At the same time, the advantage of children’s early second language learning has also beenconfirmed scientifically. In this situation, the age of English learners becomes younger andyounger. Various children English instruction modes and methods have appeared. Most ofchildren English instruction modes are the traditional “spoon feeding” education. In theseteaching modes, teachers occupy the main position and ignore children’s feelings. The mainadopted teaching method is that the teacher imparts while the students obtain by mechanicalimitation and memorization, which stifles children’s enthusiasm, influences the learning qualityand even forms the “dumb English”. This phenomenon has aroused more and more attention ofeducators; however, situational instruction can be a way to solve the problem. In spite that allkinds of teaching patterns were declared to use situational instruction. In fact, it was not appliedby most of schools and institutions, so the teaching quality is still unsatisfactory.Among many children English instruction modes, children English immersion situationalinstruction attracts people’s attention with its scientific teaching methods and teachingachievements. Immersion is a teaching mode using the second language as the instructionlanguage. This concept originated from the French immersion instruction in Canada in the 1960s.Children immersion English mainly began with the China and Canada education cooperationproject in 1997. It refers to the fact that teachers use English as the instruction language tocommunicate with children of the kindergarten, making them “immerse” in English. In this kindof mode, English is not only a learning object, but also a learning tool.
Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Key Concepts
Children English immersion refers to a kind of children teaching mode using English as theteaching language. In this mode, teachers only communicate with children in English in all orpart time of the kindergarten, making them “immerse” in English language environment. In thiskind of mode, English is not only the learning object, but also a learning tool. In the Englishimmersion teaching mode, children “immerse” in all English environment, teachers’ teachingactivities and most of subject activities are also in English.In children English immersion situational instruction, the teachers will not clearly explain themeaning of words, phrases and sentences when they lead children to understand new things.However, they will use a variety of teaching methods to attract children’s attention and stimulatetheir interests. Therefore, children could be delighted to learn English and speak English. Thelanguage development of children comes from the language communication. In the Englishimmersion mode, children communicate and talk with each other in English. It can give full playto the communicative function of language, which could promote improving their languageabilities in this process.2.2 Previous Research on Children English Immersion Instruction
Among the world, Germany firstly applied the situational instruction in foreign languageteaching. In the 1890s, the German scholars put forward using the direct method to teach foreignlanguage. That means only using foreign languages to make conversations, communicate andread in teaching, but not trying to translate them into the native language. This also couldcultivate the thinking ability of foreign language with using real stimulus. At the beginning oftwentieth Century, the British linguists Palmer proposed the situation to manage the foreignlanguage teaching. In 1940s, France Saint-Cloud High Normal College created the audio visualmethod, which is also called situational method. It refers to using the slides and a tape recorderto create the language situational teaching. Then, the audio-visual equipment is used widely inFrance and America in foreign language teaching. In the early of 1980s, scholars from WesternEurope
