Mother-Tongue Education Development, Direction And Strategies Of The Philippine Chinese Immigrants In The Perspective Of Ethnic Cultural Identity

Mother-tongue education of immigrants is an important issue in the context of global multi-culture. The research focuses on the mother-tongue education of Chinese ethnic immigrants in the Philippines. First of all, the study identifies with Professor Zhuang Guotu's definition on the Chinese ethnic group:a stable group consists of Chinese immigrants who keep Chinese consciousness and their descendants, which is often considered as a minority to be one of the components of host-country ethnics (rather than Chinese). The identification with the host-country politics is the main indicator of the formation of the host-country Chinese ethnic. Secondly, this study suggests that the common language of Han nationality (including oral and written language system), which is taken as the "native language" of Chinese ethnic, should be recognized as "mother tongue of Chinese ethnic." According to UN Charter, mother-tongue education is the basic human rights given to all citizens of the world. For the Chinese ethnic, as a minority in the Philippines, the mother tongue is not only a communication tool, but also the important tool to interpret national traditions and ethnic identity. It is right the symbolic value attached to language that enable mother tongue to maintain a huge source of inspiration.This study organizes the Sino-Philippine relationships and the brief history of Chinese immigrants, reviews the development tracks of intergenerational Chinese ethnic (overseas Chinese) mother-tongue education, and explores five Chinese ethnic (overseas Chinese) generations in the aspects of different fortune, cultural mentality, and vicissitude of cultural adaption and its historical connection with the development features of immigrant mother-tongue education of those periods. The study shows that the cultural identity of the Chinese ethnic (overseas Chinese) group and mother-tongue education interact each other as cause and effect and they reinforce mutually. As the common psychological quality of Chinese ethnic community, ethnic identity of Chinese ethnic (overseas Chinese) is the base of the mother-tongue education and the cornerstone of success; mother-tongue education is the tool to maintain ties and cultural heritage of Chinese ethnic (overseas Chinese) group and it has regurgitation-feeding effect on ethnic identity. This exploration of the connection also paves the way to make new theory of the development strategies of Chinese immigrant mother-tongue education in the new period.This study focuses on the current mother-tongue education of the Philippine Chinese ethnic in the new period. Besides the investigation of the educational fundamentals based on the three elements of education, the author conducted a survey of ethnic idontity status and mother-tongue learning attitudes of the Philippine Chinese ethnic high students by questionnaires of large-scale stratified random sample. The survey results show that the majority of the Philippine Chinese students are in the status of identity-based cultural adaption:strong recognition of the host country -- the Philippines but low level of Chinese ethnic identity. The finding directly affects the students' motivation and attitude of learning Chinese language. The research reveals the mother-tongue education difficulties which the fifth-generation Chinese immigrants are encountering, and brings forward the harmonious development strategies of the Philippine Chinese ethnic immigrants' mother-tongue education in the new period, based on the mainstream social environment which education is rooted in, ethnic group theory and multicultural education theory.