A Survey On Bloomfield's Structural Linguistics In Foreign Language Instruction

Leonard Bloomfield is one of important founders of American structural linguistics, but his research was not merely limited in the analysis of linguistic theory, and at the same time, he also focused on the application of linguistics that it is especially called the applied linguistics in the field of language teaching. He paid attention to the combination of the structural linguistic theory and language teaching and made significant contributions to the designing and implementing of American Army Language Training Program (ALTP) during the period of World War II. Therefore, this program was successful. After the war, this language teaching theories under the guidance of his structural linguistics was wildly applied in different American schools. Even nowadays, his language teaching theories have been still referenced and applied. This study tries to integrate the Bloomfield's language teaching theories into College English Instruction in China.To begin with, this study excavates the Bloomfield's language teaching theories through investigating ALTP. "Listening and speaking go first" is the essence of his language teaching theories, which is embodied in the following two aspects:on the one hand, the first aspect of the teaching ideas is informant, on the other hand, it is overlearning. The former is also called native speaker, because Bloomfield considered that the language learners should get a great number of opportunities to listen and imitate speech from native speakers as possible as they can and then should obtain the nearly standard and native pronunciations and speech. When the language learners imitate the speech of native speakers, native people could check immediately whether the language learners' pronunciations reach the standard and native level, at least those could be accepted by natives. Native speakers must correct suddenly their pronunciations if the learners'pronunciations do not up to the standard. The latter is also called overpractice, Bloomfield considered that learning a language is not only to learn language knowledge, but also to practice the language. This practice is an overpractice but not a conventional language drill. So what does "over" mean? Bloomfield believed that when the language learners can make use of speech that has been learned without hesitation, they will really achieve "over", which is "acquisition".In the second place, this study thinks over further how transplant Bloomfield' language teaching theories and the experience of ALTP into college English instruction in China. In the process of investigating the foreign language curriculum at Pennsylvania State University, it is found that Bloomfield had drawn up a college foreign language-teaching program in 1945. There are five parts in this program including instructional objectives, class hour arrangement, course design, instructional suggestion and conclusion.To sum up, this study tries to transplant Bloomfield's language teaching theories and college foreign language teaching program into College English Curriculum in China. This study carefully compares College English Curriculum Requirement (2007) with Bloomfield's teaching ideas to find out in both many common teaching ideas. Secondly, this study takes the college English instruction of Shenyang Normal University for example and applies Bloomfield's language teaching ideas into College English Curriculum at the University. Finally, this study draws up theoretically a basic program of instructional suggestions. What's more, these suggestions will be required for further empirical study.The vital suggestions:1.To revise course design. It would be better to change the "Reading and Writing" course in the first term to the second term, since the courses in the first term mainly should focus on listening and speaking practice.2. To employ and train English native speakers as informants, who assist Chinese English instructors to strengthen their students'listening and speaking practice.