Abstract

Bilingual kindergartens began to grow in China from the 90s last century on. Now, it has become a noticeable subject and enterprise in the field of preschool education. This emerge of second language education for childhood youngsters is based on several theories of cognitive linguistics and sociolinguistics, including the Critical Period Hypothesis, the Bilingual Advantage Hypothesis and the theory of Globalization, which together indicate that, the second language education in kindergartens will significantly benefit the children’s developmental chances in language, cognitive functions and future career. As a novel and effective methodology, the Immersion program was firstly introduced in 1965 St. Lambert, a town in Quebec, Canada, by educational linguistic experts W. E. Lambert among others. During these decades, the Canadian Immersion method has been spreading all over the world, which is apparently meaningful for China’s development of bilingual kindergarten if used as a reference. At present, the scale of bilingual kindergartens and other preschool second language education institutes in China has reached certain level, however their practice and operation still lack a mature mode, concerned with teachers’ qualification, educational goal, curricula setting, activity arrangement and following continuity, etc.

Key Words: Bilingual Kindergarten, Immersion, China

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1-Research Backgound-1

2-Theoretical Analysis-2

2.1-The Critical Period Hypothesis-2

2.2-Bilingual Advantage-3

2.3-English and Globalization: A Cultural Perspective-4

2.4-The Immersion Method-4

3-A Comparison between the St.Lambert Experiment and the Current Operations in China-6

3.1-The Goal: Full Bilingualism or Limited Bilingualism?-6

3.2-Class Settings: Teachers, Activities and Duration-8

3.2.1-Teachers-8

3.2.2-Activities-10

3.2.3-Duration-12

3.3-Longitudinal Continuity-13

3.4-The Xi’an 1997 Experiment: an Academic Level Simulation of the 1965 Program-14

4-Discussion-15

5-Conclusion-18