A Contrast Study On The Bilingual Education Of Kazakh And Xibe In Xinjiang

There are thirteen indigenous peoples in Xinjiang, whom include Kazakh and Xibe. Most Kazakh andXibe live in Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. The bilingual education of the two nationalities isdistinctly different. They live in the same area, enjoy the same state policy towards nationalities andminority education, however their bilingual educations are different. That’s why? This question is veryworthy of studying in a ethnics community such as Xinjiang and in the broad environment whichgovernment advocate minority bilingual education.This article comparatively analyses the bilingual educations of Kazakh and Xibe centered in QapqalXibe Autonomous County. Though the Comparative study on the bilingual educations of the twonationalities, we hope that we can explore the developmental mode which is more suitable for theirbilingual education, and obtain some enlightenment that benefit to the bilingual education of Xinjiangminorities.The main research ways of this article are documentations research, survey method, antitheses,induction and so on, and supplement by the use of computer networking. The books and papers on thedomestic and overseas bilingual educations are theory support of this article. In order to really reflect thebilingual educations of the two nationalities, we had investigated eight schools in the village, township,town, county town in Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County. Through questionnaire survey and interview withKazakh and Xibe pupils of the county, we investigate the bilingual use, bilingual attitude and bilingualeducation effects of them. Then we analysed each factor which influences the bilingual education, andprobed the new methods to promote the development of bilingual education.Kazakh and Xibe, both of them inhabit in Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County, are basic object of thecase study in this article. Though both of them inhabit in Qapqal, their bilingual educations are different.So such a difference is not much relevant to site and policy. This article argues that besides site and policy,the cultural environment is an important factor influence their bilingual educations. Cultural environmentincludes their ethnic relations, religious faith, their living and economic form.Kazakh are nomadic people and mainly have a grassland culture, all Kazakh believe in Islam. In thenomadic life, they mostly come into contact with other nationalities who similarly belong to Turkiclanguage family, they can converse accessibly though their language are different. Thus environment ofKazakh is simplex relatively, and lack a good environment to study Chinese. At the same time, all Kazakhbelieve in Islam and are affected by religion in daily life, religionary life restrain their hankering forscience and culture.In addition, the strong national pride and the idea of protect and inherit national culturealso affect Kazakh pupils’ attitude towards Chinese learning. Nowadays Kazakh have basically settled andbecome resident herdsmen, but to some extent the neglect of school education for a long time still has itsinfluence.Xibe are resident nationality and mainly live on agriculture. When they began their education in Qingdynasty, Xibe adopted Manchu-Chinese bilingual education. They have a long Chinese learning tradition.Now the problem of Xibe education is not “how to learn Chinese” but “how to inherit Xibe language and words”.To promote Kazakh learn Chinese and Xibe inherit their language and words, the first work ispublicity. We should let people of minorities know Chinese minority bilingual policy is to preservemulticulture. The second is innovation of educational institution. We should build and perfect a bilingualeducation mode which suit for Xinjiang, cultivate qualified bilingual teachers. Only after taking suchmeasures could we educate bilingual people who really master his own national language and Chinese.