A Comparative Study Of International Foreign Language Education Policies

Linguistic diversity is an essential basis of cultural diversity. Foreign language as an important content and carrier of culture, to a certain extent, inevitably reflects the features of mainstream culture and core values in society and the influences of geopolitical power. A comparative study of recent foreign language education policies in developed countries has a great social significance for planning our foreign language education policies in the new era.This dissertation analyzes strategic roles of foreign language education policy planning mainly from the macroscopic perspective of the national development. The comparative study is conducted from the interdisciplinary, multidimensional perspectives with a purpose of comparing foreign language education policies of developed countries with those of China. It consists of nine chapters as follows.Chapter One explains the concepts of key words, research methods and purposes and the structure of the research.Chapter Two probes into the background of international foreign language education policy analysis:industrialization and post-industrialization, the development of globalization, postmodern thoughts and multicultural trend and international immigration wave, and interprets the influence on the foreign language education policies in different countries.Chapter Three is a comprehensive review of the theories of foreign language education policy research and discusses the theoretical orientation of our foreign language education policies. Education policy theory can expand the vision of foreign language education policy research that covers not only text contents but the formulation and implementation and evaluation of foreign language education policies. According to the theory of language economics, foreign language education must serve the development of social economy coordinated to social development. The methods and tools of language economics that focus on price, utility, expenses and profit can make the scientific evaluation of foreign language education policy. Language ecology advocates maintenance and development of linguistic diversity is a way to protect social diversity, which is necessary to keep the balance of ecosystem. Foreign language education should improve multicultural diversity. The language viewpoints of Marxism-Leninism claim that the nature of language has no social class. However, foreign language education is not universal phenomenon, but a tool to realize ruling class's will. China's foreign language education policies should be the important content of national strategy that need the guidance of scientific development principles and serve national strategies and improve the national quality of its people.Chapter Four explains the diverse social perspectives of foreign language education policies that include cultural diversity, language rights, social identity, international relations, national security, and economy as well as language consumption. The correct language education policy should strengthen social cohesion, promote social vitality. strengthen international cooperation, and maintain world peace. China's foreign language education policy should promote cultural diversity, cultivate the prosperity and nourish all kinds of talents with good foreign language literacy and international vision, and should improve the people's ability to learn, achieve lifelong education and sustainable development so as to ensure China playing an important role in international political system in the new century.Chapter Five first summaries the history of Europe and a variety of social languages as a reality, then concludes the features of European school foreign languages education: foreign language education starts quite earlier in children's schooling and diverse choices of languages are available to all learners. The guidelines of European language education policy and foreign language education policy in Austria illustrate the core function of foreign language education in the 21st century is to promote social cohesion and political education, that is committed to lifelong learning. European foreign language teacher education policy establishes a common bench for European foreign language teacher education. The experience of European foreign language education planning in terms of administration, legislation, institution, evaluation standards and tools are very instrumental to formulate and implement our long-term foreign language education policies.Chapter Six focuses on the foreign language education policies in America. The immigrants and their linguistics diversity are better resources of its foreign language education. Through the comparison of the history and the current state in American school education, and the evolution of federal legislation, the author claims that the national language policy has shifted from unilateral policies that reflecting English centeredness to focus on multicultural fusion.The federal government plays an active role in planning its foreign language education policies that feature the national security by passing legislative and executive policies which combine foreign language education and international education. The 5Cs standards reflected contemporary language acquisition theories, represents the direction for foreign language education reform in the 21st century. American foreign language teacher education policies embodies the specialization and professional development that features sustainable development, unified, uninterrupted, lifelong development, which provides reference for China's foreign language planning.Chapter Seven firstly discusses foreign languages education in Australia, the changes from preparation of elites to all students reflects the diversified cultural policy in Australia. Three social factors contribute to the change:the constitution influence, economic drive and national security interests, social integration requirements. Australian foreign language education policies provide guiding principles rather than compulsory requirements that obstacle the provision and sustainable development of basic foreign language education. But the Australian government takes initiatives in policy planning whether it is the 1980s " the national policy on languages "or" the 1990s" NALSAS "or the national plan for languages education 2005-2008". a series of policies and measures ensure the continuity and consistency of foreign language education. The unified foreign language courses framework, the issuance of foreign language teacher standards as well as language courses design, teaching evaluation and teaching methods make it possible to achieve common goals in the country. At the national level, foreign language education policy emphasizes the importance of promoting the multilingual society, national unity, fighting against racial discrimination, the pursuit of equality, justice that are mainstream social values, which has great implications for China's foreign language education planning.Chapter Eight mainly reviews the history of China's foreign language education and presents a comprehensive literature review and a summary of the features of the four stages and analyzes the main problems that are common in current foreign language education. To solve these problems, the author puts forward some suggestions:it is very critical to have a relatively stable long-term education policy as guide; China's foreign language education should make great efforts to improve modern social civilization connotation; Foreign language education policy in the new era should promote two-way multicultural communication instead of unidirectional input or output; Foreign language education policy planning needs scientific, systematic and interdisciplinary research methods.Chapter Nine is closely related to the medium and long-term strategic objectives of economic, social and cultural development in China, and proposes some guiding principles for planning our medium-long term foreign language education policies and offers some preliminary thoughts on how to optimize the subject, object and the environment of policies and the contents such as the choices of languages, and population of foreign language education. It suggests that the construction of foreign language education policies in the new era should be closely related to the state's strategic development plan and programs such as state's medium-long term development profile for education, and human resources and coordinate the common interests of the state and the allover development of individual citizen.