A Study On The Status Quo And Countermeasures Of Bilingual Education In College Specialist Courses

This dissertation first classifies bilingual education in college specialist courses advocated in Chinese as classroom bilingual education on the bases of the criteria that it occurs in a foreign language context (contrasted with countries where English serves as native language or official language). With the comparison the dissertation points out that Chinese bilingual education in college specialist courses is distinguished from other models of bilingual education in the aspects of teaching purposes, the target language to be learned and the language acquisition environment. Whereas the others perceive bilingual education mainly from an ethnical point of view, the supreme aim for Chinese college bilingual education is to equip the learners with a specialist English ability to accommodate the economic globalization trend and technology revolution challenge and their future work-needs in international affairs.The dissertation studies the status quo of bilingual specialist courses from English learning perspective based mainly on Ellis'external factors affecting the L2 acquisition to find out whether bilingual education in western college specialist courses can reach the target set by the Education Ministry and how it can. A case study is carried out at Chongqing University with the instruments of classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires. According to the data analysis, we find that the attitudes of both teachers and students towards the bilingual education programs are positive; we also reached the following conclusion:1. Bilingual teacher is one of the most important factors in improving the quality of bilingual education programs; therefore, regular training for bilingual teachers is necessary;2. A proper link should be established between bilingual specialist courses and College English courses, and the communications of the relevant specialist courses in bilingual education will help the students prepare for bilingual education programs;3. Bilingual teachers should mainly use English in class, and they should also utilize Chinese as valuable resource when need arises. While improving various input aspects, bilingual teachers should pay more attention on output.4. Bilingual courses should use original English textbooks. These textbooks should be selected to reflect the latest development of the field concerned. Based on Krashen SLA theories, Swales'theories on genres, and the data collected from this empirical study, a practical model is put forward which integrated all the critical factors necessary for a successful bilingual class.