On The Function Of Bilingual Education In Integration Of Cultural Resources

In the process of globalization, each national culture is in reality a fusion of several cultures, in spite of the fact that each national culture retains an independence from the others. English as an intangible resource and bilingual education as an effective means, which have long been neglected, will play an important role in social and economic development in China. This thesis discusses the issues such as reviewing the reasons for the implementation of bilingual education in many countries and districts and presents an appropriate definition of bilingual education in Chinese settings by summarizing different definitions of different bilingual communities. In addition, it probes the culture-related issues of bilingual education in China. First, would bilingual education pose threat to our national language—Chinese? Second, would bilingual education do harm to students'cultural identity? These phenomena are unfavorable to the future development of Chinese education as well as to other fields such as economy, culture and so on. It's always a great disadvantage to be monolingual. And finally the thesis offers some suggestion on culture teaching in bilingual education.Different factors, such as history, society, economy, politics and culture, contribute to the implementation of bilingual education in many countries and districts such as the United States, Canada and some developing countries like India. Furthermore, in these bilingual communities the interpretation of bilingual education and bilingual education models are different considering the reasons mentioned above. Through the analysis of the positive effects of bilingual education on culture diversity and culture identity, this thesis attempts to expound the necessity of the implementation of bilingual education in China in the process of globalization. Since China adopted the opening-up policy, bilingual education for improving foreign language proficiency has been developing rapidly throughout the country. But because of lack of theoretical and practical researches on bilingual education in China many people still feel puzzled at the real nature and scope of bilingual education, its impact on national culture and cultural identity and its feasibility in Chinese settings. This thesis is to define bilingual education more objectively and scientifically with the aid of theories and methodologies from relevant subjects such as linguistics, sociology, psychology, pedagogy and so on.The value of this research lies in the following aspects. Firstly, in the Chinese academic circles, English is often regarded as a foreign language in schools. The focus is mainly on the improvement of traditional four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, with the coming era of globalization, different nations and districts make more and more frequent contacts, both economically and culturally, it's time to see English language teaching from a brand new perspective. The author proposes that language should be regarded as a valuable resource and bilingual education as a means to enrich cultural diversity while at the same time to maintain cultural independence from other nations. Bilingual programs must go beyond the cultural basics to include both first and second cultures, if students are to develop bicultural proficiencies and so set the stage for participation in our multi-cultural world. Secondly, the author put forward some typical issues concerning the culture aspect of bilingual education in China. This thesis attempts to find a suitable way to deal with the relationship between national/local language and the global language—English, and the relationship between language and culture. Bilingual...