinghe’s teaching staff members are bilingual teachers. The continuous, balanced development of bilingual teaching has become one of Pinghe’s school features.

The merits in the team building of bilingual teachers at Pinghe are as follows:

(1)Strict on Qualifications

Teachers at Pinghe must meet the standard of bilingual teacher qualification confirmation and will then be recognized as Pinghe bilingual teachers. The teachers must be competent in his/her field as well as having a fairly good command of English and a good mastery of technical terms in the subject matter area. On top of that, they must guarantee a certain number of bilingual classes and have teaching demos within the school on a semester basis. Moreover, their teaching plan of each bilingual class must be submitted to the school.

(2)Broad Range of Subjects

Currently, our school enjoys the broadest range of bilingual classes amongst schools of the same type in Shanghai, covering eleven subjects—Math, Physics, Chemistry, Science, Music, Physical Education, Fine Arts, Computer, etc. For example, in high school all teaches give bilingual or English classes except Chinese language teachers.

(3)High Teaching Standard

A stabilized team of bilingual teachers in our school continuously gains experience and raises its teaching standard. In the trainings program of the district and/or city level, our bilingual teachers are often chosen for teaching demo classes and are recognized as excellent trainees.

Measures Taken by the School in Team Building of the Bilingual Teachers are:

①Upgrading teachers’ recognition of the essence and goal of bilingual teaching

Bilingual teachers are direct implementers of bilingual teaching, therefore, are a prerequisite for possible bilingual teaching and its effectiveness. The misconception in the recognition of the essence and goal of bilingual teaching often leads to blindness at some point in implementing the teaching. For some, raising students’ English level is the sole goal of bilingual teaching; for others, that is developing students’ bilingual capability. These normally cause incorrect positioning and choices of teaching objectives, contents, texts, methods and evaluation criteria, including students’objectives of study, approaches of study, methods of study, etc., which eventually leads to failure of fulfilling the goal of bilingual teaching. In fact, bilingual teaching aims to help students with their comprehensive capability of the English language and the knowledge in the subject matter area for cross-cultural communication and problem-solving. The ultimate goal of bilingual teaching is henceforth to enhance the development of one’s thinking and expressing in English in a good language environment lying in a process of extending ability and intensifying application. This explains why teachers’ recognition of the essence of bilingual teaching tops among all, and is considered the top priority in order to make possible effective and sustainable bilingual teaching.

②Commitment to the Professional Development of Bilingual Teachers

Bilingual teaching is demanding in the teachers’ comprehensive capability of the English language. The majority of our Chinese teachers lacks a study experience abroad and is not all competent in English. On the other hand, teachers with a good command of English don’t qualify as a specialist subject teacher. This is a common problem schools have been confronting. To solve this problem, Pinghe has adopted the following measures:

①Employing overseas Chinese specialist teachers with a solid subject background, or people who completed their master’s or doctoral degree abroad to carry out bilingual teaching.

②Selecting teachers with a solid foundation in the subject matter area as well as good English skills to be primary resources for bilingual teachers.

③Encouraging teachers with a solid subject background to take training programs in English;

④Building up reserves of prospective bilingual teachers – for example, teachers with dual degree.

⑤Providing bilingual teachers with chances to study abroad on a semester basis and participate in specialized workshops abroad

⑥Strengthening on-campus training for bilingual teachers, offering on-campus workshops conducted by reputable mentors from abroad, encouraging both foreign and local teachers to participate in workshops on bilingual teaching seminars as well as working in the same office.

Through the various on-campus training programs at school, bilingual teachers have not only grown the awareness of the great importance of self-study in bilingual teaching, experienced varied concepts of the foreign teachers but also enabled themselves to realize the different perspectives on the connection of languages and cultures between China and the western countries. The collision between different cultures, concepts, and teaching philosophies injects fresh blood into the designing and teaching process, therefore it secures the effectiveness and continuity of bilingual teaching.

In the current stage, the above mentioned measures for the team building of bilingual teachers have a high level of feasibility-taking the current practical environment into account while laying down the foundation for the middle or long term development of the school’s bilingual teachers. Based on the exploration and practice of Pinghe over the recent years, the above mentioned measures proved to be able to improve the teachers’ English ability rapidly and effectively while making it possible for them to learn about the latest academic achievements both home and abroad, advanced teaching concepts and scientific pedagogy so as to lay down the foundation for the implementation of bilingual teaching. （to be continued）