The Development of Mandarin Acquisition of Uygur Children in Bilingual Preschools in Xinjiang

This study explores the development of Mandarin acquisition of Uygur children in Xinjiang. Participants are 384 Uygur children aged from three to six randomly selected from 24 local bilingual kindergartens. PPVT,EVT and other language tools are applied to assess children's language development. Children' s development of MLU,as well as other measurement,is also examined through electronic language database analysis( CHILDES). Findings show a development profile that children's receptive language,expressive language,narrative language,academic language and MLU gradually develop with ages. Result also indicates that there are some characteristics of young Uygur children in learning Mandarin Chinese. Therefore,suggestions are made to promote early bilingual education in Xinjiang as follows. First,an integrative and balanced model could be adopted for bilingual environment of preschool education; Second,attention should be paid to introduction of reading and picture books at the early age due to the gap of Mandarin acquisition between ethnic preschool children and Han children; Third,a high quality Mandarin language input process should be built for ethnic minority Children.