Tsinghua Children's English Training Program (referred to as "Tsinghua Children's English" for short) is a set of curriculum system that integrates trainee training, teacher training, trainee evaluation and teacher evaluation for children aged 3- 16 in China, which is tailored by Tsinghua University College of Continuing Education, Tsinghua University Foreign Languages Department and Tsinghua Children's English Training Program National Authorized Promotion Center (Beijing Digital Technology Co., Ltd.).

Tsinghua children's English originated from the "one-stop" teaching reform research project of English teaching in primary and secondary schools of the Ministry of Education; 1999 was formally established to improve the quality and effect of basic English teaching, cultivate children's comprehensive English ability and lay a solid foundation for their middle school, university and even lifelong learning.

Tsinghua University's strong brand strength and the advantages of education experts, as well as the long-term, multi-angle and multi-link research and experiments of Tsinghua Children's English Training Center, have provided quality assurance for Tsinghua Children's English Training Program, forming the competitive advantage of Tsinghua Children's English Training Program from the inside out: perfect training and evaluation of children's English teachers ensure the high-quality and sustainable development of children's English training; Effective student training and evaluation ensure children's continuous interest in English learning and lay a solid foundation for their future English learning. [ 1]

So far, Tsinghua Children's English Training Program has established nearly 600 authorized service centers in China. Train thousands of students.

Tsinghua Children's English Training Program has won wide acclaim from all walks of life with its impressive achievements. It has successively won the brand education influence award, the well-known foreign language training institutions with comprehensive strength in 2005, the top ten foreign language training institutions in 2006, the Beijing Education Outstanding Achievement Award in 2007, the top ten foreign language education institutions in China, and the foreign language training brands recommended by netizens. [2]

2 project background me

Tsinghua children's English training project originated from the "one-stop" teaching reform research project of English teaching in primary and secondary schools of the Ministry of Education. It is a complete English learning program designed by Tsinghua children's English experts for children in China, which integrates student training system, student evaluation system, teacher training system, teacher evaluation system and teaching management system. Among them, the student training system is the core of the whole system.

Tsinghua Children's English Training Project is a complete training system with scientific teaching concept, teaching materials, teaching mode and evaluation mode. It embodies the efforts of experts and professors from Tsinghua and many first-class universities in China, as well as excellent teachers from primary and secondary schools, and also reflects their insights on children's English learning in China.

In the course of several years' research, in order to explore the road of English teaching with China characteristics, Tsinghua Children's English Project Team has experienced the development process of integration and innovation.

The fusion of the past and the present

The past includes two meanings, one is the English teaching in China in the past, and the other is the educational tradition in China. The so-called present refers to the current situation of English teaching, including the demand for talents' English ability in today's society, the influence of social environment on English teaching, the application of modern science and technology in English teaching and the psychological state of English learners in modern social environment and other factors related to English teaching. English teaching in China officially began with the establishment of Shi Jing Wentong Library in 1862. In the nearly one hundred years of foreign language teaching, Tsinghua Children's English has trained a large number of language talents who are proficient in Chinese and Western languages, accumulated rich teaching experience, and formed an English teaching tradition with China characteristics to some extent. This is a valuable wealth of English education in China, which is worth digging and summarizing seriously. Only by comprehensively summarizing the gains and losses of English teaching in China in the past can we have a stable understanding and grasp of the future development of English teaching in China. In addition, English teaching in China needs to fully examine China's excellent educational tradition. China has thousands of years of civilization history, rich educational tradition and its own unique educational theory. Making the past serve the present is to organically combine our rich experience accumulated in foreign language teaching practice for more than 100 years with today's English teaching, which is a problem of inheritance and development. Inheritance is the foundation and motive force of development. Only on the basis of inheritance can development have the right direction and ensure good development results.

Sino-foreign integration

In the process of exploring the characteristic English teaching in China, Tsinghua Children's English has fully absorbed foreign teaching theories and concepts. In the research of English teaching, foreign countries have been ahead of us, and many teaching schools have emerged, such as grammar-translation teaching method, Direct instruction, audio-visual teaching method and communicative teaching method. These schools have a solid theoretical foundation, formed complete teaching ideas and procedures, and carried out long-term teaching practice. In addition, there are many theories about language learning abroad, such as cognitive theory of language learning, interlanguage theory and input-output hypothesis, which are of great significance to English teaching in China. While learning from foreign advanced theories, we should also fully consider its combination with the actual situation in China. The integration of China and foreign countries is actually a combination of universality and particularity. There are many common laws in language teaching all over the world, which is the basis for us to learn from foreign theories and methods. Every country's language teaching has its particularity, and every country has different needs for English teaching at different stages of social development. In addition, China's English learning environment, English teachers, educational tradition and present situation all have their own characteristics. When we explore English teaching with China characteristics, we should combine the universal law of English teaching with the special situation of China.

Multidisciplinary integration

English teaching belongs to the research field of applied linguistics and is a bridge between language theory and language teaching practice. It is an interdisciplinary comprehensive subject, which absorbs the research results of pedagogy, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, brain science and other related disciplines to solve the problems in foreign language teaching. In order to explore a complete theoretical system of English teaching suitable for China's national conditions, it is necessary to fully study related disciplines and integrate them into English teaching.

Resource integration

The so-called resource integration mainly refers to the integration of human resources, which includes two meanings: one is the integration of English teaching and research personnel with those in other related fields, and the other is the integration of English teaching personnel engaged in English teaching at different stages. English learning is a complete process from elementary, intermediate to advanced, but due to the educational system, we artificially divide English learning into different stages, such as primary school, junior high school, senior high school and university. To explore the way of English teaching suitable for China's national conditions, it is necessary to unite English teaching and research personnel in primary schools, junior high schools, senior high schools and universities, so that they can communicate frequently, understand each other and cooperate with each other. On the basis of full integration, the project researchers made great efforts to innovate and fully studied the laws of English teaching and learning in China. On this basis, they compiled and published the textbook Tsinghua Children's English, and designed a Tsinghua Children's English training system integrating teacher training, children's English training and children's English assessment.

Project system me

Unified market system

Tsinghua Children's English has a unified and formal market operation system. On the basis of grasping the national market as a whole, through the multi-angle and multi-level integration between points and surfaces, with the help of unified image advertising and rich series of marketing activities, the unified and standardized market operation of Tsinghua children's English project will be realized nationwide.

At present, Tsinghua Children's English is promoted nationwide in a chain operation mode, and it is planned to establish a Tsinghua Children's English training network covering the whole country. Tsinghua Children's English will find powerful partners in every administrative city in China, help them to establish service centers in cities, develop multiple learning centers based on service centers, establish unified teacher training bases and evaluation centers, complete the replication of Tsinghua Children's English in cities, and finally establish a big market of Tsinghua Children's English in China.

A complete product system

A complete product system is a powerful carrier of the strong strength of Tsinghua Children's English Project. Tsinghua children's English product system includes:

Student training system: preparatory course, level 1, level 2 and level 3.

Student evaluation system: preparatory level, first level, second level and third level.

Teacher training system: primary teacher training, intermediate teacher training and senior teacher training.

Teacher evaluation system: primary teacher evaluation, intermediate teacher evaluation and senior teacher evaluation.

Security system of teaching and educational administration: national unity and standardization

Quality service system

Tsinghua children's English brand-new educational concept: education is service.

1, professional teaching and educational administration system

The core of the promotion and operation of Tsinghua children's English training program is teaching quality. Tsinghua Children's English starts with the establishment and implementation of the teaching management system, pays attention to the construction of the study style of teachers and students, strictly implements the teaching routine, and pays attention to the process management, so as to ensure the teaching quality of the project and lay a solid foundation for the long-term development of the project. Tsinghua Children's English Training Program National Authorized Promotion Center regularly holds "Tsinghua Children's English Teaching Seminar". Teachers who have been promoted will obtain the teacher qualification certificate issued by Tsinghua University Institute of Continuing Education, and hold relevant certificates, so as to ensure the high-quality teaching of children's English in Tsinghua University and create excellent training for children's English in Tsinghua University.

2. Innovative operation management training system

In order to help local service centers to further improve the marketing promotion and enrollment of Tsinghua Children's English Project, and to help newly-added service centers in China successfully start and operate Tsinghua Children's English Training Project, Tsinghua University College of Continuing Education and the National Authorized Promotion Center of Tsinghua Children's English Training Project regularly hold "Tsinghua Children's English Project National Market Operation Training Meeting" to increase the relevant knowledge and experience of service center market operation. Help the service center to understand the new concept of "rational investment, scientific management and high-quality teaching" in Tsinghua Children's English, and at the same time increase the service center's understanding of the functions of the headquarters, strengthen their effective cooperation and promote the further development of the project as a whole.

3. Perfect daily operation service system

Tsinghua Children's English will provide partners with all-round and multi-level services. The daily operation service system of Tsinghua Children's English fully explains the systematicness and intimacy of the service from both vertical and horizontal perspectives.

Tsinghua Children's English provides network technical support and a unified information management platform for authorized service centers, answers problems arising in the operation process for partners at any time, and supports the project operation and marketing activities of partners. At the same time, Tsinghua Children's English will pay close attention to the market dynamics, provide help and support for any problems encountered by local partners in the operation process, and send marketing specialists to visit regularly.

4 project concept me

Brand education serves the society

Tsinghua Children's English firmly believes that education is a kind of service and a shaping of individual behavior, and this shaping process can be replicated, controlled and produced through integration, replication and innovation, which finally forms the unique competitive advantage of Tsinghua Children's English in the industry: the accumulation of a large number of educational resources; The formation of a large number of user groups; A large number of teaching practices have been formed. Different from the separation of developers, teachers, textbooks and students in the current training and education process, Tsinghua Children's English integrates all levels in the education process, focusing on curriculum development (including the development of educational content, teaching methods, teacher training content, parent training content and evaluation content), rather than simply compiling textbooks. At the same time, Tsinghua Children's English puts teachers at the forefront of business, pays attention to the cultivation of teachers' teaching ability and level, and regards teachers' teaching process as the final product, making the education process more perfect and unified.

Fifty principles

Children's English teaching is not just language teaching. When teaching English to children aged 5- 12, we must fully consider the social, cognitive and language development level of this group.

From the study of children's growth and children's first and second language development, it is found that there are certain laws and some crucial factors in the above development process. Therefore, these factors must always be kept in mind when teaching children English. Some principles to be discussed in this paper may be just common sense, or have been practiced by some teachers in class. Then, it also shows that these principles can not be ignored in children's English teaching.

First of all, start with the various abilities that children already have.

Children's ability before they start learning English is often ignored or underestimated. In fact, they already have some life experience, have their own world, are good at understanding things around them in their own way, and have learned at least one language. In addition, their enthusiasm for learning is usually very high. The level of children's cognitive development depends not only on age, but also on external stimuli that support and stimulate this development. When children's potential and existing abilities are ignored and only regarded as "empty jars", children's English teaching will be in a dilemma. The reason for this teaching dilemma is that designing tasks or activities is only from the perspective of adults and does not reflect the world of children. This situation prevents children from getting close to these tasks and activities, but it doesn't mean that they can't complete such activities. Then, the challenge for teachers is that they must go into children's world and design tasks and activities suitable for children's level.

According to Gardner, people have seven different or intersecting intelligences, namely, linguistic intelligence, mathematical logic intelligence, visual/spatial intelligence, musical intelligence, body movement intelligence, interpersonal intelligence and self-intelligence. Therefore, the design of children's English classroom activities must fully consider each child's intellectual advantages, so that each child can fully participate and make continuous progress. In addition to intellectual factors, the teaching materials and auxiliary materials used in children's English teaching must achieve an appropriate balance in vision, hearing and kinesthetic sense, so that children with different advantages have the opportunity to show their strengths.

Due to the limitation of children's cognitive level, they may not realize that language is a system. Therefore, English classroom teaching needs to use topics to form the language environment of the target language. These topics should be meaningful, interesting and participatory, and should also be within the scope of children's life experience and thinking.

Second, encourage communication and mutual assistance.

Learning is an interactive process. When talking about children's general development, Piaget believes that the quality and quantity of social communication children accept will greatly affect their own growth and development. Vygotsky's zpd:zoneofproximaldevelopment Theory (zpd) also emphasizes the importance of high-quality interaction, such as interaction under the guidance of adults or interaction with peers who are better than themselves. Bruner compared this zpd theory to "scaffolding", indicating that in the process of building children's own knowledge and ability, the guidance and help of others are as essential as scaffolding. Halliday also supports the idea of interaction. He believes: "The learning of mother tongue and the second and third languages is a cognitive process as well as an interactive process. Its manifestation is the constant communication between self and others. "

Communicative language teaching method takes understanding and transmitting information as its core idea, and its importance even exceeds the accuracy of language.

Third, support a variety of understanding and discussion of meaning and cooperative dialogue.

The meaning of language is not immutable. In communication with others, we will constantly re-understand and update the meaning of language. Vygotsky once put forward a "cultural toolbox". He believes that the concept and meaning of a child's mother tongue comes from the culture to which he belongs. Different cultural backgrounds lead to different language meanings. Wells believes that cooperative dialogue can help children acquire the meaning of language and reach a common understanding. Fisher also emphasized the importance of conversation in the development of human thinking. This echoes another view of Vygotsky: the process of transforming thinking into language is very important to stimulate all-round development.

"Only through the interaction between the knowledge provided by various carriers (such as observing, listening, reading or using reference materials) and the understanding of students' language can his knowledge structure be updated. "

The important principles of discussing language meaning and cooperative dialogue should be fully embodied in the real and close-to-life tasks and activities advocated by communicative language teaching. In this real activity, students exchange ideas, solve practical problems and reach a consensus. Obviously, all students need to think. Exchange of views is not only to express objective facts; Cooperative dialogue should have real meaning and can stimulate participants' dialogue motivation.

Fourth, let children become active participants in the learning process.

Learning is a positive cognitive development process. Children should no longer be regarded as "empty cans" waiting to be filled, but should become active explorers of language and thinking. As mentioned above, children have many abilities, which are the cornerstones of building a new building of abilities. Barnes described the argument of constructivism as follows: "Each of us must constantly understand the things around us and actively build our own world in order to achieve our learning goals." Fisher believes that paying attention to children's problem-solving activities can make them actively participate in and explore the meaning and answers of language.

For children who can actively participate in the learning process from a cognitive perspective, what they need is challenges and adventures. If a given task or activity is not challenging or adventurous, children will never be independent, and sometimes even stagnate and lose the motivation to learn. But these challenges must also be supported by teachers or classmates, and the new knowledge proposed by zpd theory must be in the area close to the child's development level, that is, the "nearest development area".

In second language learning, the importance of actively participating in the learning process is self-evident. "Task-centered teaching thought regards the learning process as a process of' learning by doing'-the development and formation of students' language system is mainly obtained through practical participation. "

Fifth, locate the input of new knowledge according to zpd theory.

Krashen regards "comprehensible input" (input+ 1) as a key factor in the learning process. When the newly input knowledge or information remains at an understandable or close level, the "difference" between the original knowledge level and the input knowledge level will further stimulate students' language development. This coincides with Vygotsky's zpd theory and Bruner's scaffolding theory, that is, beyond the scope of children's existing knowledge level, the support and guidance given by adults or peers at an appropriate level is the core factor of children's advantages and development. But in many cases, whether adults or children learn a language, they are only instilled with an oversimplified language at their existing language level, rather than learning a new language in a broader language environment. This principle is actually related to the importance of challenges and adventures. If the language input is always maintained at the current language level of students, students will have no chance to face challenges and risks, thus losing the necessary conditions for successful language learning.

Six, the language should appear in a complete form.

Over the years, language has been divided into independent units-traditionally structural units or grammatical units-and taught to students bit by bit. Then the students put these pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle to understand the language. However, children learning their mother tongue is not such a process. They are exposed to a vast language environment, absorb and use a complete language, and gradually understand its structure and grammar in a deeper subconscious. Lewis advocates that foreign language teaching should start from "a language fragment or a complete language composed of multiple words" to cultivate students' ability to successfully use a complete language (fragment). Tough(brumfit) also talked about the role of "system language" in classroom teaching. He believes that teachers should replace some words used by children at any time to form a new and complete language, just like mothers at home.

Regrettably, the language that most adults and children contact and practice in classroom learning is limited to the sentence level of "digestion". But in my opinion, teachers should not simplify the learning process so much, but should concretize the structured learning method and expose students to more complicated language environment. No matter how students' learning styles, preferences, abilities, comprehensive development level and language development level are, they can adapt to this learning method. In children's English teaching, teachers can make more use of stories, songs, short plays and other forms to let children contact and learn a complete language in an understandable and practical language environment.

Seven, design activities with practical significance and clear goals in a clear and familiar environment.

Children do not choose the language environment when learning the first language. Learning a language is just a part of their daily life. They use their original knowledge to understand new language phenomena, construct the unknown from the known, and constantly adjust their way of thinking by "absorbing or assimilating new knowledge". Similarly, in English class, children need a clear and familiar language environment to carry out activities with practical significance and clear signs. They need to know why they want to do something, and the reason should be that they can understand. Then, teachers should keep approaching children, gradually explore children's interest and understanding level, and choose appropriate topics and tasks in turn.

Eight, help children learn independently.

It is natural for children to rely on their teachers. However, if children want to be active participants in the learning process and have their own understanding, the design of classroom activities must cultivate students' independence. In children's English class, staged two-person or group activities, as well as the use of dictionaries and reference materials are all helpful.

Ninth, create a relaxed, enjoyable and supportive learning environment.

Children need a sense of security, a suitable place and a pleasant study. To create a positive learning atmosphere for children, we need to pay attention to the following factors: (1) treat all children equally; Support challenging activities and adventures; The topic should be interesting and related to students' life; Activities should have practical significance and clear goals; Praise students appropriately at any time; Strict discipline, fairness, etc. Such an environment will not only have a positive impact on language learning, but also help to cultivate children's tolerance for others.

Ten, the test should be consistent with the learning style.

If we regard the above nine principles as the key to successful learning, then these principles should be reflected in testing and evaluation. This is also a supplement and improvement to the above principles. But unfortunately, this is not the case. Many language learning planning and development do not consider the testing process.