Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: The thesis deals with the heated topic of bilingual education. It presents a brief introduction of bilingual education, analyzes the reasons and background of its first adoption in some universities and its initial experiments in some primary and middle schools in China, and discloses some phenomena of pseudo-bilingual education at present. The thesis further discusses the obstacles in carrying out bilingual education in China’s junior middle schools and based on the national conditions and the reality of China, explains the possible damages which might be caused by the blind expansion of bilingual education. The thesis finally draws the conclusion that bilingual education should not be expanded in China’s junior middle schools.  

Key words: bilingual education; infeasibility; junior middle schools

摘要：本文着手于双语教学这一热点话题，简单介绍了双语教学，分析了其在我国部分高校首先实行继而部分中小学也开始试验的原因及背景，列举了目前存在的一些伪双语教学现象。文章进一步讨论了我国初中实行双语教学的诸多困难并结合我国国情和实际情况阐述了在我国初中盲目推行双语教学可能产生的危害，最终得出我国初中不适宜推广双语教学的研究结论。

关键词：双语教学；不可行性；初中

1. Introduction of Bilingual Education
English is now gradually becoming a global language and a dynamic tool in both political dialogues and business trading among different countries. Especially with the emergence of the various international organizations, not only China needs to speed up its integration into the world, but the world is also anxious to know more about China. All  these  will  not  be  possible  without  the  most  basic  tool  of communication, English. To develop intercultural communication, to cultivate talented personnel with high competence of collaboration, research, and innovation, bilingual education is playing an increasingly important role in today’s global world as we need, more than ever, people who are good at their mother tongue, as well as English. Under such circumstance, bilingual education becomes a heated topic in educational field.
What is bilingual education?
Skutnabb-Kangas, who was the world famous expert of bilingual education, said that bilingual education is the education system with two languages as its instructional language; one of them is usually the students’ first language, but not utterly one. Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, defines bilingual education as “the use of a second or foreign language in school for the teaching of content subjects”. Nevertheless, Baker points out that the meaning for the term bilingual education is ambiguous.