Trilingual Education For Teaching English To Korean Chinese Students In China

Trilingual education, in this study, refers to the teaching of native language (Korean in this study), Chinese and English at the level of secondary education in the regions of national minorities. Trilingual education is a new phenomenon of minority's language education in China. It has been developed as a result of our nation's education policy for minorities to improve not only their native language (Korean) but also their foreign language (English in this study). In China, a lot of attention and investment have been put into trilingual education and remarkable achievements have been made in the field. Nevertheless, there exist some differences in minority education because of the unbalanced development in economy and culture in the vast and different areas of China. In theory and practice, minority education also has appeared to be complicated and diversified, leaving some problems to be dealt with.In studying the present situation and the problems of trilingual teaching in ethnic minority regions in our country, this thesis mainly focuses on exploring teaching English to Korean Chinese students living in the northeast part of China. The very important characteristic of trilingual education is that it can help students learn their native language (Korean) while grasping second language of Chinese and foreign language of English. This advantage helps students adapt to the need of situation at home and aboard. What's more, through trilingual education it can provide students with a tool to explore the outside world.Based on previous research and literature, I used a questionnaire, an English composition test and individual interviews as my research tools. We have found that the senior high school students'English were at the level of beginners. So they lacked enough language input and output. Their mother tongue (Korean) was found to transfer negatively to their English writing. Therefore, it is suggested that teachers should employ proper teaching methods to help students reduce the negative influence from their mother tongue (Korean) and analyze factors leading to negative influence. Suggestions and strategies are proposed in this study to help Korean students form a proper habit of writing to improve writing ability and English level. It is hoped that through utilizing the French immersion we can find the appropriate measures to deal with barriers in minority education in China and to offer helpful suggestions for the development of English language among minority people in China.