English-Teaching-of-Children-in-Kindergarten

English Teaching of Children in Kindergarten： Misconceptions and Solutions Author：Wang Kai Supervisor：Huang BeiAbstract With the increasing continuous depth of reform and opening-up and the increasing width of international communication, English as an international language has become an indispensable tool by which people of the twenty-first century can develop world-wild communication and cooperation. As the basis of elementary education, kindergarten English teaching has become more concerned and emphasized and has been vigorously developing. But in reality, the kindergarten English teaching activities are some good and some bad, the results of which are not very idealistic. In order to increase the effectiveness of the kindergarten English teaching and to promote the children s development, this thesis has made a study on the present problems, affecting factors and further development of the kindergarten English teaching. On the basis of classifying related literature, the present thesis chose two kindergartens as sample in Jiajiang County in Sichuan. And this thesis on the basis of asking questions and observation makes research and analyses on the status of English teaching, the existing problems and affecting factors from such aspects as teaching goals, contents, organizations and teaching conditions. On this basis the author put forward his proposals and thoughts on the further development of the kindergarten English teaching in Jiajiang.Chapter 1 English teaching of children in China1.1 Needs of the development of timesThe 21st century is an era of knowledge and economy whose important characteristics is innovation and application of knowledge. With the development of science and technology, the quality of workers determined the strength of national power in the fierce international competition. The communication has commenced informatization and the economy has started to globalize. The fundamental factors of affect the living conditions of the whole nation are the spirit of innovation and practical abilities. So education and learning will play a central role in the 21st Century.A new round of curriculum reform has already begun in kindergarten, whose features are people-oriented, life-long education and science-oriented. Its orientations are enhancing the quality of kindergarten English teachers, improving the level of kindergarten and promoting the comprehensive development of young children. Its aim is to let the early childhood education develop to diversity, modernization and individualization. With the increasing continuous depth of reform and opening-up and the increasing width of international communication, English as an international language has become an indispensable tool by which people of the twenty-first century can develop world-wild communication and cooperation. In the community, all levels and various types of remedial English classes come into being. So English learning fever goes across China. Childrens English teaching has being recognized increasingly by peoples concern and attention as an important basis for personal training in the modern society. In the Draft of modern education experiment in the 21st century, made by The Board of Education in Chinas basic education curriculum materials research center, which suggests to use two kinds of language to educate in kindergarten. Although English education does not become a requirement in Kindergarten Education Guidance Program (Trial) in 2001, the practice of English teaching in the stage of young children has lasted for 20 years. In short, English teaching in kindergarten conforms to the needs of social development in the new century, coincide with the requirements of young children in the development of foreign language and fits the demands of kindergartens own development and survival. However, English language teaching in kindergarten activities is still at the spontaneous stage and lack of management and standard. 1.2 Needs of the development of children in kindergarten Modern psychological research shows that the critical period of learning the mother tongue is from birth to age 6-7. If people are deprived of the opportunity to learn a language, especially in the early years, it will be difficult to make up for this loss. Some studies have shown that the best time for learning a foreign language is also in that years. So the international communication almost forms a trend that foreign language teaching started in younger ages. This trend reflects the results of research found by the education circle in recent years that young children have more advantages of learning a foreign language than older children or adults. The first advantage exists on psychological advantage. Young children have a strong curiosity about all novels. They like to imitate other peoples pronunciation and intonation without blush, prejudice and embarrassment. The second advantage is physical advantage. In the early childhood stage, young childrens vocal organs are not fully formed. They are good at imitation, receptive to new things quickly. So they learn authentic pronunciation and intonation of foreign language more easily. In addition, the young childrens protection mechanism of mother tongue has not formed. English and Chinese are the same thing to them. This avoids learning English language from the translation process and it is easy to form English thinking relatively. The third advantage is that young children understand less about the cultural traditions of mother tongue, therefore, they can quickly learn to understand foreign culture and folk customs which is closely to the understanding and development of foreign language, so they are easy to accept the nurture by foreign language. The cognitive development of psychology also shows that the stage of 1-5 years old are Sensory-motor level, the stage of 5-11 years old are the stage of concrete operations and the stage of 11-12 years old are formal operations. In the stage of concrete operations, children have been able to recognize a specific thing from a wild range of characteristics. We should start English teaching in kindergarten to comply with the rules of human individual psychological development, which will help young children take full use of the sensitive period in learning a second language, in particularly, the ability of listening and speaking of the second language. English is a widely used language as a world lingua franca in the fields of international exchange, economic and trade exchanges, scientific and technological cooperation and so on. After Chinas accession to WTO, there is a increasingly emphasis on English education. More and more kindergartens hold English interest classes. This situation will have far-reaching image to promote English education in China and to improve the quality of talent in the 21st century. Some foreign friends exclaim, I am very shocked when I see most of Chinese children learning English. This let the world see a strong impetus from Chinas reform and opening-up. In contrast, our American society is unenlightened. Our children do not know RMB, not to mention learning Chinese and understanding Chinese culture. This makes us feel the pressure. 1.3 Dissatisfactions of English teaching of children in kindergarten When we know the positive social image of English teaching and learning activities in the kindergarten, we also recognize the phenomenon of the haste to follow suit. People do not discuss this issue that pre-school children should learn foreign languages, but eagerly hope all kindergartens have become Bilingual Kindergarten. Thus they mixed the kindergarten English language teaching and activities.I have taught English in Jiajiang Duo Laimi kindergarten since the summer of 2009. During this period, I made an investigation of other English language teaching in different kindergartens, such as The Golden Sun Kindergarten in Le Shan, Hope Art Kindergarten in Emei and Yingcai Kindergarten in Jiajiang. During this time, I read a number of theories about bilingual education and involved in the practice of young children English teaching. Through these practices, the kindergarten where I am working has many problems and needs to research and improve in English language teaching. So I think that the English language teaching in kindergarten is a meaningful subject to study.As English educators, when we fully acknowledge the achievements of kindergarten English language teaching, we also need to see problems in young children English teaching. If we do not address these issues, we cant guarantee the quality of kindergarten English teaching, and will not be able to achieve the effectiveness of kindergarten English teaching. Because of the poor behavior of early childhood education, there will have a serious negative impact on children in learning English. Last, they will affect the overall healthy development of childrens English education.Chapter 2 Status and problems in the kindergarten English teaching A survey on four kindergartens shows that two kinds of English Teaching Activities exist in Jiajiang County kindergartens. The first is opening English classes in kindergartens, giving instruction in English and Chinese. The other teaching activity is Bilingual Kindergarten. In this teaching activity, English is the only language which is used to English teaching. In these four kindergartens, there are three kindergartens belonging to the first teaching activity. And there is only one kindergarten belonging to the second one. That is the Golden Sun Kindergarten in Le Shan. The nursery English teaching activities are very general, but the implementation of the curriculum is at a low level and has too many problems and deficiencies, which let people worry. First, some kindergartens set up English classes just wanting to attract parents to send their children to their kindergartens. Second, they lack the right guide of the theory and practice. Third, the purpose of teaching activity is to impart knowledge. Finally, the teaching goals is exaggerated and confused, and these goals do not meet childrens physical and mental development and are incompatible with childrens learning characteristics. As a result, childrens burden increases mentally and physically. Some children will loss the interest in learning English. 2.1 Teaching goals: Exaggerated and Confused There is a big difference in their teaching pursuit of all kindergartens in Jiajiang. Some kindergartens pursue the development of listening and speaking ability. Some kindergartens pursue the letters and the words reading. Some kindergartens train young children to grasp English words and sentences. Some kindergartens seek childrens English language skills in arts, such as English songs and English small drama. Kindergartens English teaching goals are different, so the English language teaching goals in Jiajiang are confused.On the other hand, some kindergarten, in order to attract children to their kindergarten, say in their advertisement that their English teaching can enable children to grasp foundational English listening and speaking abilities. Some kindergartens even say that their English teaching can make childrens English proficient at the same level of development of Chinese. But this goal is difficult to achieve at this stage. To this extent, this goal is exaggerated.This exaggerated and confused situation does not only affect the childrens English elementary education, but also infests the order of childrens English education and planning. Finally, it will affect the development of the whole childrens English education.2.2 Teaching contents: Short of coherence and correspondenceThe investigation also shows that the contents of English teaching are different because of different kindergarten. In selecting teaching materials, kindergartens are often at random, following suit and tending to the interests. Or publish house offer more rebates which material is used. This phenomenon has led English teaching in kindergarten lack scientific basis. Take Yingcai kindergarten in Jiajiang for example, they used Happy World in 2007, YOU AND ME in 2008 and Haier English World in 2009. These three different materials of English language teaching in three years, undermine the systematic and coherence of children in learning English.Another phenomenon is that the degree of people satisfaction to the kindergarten English teaching decreases with increasing childrens age. In the junior kindergarten classes, English teaching materials are not very difficult and close to daily life, the little children have the highest curiosity. So the effect of study is good. But in the higher and senior kindergarten classes, with the weakening curiosity and more difficult materials, and English teachers not arousing their enthusiasm intentionally, children lost their interests in learning English. And this shows that kindergarten English teaching lacks the correspondence. 2.3 Teaching methods: Inappropriate In these two kindergartens in Jiajiang, teachers just teach and children only learn, children imitate others and teachers correct the errors. Children learn English in a passive conduction. The result of this teaching method is that children lose their interests in learning English and the atmosphere of English class become tedious. Finally, childrens English learning will enter a vicious circle.Playing is the nature character of young children. And games are the way to accumulate knowledge and develop capacity of children. But in these two kindergartens, they use the primary schools teaching methods to replace the games in kindergarten. This is the first thing. The second is that the kindergarten English teachers almost use the mother tongue to teach English in the teaching process. Except for a few words, sentences and a small number of classroom languages, there are not other English in the classes. The third is that most teachers believe that the contents of learning English is letters, words, sentences, paragraphs and articles. The process is listening, speaking, reading and writing. So in these two kindergartens, all teachers just teach children letters, words and some sentences. And they asked young children to write. On the contrary, they rarely focus on listening and speaking. That means children were not provided enough opportunity to listen and speak. In the thirty minutes of classes, the speaking time for children is less than ten minutes. And In the ten minutes, most of children keep silent. 2.4 Teaching environments: Backward and deficient The English learning environments include classroom environment and social and family environment. In the counting of English as their mother tongue or the second language, there are so many people speaking English. We can learn English from television, radio, newspapers and other media. Young children can immerge themselves in the most abundant English environment. But in China, English has always been a foreign language. This is a common phenomenon that there is lacking social and family environment of learning English in China. In Jiajiang, young children have few chances to have strong feeling for English and have an English- speaking environment, except for English teaching in school and few social training agency. But in fact, there are still have many problems in kindergarten English teaching. Their English-speaking environment is still very backward, and their equipment is still very deficient. In the two kindergartens in Jiajiang, the leaders of kindergarten and the English teachers are not deliberately to create an English learning environment. Even the English teachers create an English language atmosphere in the classroom, but that is temporary and simple, it can not form a long-term environment. In the daily life, the children do not receive the indoctrination and nurture of other English information. The consequences of the above problems are that the English language environment for children is only the English classes which are totally less than one hour per week.Chapter 3 Factors of English teaching of children in kindergartenIn order to explore how to change the harmful situation of kindergarten English teaching in Jiajiang County and to find a suitable English teaching mode for kindergartens of this region, I analyze the factors which impact the kindergarten English teaching of children in this region from the pedagogical aspects.3.1 Misunderstanding of the concept of early childhood educationIn Jiajiang, some kindergartens just opened the English interest classes, but they also called themselves Bilingual Kindergarten. This is because they are vague on the defined of Bilingual education. In Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Bilingual education means the use of a second or foreign language in school for the teaching of contensubjects. This criterion is that childrens foreign language or second language can replace or close to the level of the expression of their mother tongue through teaching, creating language environment and training. This is extremely unscientific that they understood bilingual by means of teaching both English and Chinese. Many people only see advantages of child learning English, but ignore the disadvantages and difficulties. And so many think that listening is just a method for children to learning English, but in fact, listening is the first content of children to learn English. Therefore, the goal of kindergarten English teaching is not requiring children to speak fluent English or to write letters and En