Teacher Voices in Chinese Language Teaching: Personal Reflections on Culture (Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese)

This book reports the results of an ethnographic study, focusing primarily on the experiences of four teachers of the Chinese language in Australian secondary schools. The author creates an audience for their voices as they reflect on their own understandings of culture, language teaching, and culture in language teaching through semi-structured interviews, and compares these reflections with written stimulus dialogues designed to elicit 'culture-in-language' reflections, as well as curriculum and policy documents produced by the Australian government. The book's findings indicate that teachers of the Chinese language are diverse in their views on culture, language teaching, and the ways in which culture can or should inform language teaching, and the author argues that language teacher intercultural competence cannot be assessed through a synthesis of the current English-only research literature. This book will be of interest to teachers and teacher trainers of Chinese as a foreign language, as well as students and scholars of applied linguistics and language education more broadly. Scott Smith is Senior Lecturer at Excelsia College, Sydney, Australia. He spent an extended period in China where he learned Mandarin and taught English Contents List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1: Who is Teaching Who What? Chinese as a Foreign Language Teaching in Australian Schools Why This Book? Contextual Background to the Book: The Status of Chinese as a Foreign Language in Australia Teacher Interviews Intercultural Competence Who is Teaching Who What? A New Metaphor: Building a House or a Home? Numbers of Students of Chinese Numbers of Students of Year 12 Chinese Courses Comparisons between Languages References Chapter 2: Intercultural Competence as a Goal of Language Learning: What Are Chinese Teachers Doing with Culture? The Survey Culture in Language Pedagogy Teacher Voices On Being a ‘Native Speaker’ Caught Between Two Worlds A Way to Conceptualise Relationships Between Self, Culture, and Identity Are Previous Culture Teaching Models Being Perpetuated? References Chapter 3: A Way to Discover Culture in Language Teacher Voices SD1: Responding to Compliments in Chinese Summary SD2: Asking for Directions from a Stranger in Chinese Summary SD3: Being Called a ‘foreigner’ Summary SD4: The Use of Titles When Greeting Others Summary SD5: The Eating Greeting Summary Conclusion References Chapter 4: Teacher Voices on Thoughts About Language and Culture Teaching Personal Background and School Context General Beliefs About Culture Beliefs About Culture and Language Teaching Interculturality and Pedagogy Teacher Jiang Teacher Chen Teacher Song Teacher Fan Conclusion References Chapter 5: The Way Forward Appropriateness of a Western Intercultural Competence Model Dominance of Visible Culture Pedagogical Diversity Playing the Role of Gatekeeper Recent Studies and Their Contributions to This Discussion Reading Strategies in L2 Chinese Learning Oral Corrective Feedback Motivation Limitations and Implications/Recommendations for Further Research Recommendations Further Research References Appendix A: Online Survey for CFL Teachers References Appendix B: Interview Questions (Part A) Index