An Investigation On Primary School English Education In Dai Ethnic Areas

The third language acquisition research originated from the western trilingualism or multilingualism in 1970 s.It was introduced into China in the 21 st century.With the introduction of the third language acquisition research from abroad,the domestic researchers have begun to explore the practice of the third language education of the ethnic minority groups in China with help of the foreign the third Language acquisition theory.In recent years,China has made great progress in the third language acquisition research,which plays a guiding role in the third language education of ethnic minorities.However,due to the extensive distribution of ethnic minorities in China,the third language education of a large number of minorities,such as Dai nationality,has not yet been paid attention to by researchers.In addition,since the suggestion of actively promoting the creation of primary school English curriculum in 2001,the research on primary school English education has been increasing in number.However,in the previous research,the dimensions of research in the area are very limited;also,in the past researches,there have been few literature on Dai nationality English education as a special subject.Therefore,this paper summarized the important dimensions of primary school English education on the basis of the existing related researches and monographs and explored: What's the situation of English education in primary schools in Dai ethnic areas? Specifically,how is the English curriculum in primary schools in the Dai ethnic areas? What about the teachers? What about the learning of Dai students? What is the status of teaching resources? How is the teaching practice? What is the status of teaching and learning evaluation?In this study,167 Dai students,an English teacher,a teaching administrator,and twelve parents from X Primary School in Jinggu Town,Yunnan province were studied.The data were collected through the questionnaires,interviews and classroom observation.SPSS19.0 was also used to analyze some data.The results are summarized as follows:1.The curriculum was unreasonable.The primary school English curriculum in the Dai area was set earlier but with fewer course hours.And the aims and the content of the course could not meet the requirements of the primary school English curriculum standards.2.The teacher staff were weak.First of all,the number of the English teachers in Dai minority areas was insufficient.Secondly,the English teachers' quality was not high.Although the professional English teacher could meet the need of the primary school English course,the teachers' teaching ability couldn't be improved due to the insufficient classes and the lack of effective evaluation mechanism.3.The learning of Dai students was not good.First of all,there were not many students who had studied English before the English course was started at the school.Secondly,there were not many students who were interested in English.Thirdly,the number of students who were interested in learning English was to be promoted.Then,there were still a large number of students having no effective learning methods.Finally,There was the lack of the understanding of the learning superiority of the Dai students.4.There was the lack of teaching resources.The nationality particularity wasn't considered in the teaching materials;the advanced teaching equipment wasn't effectively used;there was the lack of the necessary communication and contact between the student's families and the school;the primary school English curriculum was not paid attention to by the people concerned at school or outside where some special support wasn't provided.5.The teaching practice was at an elementary level.The teaching activities were separated from the teaching principles;the teaching methods were rather rigid and old with “one size fits all” phenomenon;the classroom management was also very casual;there was no difference between Dai students and Han students in terms of the teaching principles,teaching methods and the teaching management.6.There was the lack of an effective evaluation mechanism.First of all,the school student assessment was not reasonable,the evaluation form was single,and the evaluation content was not comprehensive.Secondly,there was the lack of an evaluation mechanism for the teacher in the school.According to the above findings,some suggestions were put forward for the improvement of the curriculum,the teacher,Dai students' English learning,teaching resources,teaching implementation and teaching evaluation in Dai nationality primary school English education.It is hoped that this research can play a role in attractingattention to this topic and provide some reference for the future research.