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武汉纺织大学2014届毕业论文
Introduction
There are thousands of languages in the world. English is one of the world?s most widely used languages. It is spoken by nearly three hundred million people: in the United States, Britain, Canada, some Caribbean countries, and South Africa. As a second language, English is often necessary for business, education, information and other activities in a great many countries such as India, Pakistan and so on. It is also one of the working languages in the United Nations and is more used than the others. English has become the language of international trade and transport .It has been said that 60 percent of the world?s radio broadcasts and 70 percent of the world?s mail are in English. At international sports meets, at meetings of scientists from different countries and at talks of writers and artists from the corners of the earth, English is mostly used.
In recent years, more and more people have realized the importance of foreign languages study, especially English, which is one of the most common languages that are speaking in the world. According to the research, there is nearly one person in every ten people can speak English. We need to learn English because as our country's economy's development, there are more and more opportunities for us to visit other countries. And along with the development of the global integrating, mastering English has already become one of the qualities to be a successful people. So, all the people raised a study English upsurge. And children?s English education in our country is being more appreciable. In order to comply with this requirement, many of the kindergartens now offer English programmers. But from the teaching way in our country, the children?s English education has many problems. For the unbalanced economic development in urban and rural areas in china, the children?s English education has the huge difference between urban and rural areas in china. In the English skills using, the children has the huge difference who from the rural areas .This article will first analyses the difference from the different points. And Then finding the reason forming the difference. And giving some advice to deduce the difference and promote the balanced development in children?s English education in urban and rural areas in China.
1. A brief account of English education for preschool children
Early childhood education is a branch of educational theory which relates to the teaching of young children up until the age of about eight, with a particular focus on education, notable in the period before the start of compulsory education.( Footnote
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武汉纺织大学2014届毕业论文
Anning,2004).
1.1The development of the preschool children’ English education
English is a widely used language around the world. So many of the people all over the world want to gain it，also the Chinese people. In China ,the development of the children?s English education has through the long time. (辛凌，1995).It can be roughly divided into the following four periods:
The first time is “Cultural slavery period”, from the opium war to the early 1920 s. when the children?s English education has the primary development in Qing Dynasty .And it is mainly concentrated in the coastal port cities. Form the reports in November 1921, there are about 139 kindergartens in China , and about 4244 children learning English (付克，1986).
The second time is “ the mixed period” ,when china just started the “Self-Strengthening Movement”(洋务运动)，from 1922 to 1949. After the May 4th Movement , the new education of China was mainly affected by the western countries ,especially the United States. But in the Mingguo period of China (from 1912 -1949 ), the government was not available for the development of the children?s English education. So official kindergarten didn?t have a better development, but Kindergarten runing by the local people and foreigners do kindergarten has obvious development than the earlier period.
The third period is from 1949 to 1979, called the “English boom period “which is before the reform and opening. In this particularly important period, al kinds of situation both at home and abroad are complex for china government .One the one hand ,the imperialism counties cut off all commercial or financial relations to China .And other hand , China's politics, economy, education and so on followed Soviet model as its own model in that case ,the various schools put Russ ion as their second language. The English education faced a wealth of restrictions for the political element. The children?s English education as the unimportant compulsory education didn?t get the well development.
The forth period is form 70s or 80s of the 20th century since the reform and China's national comprehensive strength is enhancing greatly and China is asserting increasing influence over international affairs .and English has already become one of the qualities to be a successful people .So, the children?s English education underwent great development.
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武汉纺织大学2014届毕业论文
1.2 The importance of the preschool children’s English education
As an international language, English lies in special important position in the world .If you can?t use English, you will face big barriers to keep space with the development of the world . At the same time the study also showed that learning a foreign language will promote the development of intelligence. A psychologist from the Yale University suggested that the children who gain the two languages education are more flexibility and have advantage of solving the problems than those who can only gain single language education through his analysis. The language stimulation are the important elements to promote the development of brain cell. The period of childhood is the criticalperiod of children's language development ,language education in this period plays an important impact on the development of human life. In this period , giving children the stimulation of the two languages, the coordination between the two hemispheres can promote children's brain, and strengthen the relationship between nerve cells. Therefore, early childhood English education is beneficial to children.
1.3 The peculiarity of the preschool children’s English education
When we talk about the preschool children?s English education firstly, we must
have the acknowledge of the preschool children. Many experts think there is a critical period hypothesis in second language oreigne originates in biology, this view is first proposed by neurobiologist Penfield (1975, cited in James, 1997) and Robert (1959), in their view, during the development of a particular life stage, one can learn a language easily and quickly in natural environment, no external intervention and no professor.(Fromkin and Rodman, 1983, cited Liu Zhenqian, 2003). In 60s, this view was accepted by Lenneberg and used in second language oreigne research, then he puts forth an influential critical period hypothesis. The theory which is in child development, there is a period during which language can be acquired more easily than at any other time is accepted by many scientists. According to the biologist Lenneberg (1967), the critical period lasts until puberty (around age 12 or 13 years), and is due to oreigne development. (Eills, 1994) ,Lenneberg suggested that language learning may be more difficult after puberty, because the brain lacks the ability for
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武汉纺织大学2014届毕业论文
adaptation. This, he believed, was because the language functions of the brain have already been established in a particular part of the brain, which is because lateralization has already occurred by this time. This leads to a large number of domestic and foreign researchers from different disciplines, different perspectives in all aspects of the use of various methods and experimental critical period hypothesis for in-depth study of this issue, the focus of the study will focus on the existence of second language learning problems and the critical period, that whether second language learning with the starting age is directly related to the final results of study.
And many experts think, early childhood, especially before the age of 6, is the optimal period to obtain foreign language. In this period, the young English learners have their own Psycho Characteristics.
The young English learners are those aged form 3 to6 years old in China kindgareden. We know there is a critical period to learn a foreign language, from3 to 6. And our children who gain the English education are just in this golden period. (Maria Montessori, 2002) It is the time that children are constructing their language structure.
At this time, children are learning language by imitation. They imitate the people who are speaking around them. The most important thing is that they are not only imitating the words, but also imitating the way others are speaking. That is how children learn the language structure of their mother tongue.
In this golden period, the children can build not only one language structure and they can build another language structure, so, it is easy for them to obtain English at the same time .
The young learners have aged from 3 to 6 years. At this age stage, the young learners are very active and curious; they are easy to be attracted by the colorful things and the things they do not know well. And they will imitate the way other people do with those tings. They can easy follow the teachers? words and imitate it, use it. They can easily remember the things others told. They have the best memory and imitation. But they are also very easy to be disturbed: “the 4 to 9 years old children?s concentration can only last for 8 to 12 minutes.” (Maria Montessori, 2002.)
In this case , the teachers must have some specially was to make them interesting in their English class.
2. The present situation on English education for preschool
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