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文章出自2019年2月23日的《经济学人》Leaders版块
The perils of learning in English Young children should be taught in their mother tongue instead WHEN WINSTON CHURCHILL was at Harrow School, he was in the lowest stream. This did not, he wrote in “My Early Life”, blight his academic career, for “I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that...We were considered such dunces that we could learn only English...Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence—which is a noble thing.” Partly thanks to Churchill and the post-war Anglo-American ascendancy, English is these days prized, not despised. Over a billion people speak it as either their first or second language; more still as a third or fourth language. English perfectly exemplifies the “network effects” of a global tongue: the more people use it, the more useful it is. English is the language of international business, law, science, medicine, entertainment and—since the second world war, to the fury of the French—diplomacy. Anybody who wants to make their way in the world must speak it. All of which has, of course, been of great benefit to this newspaper, which has floated on a rising linguistic tide. It is not surprising that there is a surge in “English-medium” education all over the world. In some regions—such as East Asia and Latin America—the growth is principally among the rich. In others—Africa and South Asia, where former colonies never quite escaped the language’s grip—it is happening at all income levels. Parents’ desire for their children to master English is spurring the growth of private schooling; parents in the slums of Delhi and Lagos buy English-medium education in the hope that their children will gain a university degree, obtain good jobs and even join a glittering world of global professionals. Where the private sector leads, governments are following. Some countries have long chosen to teach in English as a political expedient, because a local language would prove contentious. But even where public schools teach children in their mother tongue, or a local language, education authorities are switching to English medium, in part to stem the outflow of children into the private sector. That has happened in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan; many Indian states have started large or small English-medium experiments. In Africa most children are supposed to be taught in a local language in the first few years, but often, through parental pressure or a lack of textbooks, it does not happen. Teaching children in English is fine if that is what they speak at home and their parents are fluent in it. But that is not the case in most public and low-cost private schools. Children are taught in a language they don’t understand by teachers whose English is poor. The children learn neither English nor anything else. Research demonstrates that children learn more when they are taught in their mother tongue than they do when they are taught in any other language (see article). In a study of children in the first three years in 12 schools in Cameroon, those taught in Kom did better than those taught in English in all subjects. Parents might say that the point is to prepare children for the workplace, and that a grasp of English is more use than sums or history. Yet by year five the children taught in Kom outperformed English-medium children even in English. Perhaps this is because they gain a better grasp of the mechanics of reading and writing when they are learning the skills in a language they understand. English should be an important subject at school, but not necessarily the language of instruction. Unless they are confident of the standard of English on offer, parents should choose mother-tongue education. Rather than switching to English-medium teaching, governments fearful of losing custom to the private sector should look at the many possible ways of improving public schools—limiting the power of obstructive teachers’ unions, say, or handing them over to private-sector managers and developing good curriculums and so on. Pakistani Punjab has decided to end the English experiment; Uganda has introduced mother-tongue instruction in 12 different languages in the first four years of schooling. More should follow. After all, it was a good education in his mother tongue, rather than in the classics then favoured by the British aristocracy, that won Churchill the Nobel prize for literature.
主要观点是在老师的英语本身就很蹩脚，家长也无法流利地讲英语的时候还是不要用英语作为教学语言。
作者举了一个例子，在喀麦隆研究生对比了两组学生，一组用英语接受教学，一组用母语Kom接受教学。结果发现1-3年级的时候英语教学组在各学科全面领先；但到了5年级，母语教学组全面反超，甚至包括英语能力也超过了英语教学组。
语言学鼻祖Saussure认为语言和思维是硬币的正反两面，相互依存，互为载体。日常生活的语言因为存在普适性，所以不会构成学习压力，而且学习外语能够刺激脑神经的发育，促进其他学科发展；但随着知识难度增加，语言和思维相互融合，学习量急速增长，但从量上来说就给学生很大负担。
现在很多人从公立转到双语，就面临了教学语言切换的问题。比较典型的有两种情况，第一种是学科内容是懂的，比如数学，简单的科学，但题目看不懂，这种比较好处理，补一下专业术语，常用的句式，写作和问答的模板，理解很快就上来了。第二种就比较头疼，本来语言底子弱，学校里还要用英语教完全陌生的科学和人文，学生压力会非常大，如果学校给不到足够的支持，那很可能什么都学不到。
学校，尤其是双语初高中，也知道这个问题，所以宁可要学科基础特别好的学生，英语弱一点不要紧，，毕竟知识体系是完整的，一补就上来了，潜力强；如果只是英语相对好一点，而且是日常的对话而不是书面的读写和综合应用能力的话，学习的后劲容易不足。如果学校强加过难的科目，效果不见得好，这也难怪有人批评上海没有真正的双语学校。
“双语教学”在全世界范围内可能并没有大规模成功。中学阶段的双语教育是分学科的，比如数学，物理用英语上，化学，生物用西班牙语上。幼小阶段的双语教学成果相对较好，一个是内容简单，另一个也需要政策的强力执行。比如加拿大魁北克的英法双语教育要从幼儿园开始就参加immersion program，而且也是类似一天英语一天法语的模式，绝对不会混在一起。另外，所有的公共场所，政府机构，大公司，都要求双语作为工作语言，通过政策强行推动了双语教学。
语言本身是有“社交效应”的，讲的人越多，就越多人讲。Staffing问题一直是教育质量得不到保障的原因。沉浸式教学或许是可行的，但必须要保证父母都是双语流利的高知，学校里都是双语流利的优秀老师，假如金钱真的堆出了这样一所乌托邦学校，还得保证用足够高的门槛把其他中国同胞挡在门外，因为语言最容易从同伴中习得，班里挤满了中国人，学费又全都白交了。
中文部分选自Pepper English公众号：杨挚，复旦大学英语文学学士，纽约大学TESOL研究生。2018年成立 Pepper English，服务于K-12英语培训领域，帮助学生和家庭接轨国际教育体系。 | 
发表于 2019-3-6 09:02
