A Survey And Analysis Of The Use Of Medium Languages In English Classes Of Mongolian College Students

College English is an important course in higher education, and also animportant way for college students to acquire English knowledge and skills.Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is an area where Mongoliannationality is the majority, and Han-Chinese as the major minority. Thenumber of Mongolian college students is more than25%of all of the studentsin Colleges and universities in this region.The college English curriculum for Mongolian college students isrelatively single, lacking of bilingual (Mongolian and Chinese) teachers, notattached enough importance and so on. Therefore， Mongolian collegestudents’ English levels are quite lower than Han-Chinese students, overalllevels of their Chinese are relatively low, understanding and expressions ofChinese language are relatively weak, since most of them are from rural areasor semi pastoral areas. Chinese and simple English become main languages ofEnglish classes, and Mongolian language is rarely used in the classroom. Allof the teaching materials are written in Chinese-English versions. The suitablematerials for Mongolian college students are relatively short.Medium language refers to the teaching language that teachers use in theclass for their instructions. The importance of medium languages havereached an agreement，but some different views are still existing about how tochoose proper medium languages. Currently, the college English teaching forMongolian students is gradually shifting from bilingual teaching (Mongolianand Chinese) to trilingual teaching (Mongolian, Chinese, and English). Thereare few in-depth researches to the trilingual teaching medium languages orforeign language teaching for students educated in minority languages. Asurvey was made through questionnaires, classroom observation andinterview in some colleges and universities in this region on the proper choiceand use of classroom medium teaching languages. From the survey data, wefound that the importance of medium languages reached an agreement from both surveyed teachers and students, and their intention of choice and usingclassroom teaching medium languages shows pluralistic phenomena whichare influenced by both subjective and objective factors. There are a lot ofproblems waiting for urgent solutions regarding to the use of mediumlanguages in English classroom teaching of Mongolian college students.The role and position of mother tongue as a medium language in Englishclassroom teaching should be particularly noticed, and properly used in orderto display its positive role better. Meanwhile, it is also suggested to avoidblind use of target language, to compile English teaching text books which aresuitable to Mongolian college students and should strengthen the constructionof Mongolian teachers’ resources.In the future, it is also necessary to deepen the researches on this field atvarious levels from diverse perspectives to provide a strong basis for thedevelopment and implementation of more normative and feasible schemes onthe choice and use of medium languages in English classroom teaching ofMongolian college students.