Policy makers’ perceptions and attitudes

Among Mandarin Chinese, minority language and English, all of them stated that Mandarin

Chinese is the most important language for both Han and minority students. A policy maker

(HP-1) stated: “Mandarin Chinese is the national language, it should be known by all

Chinese people. More than half of the people in this region could only communicate in Mandarin Chinese only. And most of the exams are in Mandarin Chinese now, even for some of the job interviews, they were required in Mandarin Chinese only instead of minority language. Mandarin Chinese should be further enhanced in XUAR”. Another female

researcher who worked in the regional research institute on Education sector for more than 10 years; this educational research institute is responsible for providing suggestions for the government during the decision making based on their research, she expressed her concern: “I agree that Mandarin Chinese is the most important language for all the students. But I am

afraid the outcome of bilingual education and trilingual education is not satisfactory. Because the passing rate of MHK is low, in TTU, only 40% of the minority students could pass it after one year Yuke (pre-sessional year for Mandarin Chinese learning). It needed to be reflected and think about the reasons”.

For minority language, policy makers involved in this research thought it is important to the

students, especially minority students. It was because minority language is their mother tongue and conveys with the culture of the minority group which should be treasured. It is also the symbol of minority students’ identity. However, one of the policy makers (MP-1) stated: “it is a pity that some of the minority people who could only speak their minority

language, their access to the information is very limited; they don’t know exactly what is going on in the world; they emerged themselves in the religion and didn’t learn their culture and religion from a good way. Even worse some of them were taken advantage by other people who intended to do with terrorism and separatism in XUAR. It is also one of the

reasons why the minority students should learn Mandarin Chinese and why bilingual education should be promoted and never stop in XUAR”. For Han students, in the policy

makers’ opinion, they should learn a minority language, such as Uyghur and it would be useful for them who intend to work in XUAR. The Dean of the Foreign Language College (HP-3) in TTU also explained the dilemma that Han students are facing to: “on the one hand,

Han students have the awareness that learning Uyghur may be helpful both in daily communication and career in future; on the other hand, they have no strong motivation, interest or pressure to learn Uyghur; they couldn’t see the benefits or loss from it”.

English is one of the international languages; it influences life in various aspects. Although

the policy makers admitted English is an essential tool for the future, they still believed enhancing Mandarin Chinese was the most urgent task for them. English learning might put in subsidiary place. The policy maker (HP-1) said: “because of the particular location of

XUAR and the situation now, the very first important task for minority students is to learn Mandarin Chinese well, at least within the next 5 years, the focus in XUAR will still on bilingual education. English will be taken into account, but not now. And it is unavoidable and should be admitted that we have difficulty in adequate teachers; it is also one of the reasons why English is not offered in so many schools in Southern Xinjiang”. Another policy

maker pointed out an interesting phenomenon that was although many minority students did not learn much English before in schools due to all kinds of reasons, they showed a high interest in learning it and some of them learned it in an excellent way. As an institutional level decision makers (HP-4) who was the curriculum designer in TTU stated: “I feel puzzled

that it seems many of the minority students have talent in learning English rather than Mandarin Chinese, they could learn English better than Han students, especially in speaking and listening. It is not a special case, I heard it from many practitioners from both schools and universities”.

As opposed to language teacher training in TTU, the policy makers still held the attitude that Mandarin Chinese is the most important language for the students. English should be acquired after they mastered Mandarin Chinese. In terms of medium language of instruction for teaching and learning English, the curriculum designer (HP-4) in TTU presented that: “almost all the teachers including minority teachers learned English via Mandarin Chinese;

all the textbooks related to English learning are in Mandarin Chinese, no Uyghur as the medium language for instruction in textbooks; and most of the resources used Mandarin Chinese to facilitate their English learning. In this sense, it is unlikely to use another language as the medium language for instruction except Mandarin Chinese”.

To sum up, the data of the current research showed that both national and regional governments had made efforts to promote the national language which is Mandarin Chinese; it was always seen as the priority during language learning of minority students. The minority students at the tertiary level perceived the importance of Mandarin Chinese in terms of its economic and political aspects as well as for their future employment. However, minority students faced great difficulty in adopting their second language, Mandarin Chinese, to learn English language and their university subjects during the training process. This was due to a number of reasons, for instance, an imbalanced educational development between northern and southern area in XUAR, and the typological distance between different languages. With regard to the English language, which is a foreign language for both groups, it was appeared that there was high motivation to learn it, although the minority students faced more difficulties than the Han students due to their lack of proficiency in Mandarin Chinese as well as the lack of, or limited English education in earlier schooling.

Chapter Five: Discussion and Recommendations

This chapter will discuss the major findings relevant to the three initial research questions regarding policies, school practice, and attitude and perceptions relating to trilingual education in XUAR, in China. It offers an interpretation of the findings in the context of the aims of the study with reference to the literature. The implications of the findings for policy and practice in order to inform current and future key stakeholders are presented. Limitations of this research and indications of where further research should be undertaken in this field have also been included in the last section of this chapter.