The Case Study On The Trilingual Teaching Experiment Of English-Dong-Chinese

Language education is the core of the national education in China. For the language education of ethnic minorities, the selection of medium language of instruction influences directly the effect of language teaching. From 2002 to 2005, a research of the trilingual education experiment of English-Dong-Chinese in the ethnic minorities schools in Dong areas were taken in Guizhou and Guangxi Provinces, and as the experimental schools,7 primary schools and high schools of ethnic minorities took part in this research. The result of the experiment showed that the trilingual education experiment of English-Dong-Chinese had gained a very good teaching effect, and the students' English had developed greatly. At the same time it also had aroused the students' interest of learning English, and kept the enthusiasm.Mother tongue is the most suitable teaching language, but in most ethnic minorities areas of China, language teaching use the bilingual instructional model of English-Chinese. For ethnic minorities students, English study and Chinese study are both the second language study. Thus, taking the second language, Chinese, as the medium language of instruction in English classes makes English study of ethnic minorities students more difficult. In the trilingual teaching of English-Dong-Chinese, the mother tongue of students of Dong, Dong language, is one of medium language of instructions, and has positive effect on English study of students of Dong to an extent as great as possible, and it is a helpful try indeed.Mainly by using the field study of anthropology, the research adopted the methods of observation, interview and questionnaire. By investigating the relative cases on the trilingual education experiment of English-Dong-Chinese and the teaching experiment of Chejiang Junior High School, combing with the analysis of literature and data and the instruction of relative theories, the analysis on the trilingual teaching of English-Dong-Chinese is as follows:First, combining the culture of Dong with English teaching and use the culture value of language can promote the transforming students' knowledge into abilities, and then the good teaching result is achieved. Second, because students of Dong have not form the habit of thinking with Chinese, adding Dong into English teaching can reduce their cognitive obstacle in information processing and thinking transformation. Third, by using Dong and Chinese to do the coding and decoding during the English teaching, this trilingual teaching mode can greatly improve the efficiency and quality. In addition, using teaching strategies correctly can help students take the positive transfer from Dong to English learning, and stimulate their learning interest, which make the English teaching more effective. Fourth, it is necessary to take the trilingual teaching of English-Dong-Chinese-it is the real need for today's social development, and also the actual need for the English teaching in ethnic minority schools in minority regions, it is the subjective need of the students and teachers of Dong as well. Fifth, the trilingual teaching of English-Dong-Chinese has its limitations in nationalities, regions, the language mastering degrees and learning stages. The reason why this teaching experiment did not be spread is that there was lack of the support from schools and relative departments, and teachers did not make agreement with it. If we would improve the trilingual teaching of English-Dong-Chinese, we must establish and improve the teachers' training of the trilingual teaching, develop the school-based curriculum with the characters of nationality and pertinence, and adjust the using way of medium language of instruction according to the characteristics of the students in different stages.Although the trilingual teaching of English-Dong-Chinese is a case, it has the very important meaning to research it. In the view of theoretical meaning, it can make us thinking the selection of medium language of instruction in English classroom under the trilingual condition, it can also enrich the researches on trilingual education and trilingual teaching and the research on English teaching theory in the primary schools and high schools of ethnic minority regions. In the view of practical meaning, it provides some references not only on developing the trilingual teaching of English-Dong-Chinese in Dong areas and solving specific problems during the process, but also on solving the general issues of language teaching mode in the English education and teaching in ethnic minority areas in China.