.20 1990s American Primary And Secondary School Foreign Language Curriculum Reform

Since the 90s of the 20th century, foreign language, as a carrier of information and culture, has been seriously concerned along with the globalization of world politics and economy. Every country in the world competes to improve the quality of the language of its own nationals. They regard foreign language as an important tool, to improve international competitiveness, to adapt to the globalization of economic development, to promote mutual understanding among ethnics and to raise international awareness. Therefore, they have launched foreign language curriculum reforms at full ranges. As the world's leading superpower, the U.S. has attached an unprecedented importance to the foreign language education. Under its special historical and cultural background, the U.S. carried out the substantial and achievable reform of primary and secondary school foreign language courses.This thesis applies literature review and comparative research. By learning the new round foreign language courses reform of the U.S. primary and secondary schools, the thesis analyzes and summarizes many important theoretical and practical experience of foreign language education during this reform, in order to enlighten the reform and continued development of foreign language courses in our country.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part introduces the reasons and significance of this study, together with research status and research methods. The second part analyses the background of this foreign language curriculum reform form three aspects, including the international environment, domestic environment and its problems of American foreign language education. The third part details the current foreign language curriculum standards, curriculum, curriculum implementation, curriculum evaluation of U.S. primary and secondary schools. By summarizing the main features of this reform, the fourth part points out the achievements and the issues of the foreign language courses reform. On the basis of the analysis of the latest status of our English curriculum reform and our practical situation, the fifth part puts forward the enlightenment to the reform and development of our foreign language education form the progress that the United States has made since the 90's.