The Stakeholders’ Views And Practices On The Preschool English Education

The author conducted this qualitative research in order to study the former research results of Chinese preschool English education, and the stakeholders’ views and practices on the preschool English education. To achieve this aim, the author interviewed some preschool teachers and students, a grade-one Chinese teacher, and some parents of preschoolers; she also did literature review and qualitative analysis on the former researches.The author reviewed the opinions of both the supporters of preschool English education and the opponents of it. The supporters believe that:preschoolers may learn English better and the negative influence of mother language on the second language will be less if they start learning English during the critical period. While, the opponents hold the points of views as following:the critical period hypothesis has been proved only in the field of pronunciation and from the maturation theory proposed by Gesell that it will abate the positive transfer and enhance the negative transfer at the same time if Chinese children start learning English as the second language before they enter primary schools; learning multi languages at the same time in an early age may lead to the Early Childhood Aphasia.At first, all data were carefully read. Then some pieces of data illustrating some useful meanings were picked out and their relations were studied and analyzed carefully. Besides proving some results of the former studies, the author has also concluded some new findings on the views and practices of stakeholders’about preschool English education by analyzing the interview data:1. Individual difference of preschoolers has a great influence on the effect of their English learning.2. If preschoolers start learning English during the critical period of their mother tongue, they may confuse the pronunciation of English letters with Chinese mandarin, which leads to the negative transfer of English on Chinese.3. The improper preschool English input may make children lose interests in English, get tired of English, and even refuse to learn English in primary schools or even in the future.4. The efficiency of Chinese preschool English education needs to be improved.5. Many parents arrange their children to attend extra English training courses randomly but there are still some parents believe that the acquiring of mother language is more important than the foreign language in the preschool period.6. Most of the parents have difficulty in choosing the proper preschool education institutions or learning materials and creating the English learning environment for their children given to their limited English proficiency.In accordance with the findings of the interviews, the author concluded the following suggestions for Chinese preschool English education:1. The preschool teachers should consider the features of preschoolers’ learning process, and adjust their teaching methods accordingly in order to avoid the negative transfer of English on Chinese.2. Parents should respect the individual difference of preschoolers, take a rational look at that issue and carefully make the decision whether they should enroll their children in some preschool English education courses according to the characteristics of their children.3. They would better cooperate with kindergartens and preschool English education institutions to create the English language learning environment for preschoolers and protect their learning interests.4. In order to enhance the overall efficiency of Chinese preschool English education, more researches are required to be done on that issue, the normal English education for future preschool teachers needs to be improved, and the professional trainings for in-service preschool English teachers are more than welcomed.