A study of the early Chinese teaching through whole-language approach
Language makes it possible for children to communicate with each other and has a great influence on their thinking and leaming. Since language is so closely related with children' s development of cognition and language skill, the language teaching in early infancy and the study of it have become more and more important. Language educators have realized the importance of the early Chinese teaching and its teaching method in China, where 21 million babies are bom every year. The first part of this paper focuses on the early Chinese teaching being practiced in China and gives a review of the developments of the early Chinese teaching. It combines the present situation of the early language education with "The Guidance Synopsis for Infant School Education" to find the characteristics of the early Chinese teaching. The who1e-language approach has been app1ied to the early Chinese teaching since the second half of years in 1990s. The second part of the paper studies the whole-1anguage approach to early Chinese teaching. The focus of this part is on how to app1y the approach in actua1 teaching. It gives practical examples to analyze the characteristics of the whole-language education. At last, the paper discusses some matters to be considered and problems to be solved when the who1e-language approach is applied to Chinese teaching in China. It a1so forecasts the future development of the whole-1anguage education.