Usage Patterns and Multi-dimensional Thinking of Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language among Pre-school Children in Ethnic Minority Areas:A Case Study of Xichang,Xide,and Ganluo in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture
This paper investigates the usage and proficiency of standard spoken and written Chinese among preschool children in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture,the largest Yi settle-ment in China.Generally speaking,research re-veals that the work of popularization of standard spoken and written Chinese language for preschool children in this area has been effective,yet several aspects appear to require further examination.Spe-cifically,this study aims to explore internal and external differences in the standard Chinese lan-guage level of preschool children,identify obvious differences,understand the contributing factors,assess the weak links across ten evaluation indica-tors,and proposes strategies to improve language proficiency.To address these objectives,this study adopts measurement,survey,and interview meth-ods to select preschool children in Xichang,Xide,and Ganluo as research objects.The"Evaluation Standards for Putonghua Attainment of Preschool Children in Liangshan Prefecture(Trial)"serves as an assessment tool to investigate language usage patterns,abilities,and attitudes.Factors at multi-ple dimensions have been examined:Individual(age,gender,ethnic background,and language usage),school(e.g.type,location,teacher-child ratio,and quality of teacher-child interac-tion),and family(for instance parents'education level and occupation).Moreover,this paper ana-lyzes the extent to which preschool children in dif-ferent regions use this standard language,as well as the differences and their causes.The goal is to provide targeted action recommendations for promo-ting the use of standard Chinese language in pre-schools in the Liangshan area and other ethnic re-gions.Findings indicate that the overall language a-bility is at a medium to high level and is signifi-cantly related to for example age,gender,ethnic background,urban versus rural settings,school quality,and family environment.Specifically,ol-der children and girls demonstrate higher language proficiency compared to their younger and male counterparts.Among ethnic pre-schoolers,Han children's average score seem to be the highest,followed by the Yi,and then Tibetan children.Additionally,a significant negative correlation ap-pears to exist between language ability and lan-guage use.Differences in school characteristics are not obvious between public and private schools,al-though urban kindergartens have shown to outper-form rural ones.The quality of teacher-child inter-action has a strong positive correlation with children's language ability,while the teacher-child ratio shows a weak correlation.Family characteris-tics also reveal significant differences in language ability based on parents'education levels and occu-pations.In terms of language attitude,preschool children in Liangshan by all accounts exhibit a high usage rate of standard Chinese and a strong sense of identity.On top of that,both schools and families show positive attitudes towards the use of the standard spoken and written Chinese language.Based on the above investigation,this paper suggests several strategies to further promote stand-ard spoken and written Chinese in ethnic minority areas,including coordinating urban and rural de-velopment,strengthening resource allocation,le-veraging the role of school,boosting family educa-tion guidance,increasing parental involvement,and establishing a preschool education community.
Liangshanpre-school childrenstandard Chinese languagelanguage use
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
