A Study On Rural Left-behind Children’s Mandarin Proficiency And Its Development

Rural left behind children are a special vulnerable group generated in the process of urbanization development in China.The reason for the emergence of this group is that the rural economy is backward and parents need to go out to work to maintain the balance of income and expenditure of the family.Nowadays,the survival and education of left-behind children in rural areas have attracted widespread attention,but there has been little research on the language ability of left-behind children in academia.This paper focuses on the key group of left-behind children in rural areas according to the new era’s policy of "focus on the key,popularize comprehensively,and consolidate and improve",and investigates the current situation of left-behind children’s Mandarin ability through audio recordings,interviews,and questionnaires in Kaizhou District,Chongqing.A detailed statistical analysis is conducted to investigate the factors affecting the development of rural left-behind children’s Mandarin ability and to further propose strategies to improve their Mandarin ability.A total of 249 samples were collected through audio recordings and questionnaire surveys of rural left-behind children’s reading ability and listening ability.A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis is used to study,and the evaluation criteria of Mandarin ability are formulated in terms of accuracy,fluency,and emotional performance according to the Mandarin reading ability requirements of the Language Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022 Edition)of the Ministry of Education.The statistical results show that rural left-behind children have a high rate of Mandarin phonetic errors,average reading ability,and unsynchronized development of listening and speaking ability.The Mandarin ability of rural left-behind children is closely related to gender,grade level,school level and type of left-behind.In terms of gender,female students have lower Mandarin phonetic error rates than male students,stronger reading ability than male students,and weaker listening and speaking ability than male students.In terms of grade level,the rate of mispronunciation of Mandarin speech is lower in the higher grades than in the lower grades,and the ability to read increased with grade level,and the listening ability is weaker in the higher grades than in the lower grades.From the perspective of schools,the rate of Mandarin phonetic error among left-behind children in county-level schools is lower than that of left-behind children in township-level schools,and the ability to read and to hear was stronger than that of left-behind children in township-level schools.In terms of the types of left-behind children,those whose fathers are away from home had a higher rate of Mandarin phonetic errors than those whose parents are away from home and those whose mothers are away from home.The factors influencing the development of rural left-behind children’s Mandarin ability are analyzed from two aspects: family and school.At the family level,the family dialect environment and the lack of language management by the parents of left-behind children are closely related to the development of Mandarin proficiency of left-behind children.At the school level,teachers’ attention to left-behind children,teachers’ own Mandarin level,and language and cultural activities at school have significant effects on left-behind children’s Mandarin proficiency development.Finally,the paper proposes corresponding strategies at the family and school levels.It is suggested that families of left-behind children should create a good environment for using Mandarin,and parents of left-behind children should actively participate in family language management.Schools should optimize the language environment and use Mandarin as a communicative language on campus.Teachers should improve their teaching methods and teach according to the material to improve the Mandarin level of left-behind children.Families and schools should work together to ensure the development of the Mandarin ability of left-behind children.