A Study On Medium Of Instruction In English Teaching For The First Year Students Of Middle School In Urban Areas

In China, the medium of instruction use in foreign language teaching has beenstudied by many researchers. However, they mostly focused on university Englishclassrooms or big cities’ English classrooms, very few probe into the study of middleschool in urban areas. Due to the insufficient studies of related issues, this thesis isconducted to find out whether or not the native language (besides English) should beemployed as a medium of instruction to facilitate the teaching of English for the firstyear students of middle school in urban areas and further explores when and how toemploy it effectively. Based on this study, it is expected to give some guidance forteachers in urban areas on their medium of instruction use and improve their teachingefficiency.In order to answer the research questions put forward in this study, this thesisemploys qualitative and quantitative method. The instruments include the classroomteaching experiment, classroom observation and questionnaires. All the data will beanalyzed by the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS).The study mainly conducted in the following procedures: firstly selecting subjectsand conducting a classroom teaching experiment, secondly conducting classroomobservations and then transcribing and analyzing the data collected, thirdly requiringteachers and students to complete the questionnaires, finally administering the final test.Based on the statistical results from the classroom teaching experiment, classroomobservations and questionnaires, the major findings of this study are presented in thebelow:First of all, as the experimental study shows, there is a close relationship betweenstudents’ learning outcome with teachers’ medium of instruction use. And for majority of students, the class using both English and Chinese as medium of instruction issuperior to the class whose medium of instruction is English-only.Secondly, all the results indicate that for beginners, Chinese should be used invarious classroom activities especially when teaching vocabulary and grammar. Theteaching pattern should be L2-L1-L2at the beginning of the term and the proper use ofChinese should be controlled into approximately33%at the end of the first term.Thirdly, teachers should have flexibility in the application of Chinese and Englishin accordance with students’ level. Over time, when students’ English proficiencyimproved to a certain degree, the proportion of Chinese use should be reducedaccordingly.Fourthly, the feedback from questionnaires reveals that both students and teachersshow positive attitudes towards the use of Chinese in the English classroom, for theythink that the appropriate use of Chinese in certain aspects could reduce students’anxiety level and facilitate their English learning to some extent. They also perceive thatthe appropriate use of Chinese can establish a harmonious relationship between studentsand teachers and make class in order sometimes. In addition, they think that Chineseshould be used appropriately in some classroom activities especially when teachinggrammar and vocabulary.According to the results and findings presented above, it can be concluded thatChinese (besides English) should be employed as a medium of instruction to facilitatethe teaching of English for the students of Junior1in urban areas. And it should be usedappropriately in English classroom especially when teaching vocabulary and grammar.