Bilingual Education In Singapore Against The Background Of Globalization

On a global scale, bilingual education has become an important part of the education in some countries, especially in Singapore, for the past half century or more. With decades'of development, bilingual education in Singapore has formed a set of feasible operational systems in legislation, system and policy. In different eras, especially against the background of globalization, the Singaporean government adapted to the national political, economic and cultural development and changes. By adjusting the bilingual policies and systems in time, the government has made major strides toward carrying out the bilingual language education.Starting relatively late, China's bilingual education is still at the exploratory and experimental stage. Currently, there are many problems in China's bilingual education activities, such as a poor bilingual environment, deficient resources of teachers, students'marginal command of foreign languages, insufficient study on bilingual education theories and so on. China bears similar cultural and educational features to that of Singapore. Therefore, by learning from its success and failure, studying Singapore's bilingual education can bring inspiration to the current bilingual teaching experiments and research in China. Besides, China can blaze a correct way for developing bilingual education in conformity with its reality, by virtue of learning from Singapore's successful experience.Mainly adopting methods of literature research, induction, and comparison, this study analyzed the history and policy making and development of Singapore's bilingual education, against the background of its politics, economy and multi-culture. Especially, this study analyzed the development and changes of bilingual education policies and systems in Singapore against the general background of globalization, explored the motives for bilingual education of Singaporean government and the effects, influence and characteristics of bilingual education. Aiming at the facts, especially the problems of Chinese bilingual education, this study explored policies and measures that China government should take.This paper consists of four parts. The first chapter introduced Singapore's politics, economy and multi-culture, motives, policy making and development of Singapore's bilingual education before 1980s; the second chapter analyzed the development and changes of politics, economy, multi-culture, bilingual education policies and systems in Singapore against the general background of globalization; the third chapter explored the effects, influence and characteristics of bilingual education; the fourth chapter explored the problems of Chinese bilingual education and the policies and measures of bilingual education that suit China's reality.