| After the establishment of People’s Republic of China, College English teaching has experienced some twists and turns, but the overall situation is progressing. The related administration department has enacted several College English policies including syllabus and curriculum requirements, which have advanced College English education development to some extent. Meanwhile, a serial of problems arose out of various reasons in the process of College English evolvement, among which “time consuming but low efficiency” is the target of public concerning. In recent years, scholars, especially linguists, have had a wide debate on how to run College English education scientifically and effectively. With China entering into mass higher education stage, College English has become an integral part of public basic course which affects tens of millions of college students’ academic study, employment as well as future development. How to conduct College English education has caused high attention from many social aspects.Language planning in education is one important branch of language planning and it is a pre-condition for language education. Language education process and results are directly affected and determined by whether the policy is scientific and feasible or not. On the basis of language planning theory and from the perspective of language planning in education, this thesis is going to analyze the College English policies enacted in different periods(from the year of 1949 to present time) by focusing more on discussing the existing problems and probing the countermeasures than on summarizing merits brought out by those policies. Hence, the thesis attempts to answer the following 3 questions: 1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of College English education policies since the founding of PRC? 2. At present, what debates over College English education exist and what are the root reasons leading to those arguments? 3. What kind of countermeasures could be sought and implemented for the sake of developing College English teaching effectively?In the process of the research, the method of literary review and historical comparison are supposed to adopt to analyze College English policies enacted and implemented by relevant administrative department, and dissects the background information, characteristics and influence during implementing process. Besides, the present author emphasizes on deficiencies and defects of College English education planning and presents the debates over College English developing direction. On the base of the above research, the present author suggests some countermeasures on the basis of language planning in education theory. The thesis is composed of four parts. Chapter One discusses the relationship between language and society and introduces the terminologies in the study such as language planning, language policy, language planning and language planning in education and its basic framework; Chapter Two analyzes the previous policies enacted after the establishment of People’s Republic of China and their effects and influences. Through researching, the present author finds that College English policy doesn’t consider long term planning and the connection between high school education is not smooth, and a coherent scientific system is needed. Secondly, the policy making body is a little bit bureaucratic, which can be illustrated by the fact that the administration of College English belongs to a higher education department of Ministry of Education, and all related policies are made and enacted there, so the comprehensiveness, feasibility and scientificity of the policies are under concern and suspect. Then the evaluation system brought great negative impact on college English education, namely, the unified nation-wide examination of college English test CET-4 and 6 distorts the regular teaching activities and makes it totally exam oriented. This phenomenon deprives students’ full scale development chance. Chapter Three presents the arguments over college English education in China which indicates the deficiency of language planning in education. After reviewing the related literature, the present author states the arguments including vague identity, which means that College English should be defined as teaching or education; Unclear orientation, which suggests that whether the institutes of higher learning should continue to popularize general English or step over to academic English teaching; Obscure subject attribute, which indicates that whether College English is a simple course or an independent discipline. Chapter Four proposes some constructive countermeasures towards College English from the perspective of language planning in education. Firstly, set up a specialized College English research department, and cooperate with Universities and with the support from the government. Through collecting information from social scholars and feedback from social demand to plan College English education and guide it’s work; Secondly, implement the English teaching streamline system, and plan elementary school middle school and college English teaching overall; Thirdly, take academic English as developing direction, and cultivate compound talents with both major and English ability; Fourthly, optimize evaluation system and focus on formative assessment, and provide a full chance to evaluation washback function.In the last part, the present author points out that College English education is a complex and comprehensive project, and a comprehensive, balanced and scientifically sustainable planning is needed, which could be made only on the base of combining the consensus from different social aspects, guided by language education planning theory and large amount of field investigation as well as precise scientific verification. Undoubtedly, there exist certain limitations in this study. It is only a plain text description and lacks of empirical study and supporting data, but the present author hopes that this thesis could become a good start to push College English education to develop healthily. |
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