Kindergarten All-Day Total Immersion Bilingual Teaching

At present, with the rapid economic development all the world, the international cooperation is becomingmore and more close, which makes people in China put more and more emphasis on the ability ofcommunication and application with English. And parents tend to make their children learn English in the verystage of kindergarten education. As a new and effective second language teaching which initiated in Canada inthe1960s, kindergarten All-Day Total Immersion bilingual teaching in China refers to teachers using the targetlanguage (English) to organize children’s (whose native language is Chinese) learning activities, games and dailylife, etc., and children are immersed in English, thus, to improve their proficiency in English and Chinese.However, kindergarten All-Day Total Immersion bilingual teaching in China have been involved in controversiesand debates because of its high demand on teachers, textbooks and language environment, and so on. Therefore,the thesis was designed to explore and test the suitability and effectiveness of kindergarten All-Day TotalImmersion bilingual teaching in China, based on a small class from an All-Day Total Immersion bilingualkindergarten along with an All-Day Partial Immersion bilingual kindergarten to be compared with in Heze Cityof Shandong Province. In this paper, three specific questions were studied:(1) What is the quality of All-dayTotal Immersion bilingual classroom instruction and the effect of such bilingual teaching on children’s oralability in the kindergarten in Heze City of Shandong Province?(2) What are the opinions and attitude fromteachers and parents about kindergarten All-Day Total Immersion bilingual teaching?(3) Is kindergarten All-dayTotal Immersion bilingual teaching better than other English teaching?By using the quantitative (Flanders’ Interaction Analysis System, T-test) and qualitative (interview,questionnaire, classroom observation) research methods, the results show that kindergarten All-day TotalImmersion bilingual teaching is suitable and effective in China. In particular, on the aspects of classroominstruction, the emotional atmosphere between teachers and children is friendly, the ratio of the classroomutilization is high, the interaction between teachers and children is good, and teachers exert a positive influenceon children. On the aspect of children, their motivation for learning English has been greatly inspired and theiroral ability is strong, and they can speak English unconsciously in appropriate situation. On the aspect ofteachers, they have a strong feeling to strengthen themselves through training, learn by themselves, communicatewith other teachers and parents, and so on. The relationships between teachers and children, teachers andteachers, teachers and parents are more and more intimate. On the aspect of parents, they are satisfied withkindergarten All-day Total Immersion bilingual teaching, and tend to pay more and more attention to their children’s language learning.Finally, some suggestions are brought out according to the investigation. First, teachers should take all thechildren into account and pay full attention to children’s individual differences as well. Second, kindergartensshould organize effective trainings for teachers. Third, it is necessary to make kindergarten-home cooperationmore and more close.However, there are also some limitations in this paper due to the small sample of subject, the short durationof the investigation, and a narrow sphere of the study with essentially a focus on kindergarten All-Day TotalImmersion bilingual classroom instruction. Thus, further and deeper researches need to be done in this domain.