An Investigation On The Present Situation Of The Bilingual Teachers In Higher Education

With the development of the reform and opening up of China and the frequency of international communication, there is an urgent need for compound English talents. They should excel not only in academic field but also in English competence. However, the present English teaching in China fails to take on this demanding responsibility, for it has been long criticized as being time-consuming and low-efficient. Under such a situation, bilingual education has been put forward and made one of the focal points of the educational reform. However, since bilingual education is at its primary stage in China, there would be some problems existing, among which the language competence and the specialty competence of bilingual teachers become the focus of these problems. The lack of qualified bilingual teachers has become the bottle-neck of bilingual education. Therefore, it has practical significance to investigate the present situation of bilingual teachers in higher education.This study aimed to investigate the present situation of bilingual teachers in order to find out whether they have met the specific requirements, and at the same time, to study their difficulties and dilemma in the process of bilingual teaching. Based on these, some suggestions on bilingual teachers' training are given. Through this study, we have got the first-hand materials of the present situation of bilingual teachers in higher education in China.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One mainly deals with the background, the purpose and significance of the study. Meanwhile, the concept of bilingual education and bilingual teacher are defined. Bilingual education is the use of a second or foreign language in school for the teaching of the content of certain courses. Bilingual teachers refer to the teachers in higher education who can use English skillfully to teach the non-linguistic subjects. The aim for doing so is to clarify that the bilingual education in China could not learn from what is available in other countries. Meanwhile, the bilingual teachers' training should have some "Chinese characteristics".Chapter Two serves as a theoretical base of this whole study. First, some specific requirements of qualified bilingual teachers are explained. To sum up, these requirements are being bilingual, having a higher educational background, mastering a series of mature bilingual teaching methods and receiving some formal teaching training. Furthermore, the relevant studies on the situation of bilingual teachers are introduced, pointing out that, at present, bilingual teachers in higher education are generally composed of competent English teachers with certain knowledge of subjects and specialized teachers with some English capabilities.In Chapter Three, research questions, research subjects, and research procedure are specified respectively. Based on the previous study, three research questions are formulated. They are: How about the bilingual teachers' language (English) competence? What are their strengths and weaknesses in teaching practice respectively? And what are the possible ways to improve their quality? We designed two versions of questionnaires for data collection. One is for bilingual teachers. The investigation is from five aspects, including self-evaluation of English competence, teaching method, strategies of improving teaching, self-expectation and suggestions on training. The other questionnaire is for the bilingual learners, aiming to get a relatively whole picture of the bilingual teachers. Informal interview of the bilingual teachers was also used as a supplementary instrument. All of the data were typed into computer and analyzed by SPSS 12.0.Chapter Four is the major findings of this study. Data analysis shows that most of the bilingual teachers' English competence could meet the needs of bilingual education, yet there are still some aspects needing to be improved, especially their writing competence. The majority of them have already mastered scientific teaching methods and strategies, but compared with the bilingual learners' needs, it seems that some improvements should be made in the future. Bilingual teachers have got many self-expectation and they wanted more training to help them face the new challenge. At the same time, they made some suggestions on the specific aspects of training.Chapter Five is the conclusion of the whole thesis. In order to improve the quality of bilingual teachers in higher education, some measures should be taken. Both the teachers and the programs or universities should make efforts to improve the practice. It is hoped that this study can be of some help to cause more attention in this aspect for further improvement.