Effectiveness of Bilingual Education Program at University : Case Study of Business English Major in South-central University for Nationalities Wuhan

Purpose: This study examined the effectiveness of a bilingual education program in business English major in Chinese education. Participants were 100 undergraduate students enrolled in their third year education program at a university in South-central University for Nationalities Wuhan-China. The research evidence indicates that, the use of English as a medium of instruction in major courses is effective. Methodology:  A semi-structured interviews with 100 undergraduate students majoring in Business English Was administered. The analysis of the interviews used both mixed-methodological approach so as to better understand the participants views and how efficient is bilingual education programs to them. Finding: The analysis identified that the participants hold very great expectation towards the use of the English in their class especially their current programs. The participants, furthermore, expressed their complete choice to join the college especially the only department that conduct in English. However,in this article also recognized new factors that led the participants to assume hopefulness, maintaining a global friendship, obtaining a leadership position in the future, and connect with international scholars. But,all analysis was done by incorporating both quantitative and qualitative results which also suggested that the bilingual education model successfully enhanced students’ level of English proficiency and the mastery of subject knowledge teaching quality which was also another aspect to be considered important aspect in this research associated with the bilingual education program for Business English Major. Strengths and weaknesses of the business English major in bilingual education program model and its implications for educational practices in South-central University for Nationalities Wuhan-China education were explored. Research Implication: However, a big sum of participants expressed their positive attitudes towards the use of the English as a medium of instruction in their courses and the strategy in their programs have highlighted their needs  not only for inviting international lecturers but also for accomplishing their hopes and ambitions. They, furthermore, the mean gain scores of participants as the more they interact and get familiar with the medium of instruction the more it implies that using bilingualism in teaching does contribute good effect in student’s engagement and academic performance. Practical implication:The findings of the study will be of additional knowledge to the academic institutions in China especially in Wuhan cities understand their students and strategies that could help to increase more majors in English for Chinese students and also will give a wide choices of major to study currently and in the future. The findings also hoped to benefit the policy makers to re-consider needs and preferences of their local students. The Chinese students are interested in join programs that are taught in English and the policy makers need to put up with these students' needs by realizing their views in reality. Originality: The study contributes to the scanty literature on bilingual education in Chinese university especially South-central University for Nationalities in Wuhan and other institutions. It may also be used as a source of reference for other researchers Keywords: Teaching quality, academic performance and bilingual education. DOI : 10.7176/IAGS/68-04


2013) or as an intercultural communication mode among speakers of non-English speakers
. English has also become a unavoidable tool for global higher education institutions to compete with one another and promote more internationalization by accommodating both international and domestic students who use English as a medium of instruction (Chen & Kraklow, 2014). To phrase it differently, the use of English-medium instruction has become a strategy adopted by universities to compete in a much globalized world for promoting their profiles (Altbach & Knight, 2007) and to prepare local students who meet the demands of the global markets (Doiz, Lasagabaster, & Sierra, (2011),( 2013. Deepening globalization has entrenched the hold of English as the world common language in the last few decades (Graddol 2006;Van Parijs 2011). Against this backdrop, the recent growing internationalization and marketization of higher education worldwide (Doiz et al. in press) have seen English increasingly adopted as a medium of instruction for non-language subjects at universities in traditionally English-as-a-foreign-language countries around the globe (Bjo¨rkman 2011;Wilkinson 2005).
Bilingual education has matured very quickly in China. The first "Academic Conference on Education in Other Countries" was held in China in 1978. The National Society of Foreign Education Studies, prior to the National bilingual Education Society, was formed in 1979. A law passed in February 2001 provided for the Mandarin-as-second-language classes in the ethnic-minority schools to start in the early years of elementary school whenever local conditions permit, rather than in the senior years of elementary school, as it was practiced before. The first master and doctoral degree programs in bilingual education were offered in China respectively in 1979 and 1985. There are hundreds of scholars engaged in bilingual education studies now. In summary, bilingual education in China has been turned into a fully-fledged academic discipline with a complete framework.

i. Development of Language Policy in China
The development of language policies, which were established since the foundation of People's Republic of China in 1949 were, language planning was actively adopted by the Chinese government. The national language committee, as the carrier of most Chinese language affairs, was the responsible agent of language policy in China. At that time, Chinese people just came out of a long period of war struggles and the country was faced with low literacy among the population. Although language policy in China can be staged into three main stages since 1949. The situation of minorities' languages in China is very exceptional. Zhou (2001) stated that the situation of minorities' languages in China is very special he continued to illustrate that the minority's language policies in bilingual education were changeable. However, after the openness of the China's economy, the China's authority has legislated for bilingual education, revived it, and helped minority to expand the scale of their language well-being. The language policy went to assimilation in the bilingual education (Lin, 1997;Zhou, 2000). Lewis (2009) even believed that the change of policy was because of Mao's suspicion that the minorities' self-consciousness might have conflict with socialism. This attitude lasted about 20 years until the end of the Great Culture Revolution and Mao himself. In the constitution in 1982, minority rights, especially language and education right were emphasized frequently. This change means the third stage drove the language policy slightly back to the first stage, yet not quite like before, because the language education was only allowed in the schools of ethnic autonomous regions. The minorities who lived out of ethnic autonomous regions can only have the monolingual education of Mandarin. As Teng (2010) puts it, using bilingual education in China has four different types: (a) for the member of a minority group, who masters in its own minority language and the official national language( Mandarin); (b) For the member of a minority group, who masters in its own minority language, as well as one or more other foreign languages; (c) For the member of Majority group, who masters Mandarin and also knows how to use one or more other foreign languages; (d) For a specific group with two or more different languages, a part of members master in using foreign languages .From 1990s to the early 20th century, research on the theory and curriculum resources in bilingual education has developed. Various monographs in this field have been published, for example the book 'Research on the use of foreign language in China' initiated a literature review on the issue of bilingual education in China during the past 10 years. The central government and local government allocated more budgets to support the development of education, including specific research funding. These series of practical regulations not only promoted the scale of bilingual education but also formed the principle of bilingual education in China. From the period onwards, abundant accomplishment of research on the field has published out, an indication of the flourishing development of bilingual education in China.
In additional, the line between English as a Second Language and English as a Foreign Language background has become unclear and it is seems endless hard to differentiate between the two (Lewis,2008). This is absolutely the situation with China, usually classified as either an English as a Foreign Language or expanding circle country where English is used mostly as a means for international communication, yet evidence a high point of the use of English inside the country. English is used fairly broadly in the domains of science and technology, the media, tourism and international connections and business, which means there is a large amount of reliable material, and even opportunities to use the language in real life situations, get-able for use by students and teachers.
Therefore, the debate on bilingual education produced scores of studies, beginning in the 1970s, that mainly measured Students' performance on standardized tests, particularly in English. Most of the studies researched elementary western bilingual education. Three studies of AIR, Baker and de Kanter, Rossell and Baker of existing evaluations or individual studies concluded that bilingual education did not have a significant impact (Dioz, 2011). The AIR study carried out some surveys on students' and teacher's backgrounds as well as instruction and curricular characteristics.
ii. Attitudes of students Attitude is a central issue in the field of scientific discipline. Researchers have stipulated several definitions for this concept. For example, attitudes are ones' positive or negative reactions toward any aspect of social world (Fazio & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 1994;Tesser & Martin, 1996). According to Eagly and Chaiken (1993), attitude is "a psychological impulse that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor" . More specifically, attitude is a construct used to justify consistent human behavior patterns (Baker, 1992). Fasold (1984) regarded attitude as either mentalistic or behavioristic. In other words, attitude is seen as a variable that step in between a stimulus and a response that impacts people's behavior (Fasold, 1984). There are three components of attitude: 1. Cognitive attitude that is related to thoughts and beliefs, 2. Affective attitude that is associated with feelings, and 3. Behavioral (intentional) attitude that is concerned with events planning and doing in particular circumstances (Baker, 1992, p. 12). Moreover, Pierson, 1987)pinpointed that "a meaningful correlation between the meanings of success of attitude is significantly important as cognitive behavior" (as cited in Hussein, Demirok, & Uzunboylu, 2009, p. 432). The crux of all these definitions is that attitude is positive or negative and this is due to many factors: one's social background, geographical area, age, gender, and personal achievements are all factors that form one's beliefs that lead to showing one's attitude towards an object (Littlewood , 2007) Attitudes on language are known as language attitudes (Fasold, 1984). Littlewood and Liu,M. , (2007 ) proposed three types of language attitudes: affective, socio-political, and pragmatic attitudes. These language attitudes types are focused on students' feelings towards a target language or culture (Pierson, 1987). These feelings are not short noticed obtained. They, nevertheless, have been got through social and schooling experiences. Language ability plays a crucial role in one's attitude towards a particular language. However, this language ability might be affected negatively if that student has contradictory attitudes toward that target language (Sze-yan, 2005). There are factors that play a fundamental role in the shaping of students' language attitudes: use of and familiarity with the target language, stereotypes, previous experiences, and future goals (Galloway, 2013). The author, however, argues that the most important factor is 'motivation' as it is the actify that forms the attitudes. Motivation is the idea that many researchers have studied for a long period. In general, motivation is a "combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language" (Gardner, 1985). This explanation seems to separate the thought of attitude from that of 'motivation'. Motivation is of three types: 1) Integrative motivation that describes students who have positive attitudes towards the community of L2 (Gardner, 1985); 2) Intrinsic motivation which is the engagement in an activity that is enjoyable to do (Noles, Pelletier. ; Feng, 2013), and 3) Extrinsic motivation that refers to actions done for the sake of reaching an instrumental end such as receiving a reward or avoiding a punishment (Noles et al., 2000). Motivation could be positive or negative and, as a result, the attitude would also be either positive or negative. However, the degree of motivation and how it is given or perceived can also change the attitude. In brief, motivation plays a high significant role in the process of conceiving and perceiving attitudes.
On the contrary, Chinese non-English major students might have different attitudes towards learning English and this might differ from one province to another and from one university to another, too. Xu, Wang, and Case (2010) presented that multifaceted attitudes towards English exist and students' pragmatic needs while learning English) should be well thought of and be addressed accordingly by instructors. For example, Liu and Laohawiriyanon (2013) investigated Chinese non-English major students' attitudes towards learning cultural themes of different countries in an anonymous university in China and showed that students preferred to learn themes concerning their own culture followed by themes of international target culture (English). This indicates how crucial to explore the attitudes and preferences of students so as to make the teaching-learning process more engaging and effective. English as a Medium of Instruction in Wuhan is employed in different universities with a switch code of Mandarin in the classrooms (Wu, 2006). On the other hand, students in the mainland of China do have more opportunities to use English in "authentic settings and generally have high self-efficacy and good attitudes toward English language learning" (Zheng et al., 2009).This present study is very different from other studies prior in many dimensions, some of which are the following. Firstly, it is the first study that aims to explore the attitudes of Wuhan universities especially South-central University for Nationalities, the learners majoring in Business English other than English towards the use of English as medium of instruction in their programs. Secondly, the participants are undergraduate students at a the above mentioned university and it is the first study in which undergraduate students' attitudes are investigated in Wuhan China. Thirdly, it is the first study that employs a qualitative methodology within-depth interviews. Finally, the findings of such a study provide implications for education policy-makers, especially language policy-makers at Chinese higher education institutions There is a large bank of literature on the history of bilingualism, bilingual educational practices, policies and research projects, particularly in the last three decades when the country has opened up to the world. Particularly in the provision of English language teaching with the intended aim of providing citizens with increased economic and social opportunities and increasingly faced with limited financial resources. However, Two major meta-studies, Willig and Greene, were done to rebut the findings of opponents of bilingual education. Willig (1985) analyzed 23 studies included in the Baker and de Kanter (1981) review of the literature, Willig's report compared the results from various types of programs such as bilingual, ESL, Student outcomes tested in those studies included English language. Other research supporting bilingual education reviews existing studies or evaluations. Zappert and Cruz (1977) surveyed twelve studies to look for evidence of the effectiveness of bilingual programs when compared to monolingual programs. They only reported on students' outcomes on measures similar to those included in Willig. There was no mention of whether the studies described the programs themselves. Zappert and Cruz found that performance of students in bilingual education programs, except for one in the Philippines, was equal or superior to those of students not attending bilingual programs. There so, Chinese policy makers and other stakeholders as crucial for the economic development of the country and individual introduced Chinese-English bilingual education as media of instruction (Wang, B. H,. 2003).
iii. Foreign Language Learning Environment "Everyone is bilingual (Gao 2012), There is no a fixed or consensus definition of the term bilingual but it can be related as a teaching method which takes mother language and foreign language in which in this case will refer to English teaching media to help students master the specialty knowledge. It is well known linguistic environment is extremely important for the acquirement and development of language.
Learning a foreign language especially in major like Business English also needs a better linguistic environment. The bilingual education can create a favorable linguistic environment for students learning Business English major. But the main objective of business English major courses is not to improve students' foreign language level. Its most important meaning is to strengthen the subject construction and train complex talents for economic globalization.
With the help of qualified and skilled teaching method this can extend students' knowledge scope, expand horizons, and make them master the specialty knowledge better, for the sake of adapting to the economic globalization.

Methodology
Many articles can be cited to backing either side of the discussion on whether bilingual education programs work better than Chinese-only programs. Yet, early studies failed to deal with the non-random selection of limited English proficient students into bilingual education programs. Students who participate in bilingual education are consistently different in observed and unobserved features from students who do not, so the achievement difference between participants and non-participants could not be justified attributed to bilingual education. Moreover, studies which research in bilingual education in China are limited in sample size and or several decades old. There so in this study a mixed-methodological approach was also administered to better understand the efficacy of bilingual education programs beside with a semi structure interview to assist in understanding the students engagement and their academic performance before analyzing the two aspect.

i. Student Engagement
Questionnaire was administered to the students by the researcher who is the author where the items were based in the unit that was discussed in Management class. The group of students was composed of 100 students who were exposed to Bilingual course in their Management course as shown in   In the over-all mean of the 2 nd semester, it obtained 4.11 which means, the interaction and participation of the students in the class discussion is very satisfactory, while the mean score of the 1 st semester is 3.11 which mean that their interaction and participation in the class discussion is satisfactory. The implication of this is the Engagement of students who are more and frequently exposed in bilingual classes is greater as they keep interacting and exposing to such courses. In the experimental the 100 students who were exposed to bilingual management course for 2 semesters, showed the 2 nd semester score had a mean of 15.27 which is an indicative of the 48.89%. And for the 1 st semester the students mean was 14.44 which is satisfactory in value. This means that the majority of the students had obtained a score from 74 to 60. This shows that there was fair academic performance during their first semester and the scores improved as to the second semester of their bilingual major class.

Discussion
The data reasoning led to the emergence of several patterns reflecting the attitudes and the differences between the scores of students as there are exposed to more bilingual classes. The content also pinpoint the factors that led the participants to assume such attitudes and how to meet the language needs of students. Here are the main patterns.

i. Students' Positive Attitudes to English Medium of Instruction: Choice and preparation
There is no difference about the state of English as an international language and its use as a medium of 28 instruction in many universities worldwide. For example, universities across Europe adopt English as a medium of instructions in undergraduate and graduate programs while in Stockholm University both English and Swedish are used in parallel (Bolton & Kuteeva, 2012). In china as well there are many universities using English as a medium of instructions for many programs for Foreign students and Chinese students. Such universities require the Chinese students to prove their English proficiency through sitting an exam that the University organize. Although all programs at South-Central University for Nationalities are instructed in Chinese except one in the school of Foreign Language, the study participants preferred the existence of more English-medium instructed programs so that students can have the choice to enroll in the program they prefer although they are not allowed to register in such programs. They also expressed their eagerness to join the English-medium instructed programs in their post-graduate studies. First Participant expressed her attitude by saying. "I'll be very happy to apply and join a post-graduate program in English. I will also advise my friends to join programs where teachers use English in teaching ". Other participant stated, " I am fully aware that English is important in my field and I'm fully ready to spend all time in reading English materials and not mixing" . The authors' analysis to the above conversation of the first participant indicates that she favor to be educated in English in her current program. Instead of being instructed in Chinese inside the class while Chinese is used mostly outside the class for research purposes, searching and reading reference specifically, the participant expresses her final choice towards a program fully instructed in English. The dialogue also implies that the participant proposed a new policy for her current program to adopt the English-medium instruction strategy so long as most of the instructors are capable of teaching the courses in English. Likewise, the second participant expressed that she spent most of her time in finding and reading Business English publications and then uses the translation process to convey ideas in the Chinese language. She kept on to state "I need English materials written in for my major and to get good knowledge. However, I must read them and make translations into my language and use them in my papers or projects and its troubling because the translations take lots of my time". The above conversation shows that students in the major of Business English are not translation major where students are trained on the processes of translation however they have to accept the challenge in order to fulfill their need and requirement of the major.
Second Participant seems to be unhappy that she spends most of her time in translating from English into Chinese. The discourse also propose that the policy-makers of that program need to reconsideration of the course of study and the syllabus requirements and how the student can meet the needs. The authors also analyzed the discourse of the second participant as a sign for the absence of assessment of students' needs, an evaluation that is essential in any educational institution. Furthermore, other students also reflected and their attitudes towards the English-medium instruction scheme in the school of Business English and compared it with other famous university schemes in Wuhan University by pinpointing that "is better to use English in the classrooms, English is important for all of us and that is why we must undergo English tests from primary schools until we become professors" and the Policy makers know this reality but they do not give us the opportunity to give out any option". from their questionnaire responds it shows that majority of the students are willingly to pursue their post-graduate studies in English within the borders of their country providing that education policy-makers rethink how to change the medium of instruction of the program.

ii. Self-identification as International Researchers
China known for being the country with the largest population, it is then expected that China have the largest number of students learning English. The use of English names by the students in the department of Business English and other department thou they don't study their courses in English is a clear sign that English is warmly welcomed in South Central University for Nationalities. Students do not use any other language names but English although in (Smit, U., 2010) However from the data, the using of English names were quite confusing to some participants . some said it losses the important of Chinese features in accord to names while other said its one way of attracting attention and for facilitating the communication process between them and international scholars. Though, Keeping in touch with international scholars has become necessary these days it is very much highlighted in the academia where all academics and/or researchers are supposed to acquaint with one another especially those who have the same research interests.
Students find the use of bilingual in their program is an academic network which facilitates the fast transmission of knowledge and rating a better understanding of experiment studied by several different scholars while corresponding with one other. The participants of this survey have pointed out to such a factor of 'academic network' as an essential reason for their positive attitudes towards opting the major of Business English in general and using English as a medium of instruction in current and future; programs in particular. For instance, in analyzing the data one of the participants stated: "I think English is important in any academician's life , it is necessary for reading international papers in our field. When I want to write a review paper, I must look for papers and books written in English language ".While other participants viewed the academic networking as his standing point in building a career "also important for my future career ,I am looking for a teaching career at university as you know it require instructors to publish papers in high-impact journals. So, I need to master English and I wish to be instructed wholly in English".
This also highlights an old saying of : "write or hide" which means that it is essential to publish papers so as to increase or gain recognition among colleagues within the institution and colleagues in the field as well.

(iii) Students Achievement, Comprehension and Engagement to Learning
Through the years, bilingual education has acquired many terms to mean a choice of activities relating to second language learning. This is because education in more than one language and is necessary and common around the world (Tsung 2014). In Business English department of South central University china, instructions in two languages have taken different forms, each with its own set of goals, design and manner of implementation. A collection of labels, terminologies, program, models, and designs for the students is well documented in class. According to the respondent from the questionnaire "students reported use of language switching when doing Business English courses" however a famous scholar Feng, (2005)also stated that the Chinese students would continue to patronize code-switching because it helps them a lot in understanding and completing business courses task in mainstream classroom .
Moreover, the research in "Bilingual Education the Acquisition of English, and the Retention and Loss of Chinese" by Postiglione( 2014) stated that in teaching tertiary level it is more effective if the use of Bilingual approach so that they can totally grasp the ideas that are required to impart to them. Together with the research "Conveying the "Right" Kind of Message: planning for first Language and Culture within the classroom, that teachers must highlight or emphasized things that is needed to be emphasized in using the first-language of the students so that the "right" message will be conveyed (Feng, 2007 ).Furthermore, the Interplay of two Languages as Academic Resources (Beltran, 2010) additional to that, the students who are using dual-language in school are more effective, they have the greater level of comprehension and they have greater increased in linguistic and conceptual understanding. Also (Zhuo, M.,2001) Understanding of strategies for obliging the needs of English language learners teaching literacy and content material to students developmental, meaning-based, interdisciplinary, experiential approaches are consistent with strategies for teaching language.
Therefore, according the use of bilingual interview data some of them experience from the field through bilingual interview data's this would connect to globalization and would connect to diverse societies through the use of english language (Feng, 2013). Together with the research "diversity in family involvement in student's learning business English courses in the university, culture language and identity (Hu, 2008) promotes diversity and complexity and also important for parents and friends to engage in using more than one language so that the students will be exposed to diverse culture and through mastering english language this would promote unity and uniformity even in studying.

iv. Leadership Seat
Leadership is an activity that request leaders to have lots of skills through either practice or mentoring. Skills may include being critical, creative, flexible, and many behavioral attribute which will enable leaders to be strategically centered and achieve their roles as quickly and effectively as possible. In all background, leaders must be very patient, have strong visions, and capable and confident of dealing with different issues logically and systemically. Furthermore, they need to have a very good spirit of teaming or socializing with local and international people and colleagues and be able to build a strong trust among one another.
However from the result of our study, some participants suggested that it is expected from effective English educational background only, leaders to be in China will speak English that facilitates a better and easier communication with all stakeholders, particularly teachers and students. Additional,English has become a requirement for promotion in jobs and an essential factor in obtaining a leadership role in many scene. In this concern, the participants of this study pinpointed the following: "I knew a school principal who did not speak English; he was suffering very much while interacting with international students. Although he is old but he decided to learn English". They kept on by stating even the requirement need out from the department "Many leadership positions advertised in our school website these days clearly require good command of English".
These above respondent share one common theme related to obtaining a leadership position that, according to them it requires learning the English language. The shared story of participants is interesting as it shows the challenges schools' leaders face while communicating .
In summary, the researcher focus on the research understanding the student engagement and the academic performance why students opt such major what are their future plans. What reasons for adopting these strategies, and the participants' perceptions of the strategies in relation to their disciplinary and language learning as pointed out by Spolsky (2004) and (Spolsky, 2009). However, the interview data suggested that activities, and interaction varies and so do opportunities for student, and other conditions which have been found to contribute to opting English language as their medium for learning the courses (Hynninen 2012; Smit 2010).

Conclusion:
In this paper, the researcher have showed the attitudes of Chinese students who undertake their major studies in English at South-central University for Nationalities.
The participants who are the students were given the opportunity to express the use of the English-medium instruction strategy. The participants expressed their positive attitudes towards the use of the English-medium instruction and the strategy in their programs and highlighted the short comes and what to be reconsidered in their programs also the inviting international lecturer assist them in clarifying their future perception but also for realizing the hopes and ambitions. They, furthermore, showed if students are exposed to bilingual management course for 2 semesters, had 48.89% in understanding, performing and engaging in studies . And this shows that there is fair academic performance during their first year but it increase as they are more exposed to English in their course or bilingual education programs.