A Study Of College Foreign Language Policy From The Perspective Of Language-in-Education Planning

As a new and developing area, studies of language planning and language policy have arrested increasing attention since 1950s. Generally, language planning can be defined as a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure, or acquisition of a language or language variety within a speech community. Language-in-education planning, as one of major types of language planning, is often considered the most effective and influential means to achieve language change. The implementation of other types of language planning, like status planning and corpus planning inevitably depends on language-in-education planning. It also influences language prestige planning to a great degree.Nowadays, with infiltration of English into every field around the world, one focus of studies on language-in-education planning is the increasing impact of English in educational systems of almost all countries around the world. In the 21st century, with the development of economic globalization and cultural diversity, talents with foreign language proficiency and international competitiveness are in urgent demand everywhere. Confronted with dominance of English in the world, how to plan college foreign education has become an important part of language-in-education planning in each country, with the purpose of training college graduates who are competent in both their professions and foreign languages.Based on theories formulated by Cooper (1989) and Kaplan & Baldauf(2007), this dissertation examines college foreign language education policies in China and other countries from the perspective of language-in-education planning, including the planners and their attitudes toward foreign languages, choice of languages to be taught, the objective of language teaching, methodology and materials employed, personnel policy and so on.By reviewing the development of China's policies on college foreign language education from the historic perspective, this dissertation summarizes its features and compares it with college foreign language education policies in other countries in every aspect. On this basis, current problems with China's policies on college foreign language education are pointed out and suggestions are made for further development of the reform on college foreign language teaching in China.This dissertation consists of five chapters.The first chapter makes a brief review of research background of language planning and language policy. The definition and scope of language-in-education policy are also provided in this chapter. In addition, the current achievements and significance of this study are explained.Chapter two reviews college foreign language education policies in China since 1949, paying special attention to college English teaching during each period of time. Analysis and summary of the policies as well as their effects and influence are made at the end of this chapter.Chapter three analyzes college foreign language education policies in the United States, Singapore and Japan, and summarizes their features as well as their effects and influence respectively.Chapter four makes a comparison of college foreign language education policies between China and other countries, sums up their similarities and differences, and points out major problems with the formulation and implementation of college foreign language education policies in China. Based on experiences and lessons learnt from other countries, some suggestions are made for China's current reform on college foreign language teaching.Chapter five sums up the major ideas of the dissertation, draws a conclusion and proposes questions for further exploration in this area.By analyzing college foreign language education policies of China and other countries, we can detect some characteristics, such as internationalization-oriented and national security-oriented purposes of policy, different target recipients of foreign language teaching, singularity and diversity in choice of languages to be taught, etc.In the last years, government officials in China mentioned for more than once that it is due to poor foreign language teaching that foreign language proficiency of talents in China is inferior to that in European countries and other countries in Asia, like India, Malaysia and Singapore. Actually, this is one of the motives for China's reform on college foreign language teaching in recent years.However, with the review and analysis of college foreign language education policies in China and other countries, we can learn that this reform must be situated in China's socio-linguistic context, which is different from those in the English-as-a-second-language countries and European countries where English is the common language for communication. Therefore, despite the dominance of English all over the world, each country has to formulate its language-in-education policies, including college foreign language education policies, based on its specific needs and given socio-linguistic context.