The Study On The Characteristics & The Models Of The Current Bilingual Teaching In Tertiary Institutions Of China

In China, with the increasing development of the reform and opening-up, especially after China's entry into the WTO, there is an urgent demand for more and more interdisciplinary talents who have high-level professional knowledge as well as strong foreign language ability to cope with the ever-increasing global economic, scientific and technological exchanges,and international cooperation. In China, bilingual teaching, as an instruction model, often using both English and Chinese to teach content subjects, can meet this demand. Bilingual teaching is now developing rapidly in many universities. However, the outcome of CEBTTIC (the Chinese-English Bilingual Teaching in Tertiary Institutions of China) is not so satisfactory. In order to accelerate the development of CEBTTIC, some researches have been conducted on the characteristics and the models of CEBTTIC, but most of them are concerned with the bilingual teaching in the primary and secondary education or individual higher institution. Few studies have focused on the specific characteristics and models in view of the general implementation of CEBTTIC, but because of the fast economic development in China, it is essential that the specific characteristics and the models of CEBTTIC should be examined to cultivate more interdisciplinary talents.This study aims to investigate the specific characteristics and the models of CEBTTIC by adopting the combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. 64 KJA (Key Journal Articles) and 23 EMD (Excellent M.A Dissertations) were randomly selected from CNKI (China National Knowledge Index), Wanfang and Weipu database, and all of them were published between 2007 and 2009. Qualitative data coding theories from Kellehear (1993), Strauss and Corbin (1990) and Freeman (1998) were employed to analyze these samples.The results show that there are seven characteristics and two models for CEBTTIC. The main findings are as follows:1. There are seven characteristics of CEBTTIC: the purpose, the teaching material, the teaching method, the instructional language, the teachers, the students and the effect. Of the 7 characteristics, the most four typical characteristics should be mentioned. Firstly, CEBTTIC serves four kinds of purposes: the specialty purpose, the employment purpose, the education purpose and the language purpose, among which the specialty purpose and the language purpose are more prevalent. Secondly, there are mainly five types of teaching materials: the authentic textbooks, the English written textbooks edited by Chinese scholars, the copied authentic textbooks, the Chinese written textbooks and the self-made materials. Most of the bilingual teachers are in favor of the authentic textbooks. Thirdly, CEBTTIC has its own teaching methods: from the horizontal point of view, there are the multimedia teaching method, the social practice teaching method, the interactive teaching method and the traditional teaching method, among which the multimedia teaching method is the most frequently used one; from the vertical point of view, the content-based model and the five-category model. Fourthly, lacking qualified bilingual teachers is a bottleneck problem of the present bilingual teaching.2. The prevalent models of CEBTTIC include the content-based model and the five-category model. In terms of the subjects of bilingual teaching, the main model is the content-based model. In terms of the teaching material and the instructional language used in the classroom, the present bilingual teaching model can be divided into five categories:1) the Most Chinese model using Chinese teaching materials and most Chinese instruction, 2) the Semi-English model using the most Chinese instruction and the English teaching materials, 3) the Mixed model using half-Chinese and half-English instruction and English teaching materials, 4) the Most English model using the most English instruction and the English teaching materials, and 5) the English-only model using English-only instruction and English teaching materials. Of the five categories, the Most English model is the most prevalent one.3. The most suitable model for the present Chinese situation is the soakage model. The reasons lie in the purposes,the content, and the problems of the teachers and students of CEBTTIC.As a whole, this study examined the main characteristics and models of CEBTTIC. It is hoped that this study can enrich the knowledge of CEBTTIC and provide useful and valuable information for students and teachers who are interested in this field. At the same time, it also provides a useful guidance for the future bilingual teaching practitioners.