An Investigation Into Bilingual Education Programs In China's Universities And Colleges

In the modern world where international economic competition becomes so fierce, mastering English skills is of vital importance in helping Chinese people to gain more competence. The comprehensive English skills of university and college students who are supposed to participate in the world competition should be paid more attention to. Bilingual education, a type of important teaching method, is well-known to be prominent in fostering a second language acquisition and enhancing the learner's comprehensive skills.Ever since the issuing of [2001]4 document from the Ministry of Education of China, many bilingual education programs have been developed for the non-English majors in universities and colleges. However, satisfactory results have not been achieved as expected. What are the chief factors responsible for this situation? What are the hindrances for the normal development of bilingual education programs?This paper attempts to solve the problems existing today in bilingual education in the universities and colleges by analyzing the findings from the investigations done among some bilingual teachers and students, who are now involved in bilingual education programs mainly in two institutions of higher learning in Yantai--Shandong Institute of Business and Technology, and Yantai Normal University.The methods the author employs in the investigations include questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations. Inductivism is employed in the research. Through the research, the following problems were found: I. Some universities and colleges fail to fully understand and carry out the policies of the Ministry of Education and take enough measures to practice bilingual education programs. II. The demand for enough qualified bilingual teachers and suitable textbooks and materials is not fully met. III. The bilingual classes are not organized efficiently.It is very important to find solutions to the above problems and propose a practical bilingual education model especially for universities and colleges. This will determine the quality of practicing bilingual education and will improve the efficiency of the programs. In view of the main problems, the paper focuses on exploring thesolutions to the problems. Paying enough attention to the bilingual policy's making, taking measures for educating more qualified bilingual teachers and providing suitable bilingual textbooks, putting more emphasis on classroom interaction, and fostering a good relationship between college English teaching and bilingual teaching, will be effective in solving the problems. Therefore, a tentative bilingual education model practical for bilingual education programs in universities and colleges is proposed for reference.