A Case Study Of Bilingual Classroom TeachingModel In TCM Universities

To meet the demand for all-rounded talents in the social development, bilingual teaching, as a relatively new teaching mode, has attracted much attention in China. It is now a much-researched topic in the teaching reform and development of college education. This study probes into a case of bilingual classroom teaching mode in TCM universities, aiming to examine if the current bilingual teaching could achieve the goal of empowering the students in both disciplinary knowledge and English language competence. It also attempts to explore the possible problems concerning the selection of teaching materials, teacher behavior and students’output activities in the classroom. Following the theoretical framework of the Content-based Instruction (CBI) and using the discourse analysis method, this study analyzed the classroom teaching and learning activities and also the classroom discourse in the bilingual teaching course, Science of Clinical Rehabilitation. To explain the present situation and possible problems in the bilingual teaching, some qualitative data (questionnaires and interviews) were also collected and analyzed. It was found that, in their classroom teaching, teachers used a very limited number of activities for the teaching of both disciplinary knowledge and language forms, ignoring other effective classroom activities. Nearly all the activities were teacher-led. Teachers and students lack sufficient English competence to effectively conduct or participate in the classroom language-related activities. They spent more time on disciplinary knowledge than on language learning and the time for language output activities was much compressed. The analysis of the questionnaire and interview data suggested the possible causes of the above problems as follows:1)The teachers and students are still dominated by the traditional classroom teaching mode, and the students lack the initiative to participate in the language-related activities; 2)The students had a limited entrance level in English proficiency; 3) The teacher received inadequate training on English language teaching; 4) The limited number of classroom teaching hours is also a constraint on their attention to discipline knowledge and target language. To solve the problems mentioned above, the following measures are proposed:Both the teachers and the students need to develop a stronger awareness of the double teaching objectives for the bilingual course:both the disciplinary knowledge and the English language proficiency are important. The teachers should be trained on the teaching methodology for improving language proficiency so that they could apply more varieties of classroom activities, especially output related activities.This thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter one briefly describes the research background, the research purpose and its significance. Chapter two is a review of the application of the CBI theory in language teaching both home and abroad, as well as the current research findings concerning the bilingual teaching in TCM universities. The CBI theory is introduced in Chapter three, including the origin of CBI, its development history, modes and characteristics of CBI. The fourth chapter reports the methodology for an empirical study carried out in a TCM bilingual class, including research questions, research design, object of research, research tool, data collection procedure and data analysis. Research findings and discussions are given in the fifth chapter. The last chapter is the conclusion.