Photo taken in ECNUAS high school in December 2021
Abstract
This paper first reviews some selected literature on bilingual education. The review clarifies the definition of bilingual education, discusses the issue of language allocation, and reviews possible models of bilingual education. Informed by the literature review, the paper analyzes the practice of bilingual education in one group of Chinese-English bilingual schools, which is taken as an example of this type of bilingual schools in mainland China. A growing number of Chinese-English bilingual schools were established in China in the past decade to meet the demand of English-medium and bilingual education. This paper intends to shed light on what are working and what are possibly missing in the bilingual education models in these schools. Some suggestions are provided to school leaders, especially curriculum designers, and researchers at the end of the paper.
Key Words: Bilingual Education, Chinese-English bilingual schools, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Curriculum
Background
There are approximately 800 Chinese-English bilingual schools catering for Chinese nationals in mainland China by the end of 2019 (NewSchool Insight, 2019, 2018; TopSchools, 2019, 2018). All of these schools either offer the Chinese national curriculum combined with international curricular elements or import a reputable international curriculum such as IBDP, A-Level, or AP in high school. These schools feed the demand of English-medium education or bilingual education in China. They also prepare Chinese students to study abroad after they finish their middle or senior high school study. Given that all students and most teachers are Chinese nationals, both Chinese and English are used as languages of instruction and communication in these schools.
The past decade saw a rapid increase in the number of this type of private or Min Ban schools in China owing to a continuously growing demand of studying abroad. Recently, the Chinese government reins in the expansion of private schools. Yet, the growth of this type of bilingual schools does not seem to slow down partially because investors are confident in the lucrative prospects of this sector in long run. Most of these bilingual schools are owned by Chinese; however, a growing number of schools or corporates from English-speaking countries, especially the UK and the USA, enter the burgeoning Chinese international education market. Despite the government’s lukewarm attitude towards this type of Chinese-English bilingual schools, it is no doubt that they are becoming a growing player in the K-12 educational arena in China.
Introduction to the case
Sunny Place Education (SPE)[1], which is based in the UK and manages many international schools around the world, started an alliance with Chinese investors and stepped in the Chinese-English bilingual school business a few years ago. After the first SPE bilingual school was established successfully in Shanghai, SPE decided to open more schools across China. SPE bilingual schools share the same social cultural features and a similar curricular structure with other Chinese-English bilingual schools. They provide Chinese families with an optional bilingual education while operating in a predominate Chinese culture in which the students are born and raised. Majority of the students entering these schools have studied in local Chinese-medium public schools. A small proportion of the students are returning Chinese who have either lived or studied overseas. In either cases, their home language is Chinese. The reasons why Chinese parents send their children to fee-paying bilingual schools are complicated. Among them, an enduring dissatisfaction with the public education and the desire of sending children to study abroad must be counted.
Within SPE schools, the culture is created to foster international mindedness. There is usually a large proportion of English-speaking international staff in schools. The ratio between Chinese and English-speaking staff could be between 2:1 to 1:1. The schools would make effort to create an internationalized learning environment that favors English learning and western cultures. English-medium and bilingual teaching and learning is certainly at the center of school education. For instance, besides formal classes, wall displays and school assemblies would be either bilingual or all in English. The working language of the school is English in favor of English-speaking staff. International partnerships or collaborations, predominantly from English speaking countries, are brought to the schools for the benefit of student learning and teacher development too. The language of communication in these partnerships is English.
An overarching bilingual curriculum framework has been created by an education team in the Chinese headquarter of the SPE. This framework not only provides curricular guidelines but also stipulates educational goals for SPE schools. The framework requires SPE schools to incorporate SPE traditions and resources of international education into the school curriculum. It has been made clear that the goal is to create and implement a bilingual education model that will work for Chinese students in the context of current policy environment and societal needs in China.
Bilingual education is neither a new phenomenon neither in China and nor in the world. A lot of research has been conducted to theorize and hence guide practices of bilingual education. Obviously, judicious use of available knowledge about bilingual education will greatly support the pursuit of an effective bilingual education model in the SPE bilingual schools and alike. Meanwhile, sharing the experience of Chinese bilingual schools will benefit school practice and improvement locally and internationally. To this end, this literature review and an analysis on SPE practices informed by the review intend to offer some theoretical clarification for the ongoing development and implementation of Chinese-English bilingual education. I hope this effort could shed light on what are working and what are possibly missing in the SPE model. Research opportunities in bilingual education and bilingual teaching and learning seem to be abundant in this relatively new round of development of bilingual education in China. Therefore, I also hope to bring attention and discussion about Chinese-English bilingual school education within China to the larger international research community.
[1] Pseudonym of the education group for anonymity considerations.
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