An Ethnograhic Enquiry Of Language Education Policy In Impoverished Areas

It is claimed that language education can help with poverty alleviation in China's Language Work Development Plan for the 13 th Five-Year Plan period(2016-2020).However,it is uncertain how language teaching and learning can exert any influence on the everyday life of the poor and improve their life condition.This paper aims to trace the implementation and appropriation of language policy of poverty alleviation from the top to the bottom,taking a middle school in an impoverished area in Henan province as an example.Adopting ethnography of language policy and critical discourse analysis in data collection and analysis,I collected data form multiple sources during the 55-day participant observation at the school.There are three research questions :(1)How are the texts of language policy explained at different levels?(2)How does the Middle School interpret and implement the language education policy?(3)How does the language policy affect students' daily language use and language learning? The findings presented in this thesis show that there is a gap between macro language policy and micro contexts,and the development of technology and transportation brings positive changes for language education in the impoverished area.