Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education (Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese) 3031151526, 9783031151521

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING CHINESE

Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education Yu Han · Xiaoyan Ji

Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese

Series Editors Michael Singh, Centre for Educational Research, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia Jinghe Han, School of Education, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia

Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese is a Pivot series designed for teachers, teacher education candidates and teacher educators working in the field of Chinese language education. Despite the world-wide growth in school-based Chinese language education it has not yet been accompanied by a strong program of educational research for teacher professional learning. This series provides an internationally significant forum by bringing together research from around the world to inform school-based Chinese language education. Specifically, this series draws on a wealth of evidence from studies of Chinese learning and teaching, weaving together theoretical study of language education and real-world experience of student-centred, learning-focused practices. The series uses theoretically-informed and empirically-grounded evidence to inform the professional knowledge and practices of teaching, learning and using Chinese.

Yu Han · Xiaoyan Ji

Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education

Yu Han College English Education Center Nanfang College Guangzhou, China

Xiaoyan Ji School of Education The University of Sydney Sydney, NSW, Australia

ISSN 2946-2479 ISSN 2946-2487 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese ISBN 978-3-031-15152-1 ISBN 978-3-031-15153-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15153-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to our considerate mentor Prof. Michael Singh.

Preface

My intention to write this book came from my personal experience in transnational Chinese (Zh¯ ongwén/中文) education in an Australian primary school in the Western Sydney region around seven years ago. As a Chinese beginning teacher, I could find few systematic methods and resources for designing my Chinese lessons and I was not sure what resources were allowed to be used as teaching materials and what pedagogy could interest and motivate my students. I searched for various resources to enrich my 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) class and did a study in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher development from the perspective of their instructional language. Reading Prof. Yildiz Beyond the Mother Tongue the Postmonolingual Condition enlightened me and pushed me to put my thinking and my research into words. 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education is developing continuously. Needs and interests of learning Chinese have been booming due to its influence on industries such as tourism and trade, with special Chinese courses required in some countries. United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) prescribed Chinese as an official language on January 25, 2021. With the development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese language education has become globally demanded. The 136 countries that have signed up with the BRI project started to promote Chinese language domestically to strengthen collaborations with China. 30 international organizations have also taken part in Chinese language programs to facilitate their role in BRI. Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, South

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Africa, Tanzania, and Egypt have witnessed the increase of special Chinese courses relating to topics like customs, hotels, and restaurants. In Europe, “中文+” (Chinese Plus) vocational training has attracted a large number of people from different industries. While things are moving towards a bright direction, New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education (DoE) ended the collaboration with Confucius Institute in August 2019 as a result of mounting concern of foreign influence. The cause of this decision came from an incidence. In May 2019, a child of Taiwan background told his parents about the teaching of Chinese national anthem and flag in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) class. The parents filed complaints to the school that led to statewide investigations. No evidence of political influence was found after investigations, yet the NSW DoE still decided to cancel the program. NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell expressed her support for the cancellation due to worries of potential risks of undue influence. The Confucius Institute Headquarters, on the other hand, expressed deep sorrow to the decision by the NSW government and urged them for reconsiderations. According to the documents of Chinese Volunteer Center, individuals have to abide by the rules and regulations of the countries where they work and respect local customs. They are advised to maintain good relationships with local communities and avoid any activities that are against their role as a volunteer. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that the one-sided decision without consulting the partner reflects bias and inequality. Since the program was initiated by the NSW DoE in 2012 with the support of Jiangsu Provincial Education Department, Geng stated the importance of equal participation in making important decisions. Information on different social platforms impacts public opinions and people from both countries are becoming angry about the other side. Trading relationships have also been deteriorating, with such industries as tourism, mine, and agriculture severely impacted. During the pandemic, the situation gets worse: hostility spread to Chinese Australians with 1/3 of the community members having experienced verbal or physical abuse. In the middle of 2020, the Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) was renamed as Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CFLEAC), which might be a reflection of upgrading of cognition of Confucius Institutes in the Chinese academic world and a transformation of the position of Confucius Institutes by the policy-makers.

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It continues to cultivate 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers venturing out to countries and organizations to support communications. 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education continues in Australian schools regardless of the fact that Confucius Institutions were shut down. Chinese New Year still attracts tremendous attention in Australia. Australia’s former Prime Minister Scott Morrison urges Members of Parliament (MPs) to take the Chinese New Year as an opportunity to repair the damaged relationship and reinforce connections. It seems both sides intend to make up for the relationship and from my perspective, the promotion and advancement of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education might be one of the keys. I grew up in China and I love my motherland; I lived in Sydney, Australia for four years for my Ph.D. study and built a good relationship with local professors, colleagues, and friends. My experience in Australia tells me how little Australian people know about China. My “selfish” motive is that the improvement of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Australia might contribute to better understanding between the two nations because misunderstandings come along with a lack of knowledge of each other, which might be relieved or resolved from knowing each other’s language better. 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) is such an under-researched field, to which I intend to make my tinny bit of contribution. This book studies 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ classroom practice in Australian local schools from a postmonolingual perspective. Questioning the monolingual mindset evident in the idea of teaching Chinese as a “Foreign” Language could be taken as providing the central research problem of this book. This book situates in the context that in Australia, 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) has been popular; whereas, by and large, the outcome of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education is considered unsatisfactory in terms of students’ low academic achievement and high dropout rate, which was indicated as the consequence of qualified 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher shortage. In Australia, majority of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers are Chinese native speakers. When crossing borders, some 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers encounter cross-cultural obstacles interacting with Australian students, resulting in communication difficulties as well as pedagogical inefficiency for satisfying the diverse learning needs of Australian students. Another impetus in conducting this study, thus, is to testify if the above-mentioned situation is still the case around the corner of a new decade.

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In this book we intend to 1. Problematize the concepts of multilingualism and monolingualism that limit teachers’ efforts to engage in and contribute to practices for the multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language. 2. Study the tensions between multilingualism and monolingualism in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education, bringing into account localization strategies needed for the multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language, so as to recast existing knowledge in this field. 3. Reconceptualize the connection between languages education, intellectual cultures, and teaching/learning paves the way for a new, holistic approach to the multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language, one that goes beyond linguistic nativism as defined by the nation-state narratives. 4. Acknowledging the multilingual and heterogeneous realities found in language education while rejecting the homogeneity of monolingual mindset. The content of this book is presented in seven chapters. Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter, making meaning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language. Chapter 2 reviews relevant literature providing an understanding of transnational 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) educaongwén/Chinese) tion. Chapter 3 provides some knowledge of 中文 (Zh¯ education within China, which might be unnoticed by transnational 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education researchers. Chapter 4 elaborates contradictions in making 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learnable. Chapter 5 presents a paradox in resources for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education. Chapter 6 focuses on Chinese 汉字 (Hànzì) education. Chapter 7 concludes the book and offers several suggestions for future 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher education. Data for this book were collected from the Research-Oriented SchoolEngaged Teacher Education (ROSETE) program, which has been offered at Western Sydney University as either a Doctorate (36 months) or Masters by Research (18 months) degree through its partnership with Ningbo Education Bureau and the New South Wales Department of Education. The ROSETE program participants are higher degree

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researchers (HDRs) teaching and researching 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Australian public schools. The approval of data collection for the practice of this program was from the Western Sydney University Human Research Ethics Committee (H11974). Guangzhou, China

Yu Han

Acknowledgements

We would like to sincerely acknowledge the editors of the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education book series, Prof. Michael Singh and Prof. Jinghe Han from Western Sydney University, Australia for inviting us to contribute to the series. We thank Prof. Jinghe Han for her suggestions in the book proposal and structure of the original book manuscript. We thank Prof. Michael Singh for providing an insightful review report for the book manuscript and for guiding us through the revision and reconstruction of this book. His suggestions on making improvements to each chapter enlightened our thinking and promoted our capabilities in educational research as new researchers. His guiding ideologies in and contribution to postmonolingual teacher education have indicated a clear direction in the further design and construction of the final version of this book. We highly appreciate the support from the world-renowned publisher Springer Nature Switzerland AG, with special thanks to the warm-hearted and highly responsible editors we have the honour to work with—Cathy Scott, Paulin Evangelin, Balaji Varadharaju, Shreenidhi Natarajan, Liam Inscoe-Jones, and Petra Treiber—for regular contact on the progress of the book manuscript and for allowing extra time in manuscript writing during this special hard pandemic period. We are thankful to Nanfang College, Guangzhou for providing vast support in terms of research grant (Project No. 2020BQ01) and the Guangdong provincial research project (Project No. 21GYB166).

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you very much all for your generous support during this important stage in our life! We appreciate it. Yu Han Xiaoyan Ji

Contents

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Making Meaning of 中文 (Zh¯ongwén/Chinese) as a Local/Global Language

1

Understanding Transnational 中文 (Zh¯ongwén/Chinese) Education

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中文 (Zh¯ongwén/Chinese) Education Within 中国 (Zh¯ongguó/China)

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Contradictions in Making 中文 (Zh¯ongwén/Chinese) Learnable

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Paradox in Resources for 中文 (Zh¯ongwén/Chinese) Education

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To Be or Not to Be? Resources for 汉字 (Hànzì) Education

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Transnational 中文 (Zh¯ongwén/Chinese) Teacher Education

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Index

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Abbreviations

ABS BRI CEFR CFLEAC COAG CSL EBCL GPA Hanban Hànzì HDR IELTS MoE MoI MPs MTCSOL NALSAS NALSSP NPL NSW ROSETE TCFL TCLE TCSOL

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Belt and Road Initiative The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment Center for Language Education and Cooperation The Council of Australian Governments Chinese as a Second Language European Benchmarks for Chinese Language Grade Point Average Confucius Institute Headquarters Chinese character/the Chinese writing system Higher Degree Researcher International English Language Testing System Ministry of Education Medium of Instruction Members of Parliament Master of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program National Policy on Languages New South Wales The Research-Oriented School-Engaged Teacher Education program Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language Transnational Chinese Language Education Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table Table Table Table

3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2

Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3

Students’ translanguaging practices of sociolinguistic and sociocultural knowledge Students’ translanguaging practices of metalinguistic and metacognitive knowledge The Chinese P¯ıny¯ın Scheme Game of P¯ıny¯ın An overview of the participants 诗/Sh¯ı’s inappropriate non-educational activities (孝顺/xiàoshùn) 唐/Táng’s reinforcing stereotypes (皮蛋/pídàn) 风/F¯eng’s developmentally appropriate educational practices (food) 风/F¯eng’s developmentally appropriate educational practices (ball) An example of the everchanging sociolinguistic resources Extended learning from 鸡/j¯ı/chicken Extended learning from 球/qiú/ball

12 13 34 36 43 46 49 50 52 71 73 73

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CHAPTER 1

Making Meaning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a Local/Global Language

Abstract This chapter situates this study into meeting the professional learning needs of beginning teacher-researchers of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) to educate emergent bilinguals in English-speaking schools of multilingual Australia. The overview of recent research on the education of emergent bilingual students learning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) and biliteracy education indicates the significance of studying emergent bilingual school students in Australia regarding their learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese), bilingual education, and biliteracy development. This chapter expounds the necessity for teachers to get to know emergent bilingual students, their language learning strategies, using their funds of knowledge in English as the corpus for teaching 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese), and adopting English/Chinese translanguaging pedagogies. Overall, the first chapter provides readers with an educational rationale for this bilingual education research, the historical background of multilingual Australia, the merits of learning spoken Chinese, as well as defining the theoretical framework for this study. Keywords Chinese · Put¯ ˇ onghuà · Local/global language · TCLE · wángdào · ti¯ anxià · Translanguaging

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Y. Han and X. Ji, Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15153-8_1

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An Updating Concept: Transnational Chinese Language Education (TCLE) “Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language” (TCFL) has been identified as a commonly used expression referring to teaching Chinese Mandarin to learners from other linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The concept of TCFL contradicts Yildiz’ (2012) new postmonolingual theoretical framework, in which co-existing multilingual/translingual practices and monolingual mindset are studied to identify their interaction and tension with each other. The concept of TCFL perpetuates the prevailing multilingual/monolingual dichotomy, and thus offers nothing new. The concept of TCFL can maintain the sense—and the sensibilities—that both students and their linguistic practices as “foreign” to the language they are learning. The concept of TCFL says nothing about students’ learning and using Chinese as their own language. Thus, we update the concept to “Transnational Chinese Language Education” (TCLE) or “Transnational 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) Education”, referring to Chinese 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education crossing borders and jurisdictions. Governments of countries that value the study of languages create educational systems, from schools to universities that educate professional teachers to provide students with instruction that enables them to succeed in language learning, understand a range of strategies for learning languages, and use these languages to engage with divergent intellectual cultures. These strategic goals require governments to have a philosophical commitment to providing recurrent, long-term funding that adds educational value to their society’s multilingual capabilities. This research has resulted in students studying languages for personal, humanistic, and enrichment reasons. This study contributes to research exploring students’ strategies for language learning, the efficacy of various approaches to teaching/learning languages, the effect of immersion and study abroad programs, and how to enhance learning across intellectual cultures. Taking a long-term view of the teaching profession’s contributions to moulding languages education, the goal of this study is to reveal how 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education is conducted by non-native English background language teachers to native English background students, what might be the positives and negatives in the process, and how to promote and improve the overall quality of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in an English context taking a postmonolingual perspective. To this end it investigates three key research questions:

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1. How Transnational Chinese Language Education (TCLE) is practised in Australian schools? 2. What might be the positives and negatives in the practice? 3. How the positives and negatives could inform future TCLE and teacher education? Language educators can use this study and the research referred to throughout this monograph to make informed decisions about whom to work with to influence the language education policies of schools, universities, and government, when to participate in funding initiatives under established language education policies, and when to opt-out of the corridors of politics. How does this study connect with policy issues? Addressing this question provides insights into teaching/learning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language as an avenue for exploring ways of working together. Divergent cultural dispositions, political pressures, individual idiosyncrasies, and personal apprehensions give meaning to teaching/learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) through transnational localization.

¯ ´ /Chinese) Teaching/Learning of 中文 (Zhongw en as a Local/Global Language Can the teaching/learning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language provide an avenue for exploring ways of working together of issues of local/global significance? Simple answers are misleading. Whether it is the climate crises, international trade, or world peace, China and the US are pivotal. Between them, China and the US hold the fate of our world and the planet. Russia, India, Japan, France, Germany, the UK, and Australia are all pulled along in the wake of the geopolitical rhetoric between Beijing and Washington. In recent years this rhetoric has caused more anger than it has furthered mutual understanding. An idea that has gained popularity in political circles is that the shifting balance of power between China and the US has lighted the fuse for conflict. The assumption is that as the rising power of China meets the waning power of the US, war is inevitable. Hawks in China and the US talk up conflict, drowning the voices of those who offer more cautious, nuanced arguments. The contrary arguments hold that these transitions

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in global power relations do not address the complexities that humanity now faces. It is about economics and politics as much it is about who represents the soul and future of the planet. Positioning China and the US as belligerent threats has become for many politicians a dominating frame of reference, a mindset that locks power struggles into the local/global order. The issues are more complicated than a contest for power. How else can we talk about teaching/learning Chinese as a local/global language beyond the prism of inevitable conflict? Does making meaning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language offer a different view of a planet in crisis? A re-examination, re-evaluation, and reframing of current intercultural political realities is necessary to promote more thoughtful and tactful teaching/learning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese). Zhang and Lebow’s (2020) use of the concepts of 王道 (wángdào) and 天下 (ti¯ anxià) foreground the basic humanistic, cultural, and intellectual expectations and value for teaching/learning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language. They draw on the theoretical concept of 王道 (wángdào)—benevolent rule virtuous as opposed to the way of hegemon. That claim is that a reinvigorated does not seek to impose its vision on Australia but demands that as a subservient nation it paid tribute to Chinese power. Applying 王道 (wángdào) is meant to work to mutual advantage, such that China gains honour because of its strength, while Australia because of its weakness gains protection and trade advantages. Another concept, 天下 (ti¯ anxià) or “all under heaven” has been redefined to give it relevance today. 天下 (Ti¯ anxià) is the view of a “world order that is both of and for all the world’s peoples”, where people think less of individual nation-states and more as one world - one planet. 天下 (Ti¯ anxià) turns a world of hostility into hospitality. There is no foreigner, no enemy. 天下 (Ti¯ anxià) eschews competition—which leads to disorder—for coexistence. The concept of 天下 (ti¯ anxià) not far removed from Immanuel Kant’s notion of “perpetual peace” built on shared humanity, a cosmopolitan order. 天下 (Ti¯ anxià) puts the “we” above the “I”. There are alternative ways of framing language learning. Zhang and Lebow’s (2020) use of the concepts of 王道 (wángdào) and 天下 (ti¯ anxià) offer a nuanced perspective on deep expectations students have for language, which added value to the anticipation from taking up the challenge of studying 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese).

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The definition of teaching/learning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language has moved from addressing only communication to embracing questions of humanity and the planet. This focus represents a response to the interests of the majority of students who elected to study 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) for reasons to do with learning this language and its associated culture(s) for personal, humanistic, and enrichment reasons. Schools, colleges, and universities teach 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) for reasons of creating new understandings of languages and cultures. They build these capabilities through educating professional teachers who can appeal to student educational interests and their reasons for communicating in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese). The intention of this new generation of teachers is to provoke a wide view of language education and to do so in terms that were accessible to a broad public. Good public education policy aims to do likewise.

¯ ´ /Chinese) Teaching/Learning 中文 (Zhongw en Through Transnational Localization Teaching/learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) through transnational localization means 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) is embraced as part of Australians’ multilingual capabilities. Australians’ national identity now embraces its citizens’ multilingual capabilities. 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) is now the second most commonly spoken language by Australians. The focus of this study on 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as an Australian language stands in marked contrast with the notion of “foreign” language study. The policy of “foreign” language study takes a restrictive or limited vision. Phillips (2007) explains that the contested and contestable notion of “foreign” language study is variously defined as: 1. narrowly policy focused on the language of an immediate enemy or competitor. In terms of government support for languages, policymakers display enthusiasm for academic discussions that concentrate their concerns about defense, national security, and international competitiveness. 2. (ill-conceived) decisions by legislators and administrators whose nationalistic mission is to fund strategic languages as exclusionary curricular offerings. 3. as not needed by most English-only speakers, but just that segment of the public-the university-bound elite-that is most interested in the global economy, foreign affairs, and matters of military business.

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4. a skill and talent that the citizens of developing nations and multilingual Europeans value. 5. ignores the context for the study of languages, their cultural or literary purposes, and alignment with humanistic or planetary professions.

Students Expectation of Learning ˇ onghu ¯ Practical 普通话 (Put a`/Mandarin) The Federal and State (provincial) Governments in Australia issued a policy to educate Australians so that they become “Asia literate”, that is capable of engaging and building strong relationships with people from and throughout Asia (Singh, 1995, 1996). The Australian Government’s aspiration was to have at least 12% of Year 12 Australian students fluent in either Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, or Korean by 2020. However, the lack of government financial investment meant that there is a shortage of high quality, professional language teachers of Chinese in Australia. About 90% of the teachers of Chinese employed in Australian schools have been recruited from China, speaking Chinese as their primary language. In response to the Australian Government’s encouragement of Asia literacy education in Australia, a partnership was initiated by the New South Wales Department of Education initially with the Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Education and then extended to include Western Sydney University. This partnership was initiated to stimulate interest in schools throughout Sydney in establishing programs in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education and cultural studies (Singh, 2013a). The Department of Education wanted the Partnership’s volunteers to work in schools for 2 days each week of the school year. Having trained in general communicative English, the Ningbo Bureau wanted the volunteers to return with experience of actually using English to communicate with school students and advanced academic English to work with for it. Accordingly, the Department and the Bureau negotiated with the University to provide a degree program that would integrate their school-based professional learning and university studies in quality teaching and educational research (Reid et al., 2013; Santoro et al., 2012; Singh & Nguy˜ên, 2018). The recruits are just beginning their professional learning journey, and likewise, the Australian school students are just beginning their language learning journey. The focus then is on the recruits learning to develop the

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students’ elementary proficiency in 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà, common speech of Chinese), enabling them to form basic sentences, including asking and answering questions. The use of 拼音 (P¯ıny¯ın, Romanized phonetic script), including diacritics (accent markers) would be used for the practice of the four tones. 汉字 (Hànzì, Chinese characters) would also be used, but would not be the direct focus on teaching/learning in the early stages. The primary focus of/for teaching/learning is given to developing accuracy in hearing, speaking, and identifying key features of the sounds of the language. In addition to teaching 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) to school students, it was agreed that these recruits would use their research to represent their primary language and the reservoirs of conceptual knowledge it provides access to, thereby providing a means of learning to use 理念 (lˇıniàn, conceptual knowledge) to prepare bilingual teacher-researchers and make multilingualism explicit in methods of educational research (Singh, 2005, 2009, 2010). This partnership involves the Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Education recruiting volunteers from its catchment on the expectation that they would (a) learn to teach 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) in Sydney primary and secondary schools, and (b) produce an evidence-driven scholarly research report detailing their professional learning in these schools. The volunteers were recruited by the Ningbo Bureau with the understanding that being proficient in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese), they would receive training in the Australian schools and university that would contribute to their education as teacher-researchers specializing in teaching/learning 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà). The Bureau did not want them to undertake a program that would become professional teachers of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) and remain in Australia. Being proficient speakers of their primary language did not make these recruits capable of teaching 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) to Australian school students or researching their efforts to have students learn 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà). Officers from the Department of Education, mentors from each school’s executive team and supervising class teachers agreed to induct the volunteers into the work expected of beginning teachers of 普通 话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) (Singh & Ballantyne, 2012, 2014). The Departmental officers helped clarify any misunderstandings the teacher-researchers experienced regarding the difference between the relentless exam-driven, textbook-based education system in 中国 (Zh¯ ongguó/ China), which impact on Chinese teachers profoundly and some teachers use as their

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weapon to secure students’ obedience. It is a mistake to equate test-driven teaching and learning with intrinsic self-motivation. In Australia, examinations are not used extensively as either a tool to govern teachers’ work or an extrinsic motivator to drive students’ learning. Feeding students information to pass endless tests will not work with Australian students. The focus is on the beginning teacher-researchers understanding the challenges students at different ages and stages face in learning 普通 话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) (as they do in any other subject) and using methods that fulfil students’ expectations that they can learn 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà). Content and language integrated learning means concentrating on learning forms of 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) (content) that actually add value to their everyday lives (Wang & Curdt-Christiansen, 2019; Zhou & Mann, 2021). Students’ on-task or off-task behaviours during lessons in 普通 话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) were closely related to whether the beginning teacherresearchers could deliver on the children’s expectation that they would be taught forms of 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) they could use, and which would have value in their everyday lives. They had to provide forms of 普 通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) they could learn and use as part of their everyday schooling. To do so, the beginning teacher-researchers had to get to know the English that was commonly used in the students every day in-school activities and events. They use this knowledge to inform their choices about the teaching forms of 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) they could use in those domains. The beginning teacher-researchers had to work against their educational history, by learning to design teaching/learning activities themselves by drawing upon their students’ existing knowledge and developing appropriate curriculum materials from a variety of Australian local school resources. The Departmental officers explained that pedagogically, professional teachers in Australia value students asking questions in class and then deciding whether they will provide an answer or ask fellow students to do so. Rather than have students memorize large quantities of information from official, government textbooks, students are encouraged to ask questions in class. Students’ questions indicate the value they attach to what they are learning and are an expression of their expectations that they will learn. For the beginning teacher-researchers, they had to learn to overcome the sense of discomfort they experienced when students asked them questions in Australian classes. To do so, meant seeing such questioning as an essential part of students’ commitment to language learning, and getting beyond regarding students’ questions as an interruption to their teaching.

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In addition to organizing their school induction, the school mentors helped the volunteers explore pedagogical problems such as organizing effective group work, exercising control to maintain a well-disciplined class; providing constructive feedback on their teaching/learning strategies; introducing them to age and developmentally appropriate curriculum resources; and provided advice on the planning of work units and lesson plans. In addition, mentors developed their professional knowledge in relation to getting to know students and how they learn, helped them to critically reflect on the complexity of teaching and learning given their own prior experiences, and coaching them through joint planning to design lessons that could be implemented in the allotted class-time, including the formative assessment of language learning promoted during that lesson. With the help of the supervising teachers the beginning teacherresearchers gained knowledge of the school students’ preferred learning strategies, and the prior knowledge they brought to school which could be used in lessons in 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà). While these beginning teacher-researchers are assessed as competent users of English in internationally recognized tests (e.g., IELTS: International English Language Testing System), the expectation was that they would learn to use advanced scholastic English in their teaching/learning strategies with school students. The beginning teacher-researchers carried out a series of observations of their supervising class teachers’ use of English making notes of the teacher’s use of language for teacher/student interactions, their use of instructional language, their pronunciation, stress, and intonation in using English for different purposes, and how to use grammar accurately. Supervising class teachers use this evidence to develop the beginning teacher-researchers’ understanding of the nature of English used for teaching/learning and classroom management purposes in their classes. They advised them when they met challenges understanding young Australian students’ English expressions used in their daily lives, developing their command of English to how to respond immediately and appropriately to students, establishing explicit work criteria for students, and maintaining students’ interest and concentration. Academics from Western Sydney University were responsible for supervising their school-engaged research projects. A joint team from the Department and the University provided an intensive education in the latest research-based knowledge of teacher-research and language education. Known as the ROSETE Partnership was not intended to address

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the many significant challenges confronting language teacher education in Australia. Working with these beginning teacher-researchers means developing their professional knowledge, teaching/learning practices, and engagement strategies. Becoming familiar with Australia’s culture(s) of teaching/learning means beginning teacher-researchers learn to responsibly engage students in purposeful language learning. The beginning teacher-researchers learn to make 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) a language that Australian school students can expect to learn and use in their everyday lives. This means enabling these students to gain substantial value from learning 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) given the costs or demands involved in doing so. Thus, a key focus is on getting to know their students and what they are learning in other subjects, as well as their language learning strategies and expectations as necessary to teaching forms of 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) that could be used in their everyday schooling. Knowledge about students’ literacy levels and their language learning strategies is necessary for these beginning teacher-researchers to develop appropriate lessons for them. While students use a range of language learning strategies, they can differ in those they prefer (Halliday, 2014). Some students learn 普 通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) by listening and speaking, while others learn it by reading and writing 拼音 (P¯ıny¯ın). Some students prefer to learn 普通 话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) by trying out their capability to use the language; others learn thinking through and planning their use of 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) before they give their performance. Some students focus more on the meaning of what is said in 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà); while others focus on its sound or seeing the 拼音 (P¯ıny¯ın). Some students want to understand the general principle at work in the 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) they are learning, while others want to find the patterns in the language they are studying for themselves. Using students’ existing knowledge in English to select appropriate 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) content and developing suitable teaching/learning strategies that connected 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) with its everyday use is students’ schooling. Understanding and extending Australian school students’ language learning strategies develop required these beginning teacher-researchers to develop advanced English proficiency in order to use translanguaging pedagogies necessary to enhance students’ learning of 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) (Wang & Curdt-Christiansen, 2019; Zhou & Mann, 2021). Developing advanced proficiency in English is necessary for them to

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understand students’ language learning strategies which include translanguaging practices such as attending to the cross-sociolinguistic understanding of sounds in English and 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà). For example, Australian school students recognize that the pronunciation of 八 (b¯ a, 8, eight) in 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) sounds similar to the sound a sheep makes in Australian English. In this context, teaching/learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) through transnational localization entails selecting local content and pedagogies to construct 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as an Australian language. Zhao (2020) studied Australian school students’ daily recurring sociolinguistic activities performed in English and investigated the use of these resources to create content for teaching/learning 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà). This study indicates the potential of students’ English and Put¯ ˇ onghuà translanguaging practices for reinforcing their expectation that they could learn to speak this language, and it added value to their daily recurring sociolinguistic activities in school. Through contextualizing the learning of 普通 话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà) in this the students found the language was made learnable, and that the vocabulary they acquired provided a basis for them to expect they could learn more of the language. In sum, the purpose of the ROSETE partnership was to stimulate the interest of schools in establishing their language education programs in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese). The volunteers were not expected to provide the estimated 2200 hours of study for the students to achieve proficiency in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese). As beginning teacher-researchers, with no officially recognized Australian relevant teaching qualifications or accreditation. Consequently, schools could not, and did not legally allocate time for them to conduct the number of lessons that would be necessary for the students to make significant progress in learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese). These beginning teacher-researchers were not and could not be officially recognized by the schools in the same way as local teachers whose qualifications and accreditation were recognized by official government authorities.

Emergent Bilinguals’ Translanguaging Practices Students drew on their integrated English/Chinese linguistic resources to refer to locally relevant aspects of their school culture. Table 1.1 shows the purposes of the specific coding of students’ translanguaging practices relating to the social context (sociolinguistic knowledge), and when they employed culturally oriented language (sociocultural knowledge).

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Table 1.1 Students’ translanguaging practices of sociolinguistic and sociocultural knowledge Practical sociolinguistic knowledge Respond to students’ questions (interlocutors) to respond to the interlocutor’s language use Engage in dialogues based on students’ questions and teachers’ answers

– Wˇo xˇıhu¯ an blue.– How to say blue? – Lánsè – Wˇo xˇıhu¯ an lánsè – Wˇo xˇıhu¯ an apple – Apple, píngguˇo – Wˇo xˇıhu¯ an píngguˇo Wˇo shì Australian Wˇo ài Zh¯ ongwén Wˇo xˇıhu¯ an avocado

Explicit bilingual identity—to explicitly express bilingual identity Unknown equivalent words—employ borrowed lexical items for unknown equivalent words Quicker lexical access—to provide quicker Wˇo xˇıhu¯ an Honey Chicken lexical access by using a specific language Students access to the vocabulary in both Wˇo xˇıhu¯ an coffee/k¯ af¯ei languages, that is using their dual-language lexicon Practical sociocultural knowledge: using Chinese words relating to Reference to class members, their teacher, Zhè shì tóngxué. (This is my classmate) and school Good morning laosh¯ ˇ ı. (Good morning teacher) go to xuéxiào (go to school) Classroom objects Zhè shì báiban/diànn ˇ ao/zhu¯ ˇ ozi/yˇızi. (This is a white board/computer/desk/chair) ¯ Anjìng. (Be quiet) Classroom instructional language Zuòhao. ˇ (Sit down) Playground games Wˇo xˇıhu¯ an lánqiú/zúqiú. (I like basketball/football) Playground activities (e.g., lunchtime Don’t forget your fànhé and màozi. routines) (lunch box and hat). Wˇo yào qù the play zone/quiet zone. (I want to go to the play zone/quiet zone) Reference to family members I have bàba/m¯ ama/g¯ege/jiˇejie/dìdi/mèimei. (I have dad, mom, elder brother/elder sister/younger brother/younger sister Linguistic practices I can speak Hànyu. ˇ (I can speak Chinese)

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Table 1.2 Students’ translanguaging practices of metalinguistic and metacognitive knowledge Metalinguistic awareness of cross-sociolinguistic knowledge Sound similarities between English and Sandwich/s¯ anmíngzhì, coffee/k¯ af¯ei Chinese Usage similarities in English and Chinese I like coffee. (Wˇo xˇıhu¯ an coffee/k¯ af¯ei.) The application of language knowledge to Wˇo ài 唐/Tang create new meanings or jokes Regulate or control language use Wˇo xˇıhu¯ an red, hóngsè Demonstration of their linguistic knowledge of Chinese and English Metacognitive insights Reflect on thinking through language Wˇo yˇou apple. I have an apple. Wˇo yˇou y¯ı apple Evaluate their thinking about language Manipulate their thinking about language

We categorized the students’ translanguaging practices according to when they demonstrated and applied their understanding of language (metalinguistic), and when they thought about and evaluated their language through inner speech (metacognitive). Table 1.2 shows the purposes of the specific coding of students’ translanguaging practices relating to metalinguistic and metacognitive knowledge.

Conclusion This chapter has explained the meaning of teaching/learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language at length through, firstly, criticized the monolingual concept “Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language” and proposed a new concept: “Transnational Chinese Language Education”. Then three research questions were raised based on a postmonolingual perspective in language education research. Emergent bilinguals’ translanguaging practices were also touched upon with examples from authentic 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) classes. The next chapter will present literature of transnational 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education for a better understanding of the current situation and issues in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education globally.

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References Halliday, M. (2014). Notes on teaching Chinese to foreign learners. Journal of World Languages, 1(1), 1–6. Phillips, J. (2007). Foreign language education: Whose definition? The Modern Language Journal, 91(2), 266–268. Reid, C., Collins, J., & Singh, M. (2013). Global teachers, Australian perspectives: Goodbye Mr Chips, Hello Ms Banerjee. Springer Science & Business Media. Santoro, N., Reid, J., Mayer, D., & Singh, M. (2012). Producing ‘quality’ teachers: The role of teacher professional standards. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 40(1), 1–3. Singh, M. (1995). Edward Said’s critique of orientalism and Australia’s ‘Asia Literacy’ curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 27 (6), 599–620. Singh, M. (1996). Living dangerously: Confronting Australian dragons. Curriculum Perspectives, 16(3), 53–55. Singh, M. (2005). Enabling transnational learning communities: Policies, pedagogies and politics of educational power. In P. Ninnes & M. Hellstén (Eds.), Internationalizing higher education (pp. 9–36). Springer. Singh, M. (2009). Using Chinese knowledge in internationalising research education: Jacques Rancière, an ignorant supervisor and doctoral students from China. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 7 (2), 185–201. Singh, M. (2010). Connecting intellectual projects in China and Australia: Bradley’s international student-migrants, Bourdieu and productive ignorance. Australian Journal of Education, 54(1), 31–45. Singh, M. (2011). Learning from China to internationalise Australian research education: Pedagogies of intellectual equality and ‘optimal ignorance’ of ERA journal rankings. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 48(4), 355–365. Singh, M. (2013a). Designing research to improve students’ learning: ‘Industry/university’ collaborations for educating teacher-researchers. The Australian Educational Researcher, 40(5), 549–566. Singh, M. (2013b). Worldly critical theorizing in Euro-American centered teacher education? Preparing bilingual teacher-researcher theorists for the twenty-first century. In X. Zhu & K. Zeichner (Eds.), Preparing teachers for the 21st century (pp. 141–169). Springer. Singh, M., & Ballantyne, C. (2012). Multiliteracies, Asian linguistic engagement and the Australian curriculum. Practically Primary, 17 (3), 4–8. Singh, M., & Ballantyne, C. (2014). Making Chinese learnable for beginning second language learners? In N. Murray & A. Scarino (Eds.), Dynamic ecologies: A relational perspective on languages education in the Asia-Pacific region (pp. 199–214). Springer. Singh, M., & Nguy˜ên, N. (2018). Localising Chinese: Educating teachers through service-learning. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Wang, W., & Curdt-Christiansen, X. (2019). Translanguaging in a ChineseEnglish bilingual education programme: A university-classroom ethnography. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 22(3), 322– 337. Yildiz, Y. (2012). Beyond the mother tongue: The postmonolingual condition. Fordham University Press. Zhang, F., & Lebow, R. (2020). Taming Sino-American rivalry. Oxford University Press. Zhao, K. (2020). Localising Chinese language curriculum construction: A case study in an Australian primary school. Global Chinese, 6(2), 263–288. Zhou, X., & Mann, S. (2021). Translanguaging in a Chinese university CLIL classroom: Teacher strategies and student attitudes. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 11(2), 265–289.

CHAPTER 2

Understanding Transnational 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) Education

Abstract This chapter contextualizes transnational 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Australia by first reviewing transnational 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in some major countries and areas where 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) is taught, for example in some countries participated in the Belt and Road Initiative, in some European countries, in the US and Australia. Then 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education is contextualized in Australia especially by analyzing some relevant literature, starting from a policy perspective. It reveals issues in Australian Chinese education such as inconsistency in classroom instructional language, which paves a way for more studies in the area. Keywords Contextualize · TCLE · BRI · Europe · US · Australia · Policy

Rise of Transnational 中文 ¯ ´ /Chinese) Education en (Zhongw With the fast economic development of China in the recent four decades since the Open Door Policy, the number of students and teachers © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Y. Han and X. Ji, Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15153-8_2

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learning and teaching 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) has increased dramatongwén/Chinese) ically (Hanban, 2018). By the end of 2020, 中文 (Zh¯ education has been carried out in more than 180 countries and areas globally, in which it has been integrated into the national education system in more than 70 countries; thus, there are over 20 million 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learners outside China (CFLEAC, 2021). To catch the wave of China’s development, many countries and individuals around the world have been aware of the importance of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education. Thus, “Chinese fever” has been inspired (Gao, 2011). The number of “In-bound” 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) students learning Chinese language or learning to be 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers in China and the number of “Out-bound” 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers venturing out to teach outside China are both exponential and the numbers keep increasing year by year especially under the influence of the recent China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). According to the Confucius Institute Annual Development Report 2017 , within China, there are more than 100 Chinese higher education institutions providing professional degrees of learning to be 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers (Hanban, 2018). Outside China, by June 2019, 530 Confucius Institutes in 155 countries/areas were established (Hanban, 2019). The teacher source for these Confucius Institutes is mainly expatriate 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher personnel sent out from Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban), China. Before venturing out to be 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers in overseas countries, they receive certain training in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teaching. Take a proportion of the expatriate 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers as an example: the objectives of those who are trained by the Master of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (MTCSOL) program are prescribed as: 汉语国际教育硕士专业学位获得者应具有扎实的汉语言文化知识、熟练的 汉语作为第二语言/外语教学的技能、较高的外语水平和较强的跨文化交 际能力 (Hanban, 2010). [Translation: The objectives of students who get a MTCSOL degree are those with fundamental Chinese cultural knowledge, proficient skills in teaching 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese), higher foreign language level and better cross-cultural communication competence. (Hanban, 2010)]

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As can be seen from the objectives of the MTCSOL programs, qualified 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers are those who have strong pedagogical skills (“proficient skills in teaching CFL”) and are proficient in a “foreign” language (“higher foreign language level”). Looking through the literature, studies on authentic overseas classes of those expatriate 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers have been increasing in recent years, with a preponderant percentage of studies focusing on the cultural influences on their teaching (e.g., Han & Han, 2019; Han & Ji, 2021; Han et al., 2019; Kirkebk et al., 2013; Li & Jensen, 2013).

¯ ´ /Chinese) Education in Countries 中文 (Zhongw en Involved in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in the BRI-relevant countries has been paid more attention to since the BRI was proposed in 2013 (Feng, 2021). By December 2020, 56 countries have built up Confucius Institutes among the 65 countries involved in the BRI, accounting for 86.1 per cent of its coverage rate (Zhang & Zheng, 2021, p. 155). However, for the relatively short history of BRI, studies on 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education of the BRI countries have been focusing more on the macro level—the peripheral fields such as language poliongwén/Chinese) staff (Cai, cies (Feng, 2021), construction of 中文 (Zh¯ 2020; Cui et al., 2020; Liu & Zhang, 2019; Yang, 2020; Zhao & Zhang, 2018), a lack of funding for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) programs (Liu & Zhang, 2019), the lagging behind of and inconsistency in teaching materials or books (Liu & Zhang, 2019; Zhao & Zhang, 2018), the backward teaching management system (Liu & Zhang, 2019), areas demand 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) talents (Wei, 2020) and the challenges 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education and promotion face (Cui et al., 2020), rather than the core areas like what is going on within the classroom. As a significant partner in the BRI, the Republic of Djibouti, for example, has cooperated with China on trade and foreign affairs for four decades. A 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teaching centre in the Republic of Djibouti was established to satisfy the need for communication. However, conditions like unsafe surrounding environment have caused challenges in the organization of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers (Yang, 2020). Similarly, Sri Lankans “have experienced a craze for Chinese learning” (Cai, 2020, p. 6) since the further promotion of BRI; however, the 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher force could not satisfy the needs of this

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craze. Laos is also facing challenges such as 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) program funding deficiency, a lack of appropriate textbooks or materials for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teaching and a lagging-behind teaching management system (Liu & Zhang, 2019). Thailand, with its close communication and corporation with China and its booming development of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education, still is facing twists and turns in its 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher deficiency, especially “stable teaching staff”, lack of coordination in “curricula setting, teaching material utilizing and teaching program” (Zhao & Zhang, 2018, p. 20) and chaos in civilian educational market as well as its maintenance. In contrast, Singapore, depending on its Chinese-origin population and long-term Chinese education experience, has stepped further—it has transformed from a teacher-centred to a student-centred teaching and learning environment and applied unique Chinese teacher training concept and strategy of “Research-Validation-Train” (Chen, 2019, p. 6).

¯ ´ /Chinese) 中文 (Zhongw en Education in European Countries 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Europe has been developing fast in the past decade due to the prosperous development of China, which could be seen from the great quantity of Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in Europe: 30 Confucius Institutes and 3 Confucius Classrooms in the UK, 19 Confucius Institutes and 4 Confucius Classrooms in Russia, 19 Confucius Institutes and 2 Confucius Classrooms in Germany, 12 Confucius Institutes and 3 Confucius Classrooms in Italy as well as some in France, Spain, and Poland (Zhang & Zheng, 2021, p. 155). Scholars achieved a preliminary agreement that 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in European countries has developed well with an increasing number of primary and secondary schools included 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) into their curricula and be financially supported by Confucius Institutes (Pérez-Milans, 2015). However, it started late in mainstream foreign language education and its scale is still relatively small (Zhang, 2016). The differences such as writing systems between Chinese and European languages cause incomprehension; multi-interpretations of the relationship between 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education and The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR) lead to further confusion (Zhang, 2016). In Europe where European languages play the key role in the language

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education field, 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese), due to a lack of individualized criteria, leads to and causes a series of issues in areas such as curriculum design, classroom teaching, and learning and assessment (Zhang, 2016). Overall, 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Europe is lagging behind other European languages. Zhang (2016) investigated 3400 public primary and secondary schools in the UK and found that 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education was offered in 1 per cent of the primary schools and 8 per cent among secondary schools. The situation was better in technical schools, accounting for around 10 per cent. Zhang interpreted the situation by analysis of two core policies: CEFR and European Benchmarks for Chinese Language (EBCL) and found that the incompleteness and lack of understanding of EBCL lead to its little impact on 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Europe. Thus, to complete and improve 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education policies is urgent for the promotion and advancement of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Europe. The UK, as the leading figure in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Europe, has a more mature and advanced curriculum compared to other European countries where 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teaching has a late start; however, it has its problems: a deficiency in courses of cultural knowledge, a lack of courses designed specifically for the promotion of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learners’ four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) comprehensively and systematically and short course time/period (around 20 periods and less than one hour for each period) (Liang & Jia, 2021). In North and Western Europe, there are issues in the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) field as well: a deficiency and unsystematicness in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) textbooks, insufficient local 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers, a lack of theoretical knowledge in language education as well as inappropriate pedagogy (Fan & Sun, 2018). Hànzì teaching has been raised as a topic by Guder and Lee (2018). They found that 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in the Western world tends to pay more attention to the oral aspect rather than the writing system due to the complexity and difficulty in Hànzì; however, they contend that Hànzì, as the writing system of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese), is the key in reading comprehension and is the premise for integration into the Chinese society. Therefore, the designing of a systematic Hànzì teaching curriculum is vital in secondary and higher

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education stages, and Hànzì should be an indispensable part in teaching beginning learners of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese).

¯ ´ /Chinese) Education in the US 中文 (Zhongw en 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in the US has a long history and is undoubtedly popular revealed from the fact that it has the most Confucius Institutes—by October 2020, there are 81 Confucius Institutes and 13 Confucius Classrooms in the US (Zhang & Zheng, 2021, p. 154). Combined with education and trade, the US view foreign languages education as a strategic approach for national security (Owen 2009, p. 15, cited in Han, 2017, p. 8) and Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese are listed on the “critical languages” of the National Security Education Programme (NSEP, 2016) among other languages such as Japanese, Indonesian, Russian, and Turkish. Yet the US attitude towards 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education and China “cautious” described by Sun and Shouse (2015, p. 55), which is revealed from its efforts to balance the relationship between English as the central language and Chinese as a periphery language.

¯ ´ /Chinese) Contextualize 中文 (Zhongw en Education in Australia Australia is a country with cultural and linguistic diversity. As shown in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), in 2016, more than 300 languages were spoken in Australian homes and over 21 per cent of Australians spoke a language other than English at home (ABS, 2017). Naturally, this cultural and linguistic diversity transfers into the Australian education system, resulting in the tendency that Australian teachers’ and students’ ethnic diversity has increased dramatically (Collins & Reid, 2012; Forrest et al., 2017). Language pedagogy, under such conditions, has been impacted by a sociocultural understanding of language and culture in the past two decades, which has posted language teachers the pressure to adopt an intercultural approach in language teaching. Due to the diversity of language and cultural backgrounds, however, different groups of teachers need to look into this new pedagogy through their own cultural lens (Moloney, 2013). Chinese “has been prioritised” by Australia (Han, 2017, p. 2). This research examines

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中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ classroom language teaching practice from a postmonolingual perspective, which is situated within the context of calls for more successful teaching and learning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) in Australian schools through more extensive pedagogical possibilities (Orton, 2008). In Australia, the supply of foreign language teachers has long failed to meet the demand. Reasons contribute to this disappointing situation have been identified by researchers in the area: on the one hand, English dominance caused by monolingualism contributes to this continuous crisis of language teacher shortage, and, on the other hand, language teachers are undervalued in the education system resulting in lack of security, disappointment, and even drop out from the profession (Mason & Matas, 2016).

¯ ´ /Chinese) Education 中文 (Zhongw en in Australia: A Policy Perspective Asian languages have received growing attention in Australia due to their increasing role in the Asia–Pacific region both economically and politically (Mason & Matas, 2016). As Australia’s top trading partner, China has been playing a significant role in Australia’s international connections and thus, Chinese, the official language of China, is viewed with high value. 1987 witnessed advocacy of Chinese teaching in the National Policy on Languages (NPL) (Lo Bianco, 2009), and such trend continues in the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools (NALSAS) program (1994–2002) where Chinese was regarded as the priority among Asian languages. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) report in 1994 also took Chinese as a focus that needs reasonable investments (Lo Bianco, 2009; Matas & Mason, 2015). NALSAS program has seen a 1.5 times increase of Chinese learners and the Ministry of Education (MoE) observes consistent growth of Chinese learning in primary schools since the late 1990s. At the turn of the century, Chinese learning paves its way to secondary schools (Liu & Lo Bianco, 2007) and the number surpassed 80,000 by 2006. In 2008, National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP) was released, with a target of having 12% of Year 12 students studying Asian languages by 2020 (Matas & Mason, 2015).

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General policy direction has boosted language recognition, but further and specific steps have not been taken to ensure its healthy development (Lo Bianco, 2009). Overall situation disempowers language teachers and constrains their capability as they feel ostracized and lack a sense of belonging. With increased students and demand, language teachers face mounting challenges, yet their status has not received corresponding attention. Policy makers’ consideration of language teachers’ proactivity will promote their identity and solidify commitment. If language teachers simply perform passively as policy consumers, their engagement to the system is limited and effective contribution is discounted.

Contributors to the Unsatisfactory Situation of Language Teachers in Australia Limitations on various layers have inhibited language teachers from their full capacity. To begin with, studies on Australian language teachers have been scrutinizing language promotions and student achievements, yet very rarely have they probed into teachers’ needs and struggles. While language outcome has been examined regularly by various standards, lack of academic investment causes severe inequality. Performance of language is often gauged in comparison with other subjects that are more systematically covered. This has amplified imbalance and increased pressure between language and other areas, which attracts more criticism towards the already disabled linguistic landscape. Moreover, social media renders more complaints rather than support on language (Mason & Matas, 2016). As a country that thrives with multiculturalism and diversity, Australia claims high value on racial equality and liberation. Public platforms and social media work as major contributors and benefactors of people’s cultural understanding. They lead the public ideological frontline and work as the powerful tools of speech that exert deep influence. When facing language investment and yield, social media has been harsh on language teachers and their work. Superficially such blame seems justifiable because statistics do reflect unsatisfactory results, but closer examination shows much more complications. Without considering how the money was spent and why language teachers burn out faster than others, questions have focused on meeting ambitious targets (Mason, 2015). Not surprisingly, the vicious circle of language teacher deficiency deteriorates when teacher shortage leads to work overload which then

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contributes to attritions that add up to further shortage. Mason (2015) also points out that language sits at the bottom of the Australian education hierarchy and it impacts confidence for teachers to activate and mobilize their intellectual agency. The social value of language is cut short due to insufficient recognition (De Kretser & Spence-Brown, 2010; Scott, 2014). Another struggle for language teachers is inadequate funding and uncoordinated policy. Matas and Mason (2015) repeatedly signal that language support from the Australian government is scarce considering its social and cultural functions. Programs are set up over ambitiously given the scale of investment. Underfunded language schemes often fail to meet the high standards and hyped public expectations.

¯ ´ /Chinese) Research on 中文 (Zhongw en Education in Australia Research gaps and divergent opinions have reduced the legitimacy of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) to a point where its identity is ambiguous and the distance between 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers and others is widened. As a consequence, fine details of challenges are neglected or covered by other issues. Medium of instruction (MoI), for instance, has long been a major hindrance to 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers for professional development (Chen, 2015; Chen et al., 2017; Han, 2019; Han & Han, 2019; Han & Yao, 2013; Moloney & Wang, 2016; Singh & Han, 2014; Singh & Nguy˜ên, 2018; Wang et al., 2013), but insufficient concrete research has left it unacknowledged and therefore unsolved. Classroom instructional language plays an indispensable role in teaching quality and learning efficiency; therefore, the shortage of MoI studies has imposed a heavy toll on language education foundation and development trajectory. 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ low English proficiency greatly limits their connections with students and colleagues (Chen, 2015; Chen et al., 2017; Han, 2019; Han & Han, 2019; Han & Ji, 2021; Han & Yao, 2013; Orton, 2008), and lack of English assistance results in growth reluctance and unsystematic functionalities. Content conveyance and student facilitation rely on teachers’ instruction (Chen et al., 2017), which then extends to cultural communication (Han, 2019; Han & Han, 2019). Since English translates Chinese language and culture into Australian minds, 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ bilingual competence defines the capacity and formation of the accessible knowledge.

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Beneath the linguistic layer is the cultural layer that exerts tremendous influence both implicitly and explicitly. Growing with Confucian ideology, 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers have noticeable characteristics that are different from local Australians (Chen, 2015; Han, 2019; Han & Han, 2019). They, on the one hand, have to work hard to position themselves in the new system, while, on the other hand, struggle to address their identity. Han and Han (2019) highlighted 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ troubled experiences in cultural negotiation and identified it as a key obstacle for mutual understanding. Chinese culture values teachers highly and offers them strong leadership, while in Australian classrooms teachers need to build up their authority which takes a deep understanding of the local culture. In such a context, the linguistic and cultural inadequacy of Australia significantly disadvantage 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers. Han et al. (2019) raised concerns that 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers fall into relegation and the production of language education declines as a result. MoI, though acting as a significant factor in language education, has been under-researched in the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education realm (Wang, 2019), and even within China, the study of MoI is heavily divided which leads to conflicts in policies and practices. Such isolated programs under the already limited number of guidelines fail to meet the needs of linguistic promotion and interaction. One evident fact is that international teacher-student integration makes fragmented progress and the consistency of language collaboration is far from solid. Students’ growth and teachers’ confidence are tied to political objectives (Wang & Curdt-Christiansen, 2016) that specify MoI language standards and resource allocations. Without constructive ideas and reasonable agreements on research and regulations, occasional signs of progress can hardly interpret into long-term development. Another issue that restricts 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers is insufficient professional development (Chen et al., 2017; Han, 2019; Han & Yao, 2013; Moloney, 2013; Xu, 2012) and relevant teaching capability is not realized due to incomprehensive pedagogy, which then entails incohesive rapport, feedback, and behaviour management tactics. Statistically, study on 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) instructional language has long been insufficient and inconsistent, which caused lack of understanding and low efficiency. According to Ma et al. (2017), 290 out of 909 studies on 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) between 2005 and 2015

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are on classroom management and another 48 are on teacher development. Although these topics seemingly relate to MoI, scrutiny reveals that pedagogy is the main focus rather than instructions. For example, strategies of Chinese writing and tone differentiation are key research emphases that have received major attention. Only 6 studies talked about teacher development calling for “more practical, tailor-made and pedagogically informative content” (p. 824). These researches examine cognitive and emotional aspects of teachers to help increase efficacy and reduce burnout. Wang (2019) states that recognition of MoI plays a significant role in the Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) curriculum and it facilitates pedagogy and promotes capacity. From a postmonolingual perspective, 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education could concentrate on multilingual integration when designing curriculum and developing policy. 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ linguistic dimensions, educational departments’ linguistic visions and students’ linguistic growth are closely linked and need to be aligned comprehensively.

Conclusion This chapter first describes and provides a background context where 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education situates outside China, specifically in countries and areas where 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education is popular: in the countries involved in the BRI, in some European countries, in the US and Australia. Through the review of relevant literature, it points out that there are issues in the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education area and there is great room for development. Then it contextualizes中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Australia through reviewing major studies on 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Australia, especially the situation in primary schools. For Australian 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education, a policy perspective is offered first to better understand the situation and a review of relevant literature draws a picture of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Australia. Chapter 3 introduces 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) in China.

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References Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). (2017). Census of population and housing: Reflecting Australia—Stories from the census, 2016. (ABS Catalogue No. 2071.0). Retrieved on 20 December 2018 from, http://www.abs.gov.au/aus stats/[email protected]/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0~2016~Main%20Features~Cul tural%20Diversity%20Data%20Summary~30 Cai, H. (2020). Training model of Sri Lanka native Chinese language teachers under “the Belt and Road” initiative. China-Arab States Science and Technology Forum, 2, 5–6. CFLEAC. (2021). The Chinese ministry of education: There are over 20 million 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learners overseas. Retrieved on 30 July 2021 from, http://www.chinese.cn/page/#/pcpage/article?id=689&page=3 Chen, Y. L., Yang, T. A., & Chen, H. L. (2017). Challenges encountered in a Chinese immersion program in the United States. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 26(3–4), 163–170. Chen, Z. (2015). Challenges of teaching Chinese in Australian schools: Lesson from beginning teacher-researchers. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 6(5), 933–942. Chen, Z. (2019). Training strategies for Chinese language teachers under the background of “The Belt and Road”—On Singapore’s “Research-ValidateTrain” training strategy. Journal of Beihua University (Social Sciences), 20(3), 1–6. Collins, J., & Reid, C. (2012). Immigrant teachers in Australia. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 4(2), 38. Cui, X., La, W., & Wu, Y. (2020). Research on Chinese language teaching and promotion in Bosnia—Herzegovina under the belt and road initiative. Journal of Hubei Adult Education Institute, 26(7), 82–87. De Kretser, A., & Spence-Brown, R. (2010). The current state of Japanese language education in Australian schools. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Fan, Q., & Sun, J. (2018). A preliminary study of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) in Northern and Western European Countries since 2000. Journal of Jiamusi Vocational College, 182(1), 322–324. Feng, J. (2021). The status quo of languages in four “Belt and Road” Southeast Asian Countries and the historical evolution of their Chinese language policy: On the promotion of Chinese in Southeast Asia by Yunnan. Journal of Yunnan Open University, 23(2), 97–103. Forrest, J., Lean, G., & Dunn, K. (2017). Attitudes of classroom teachers to cultural diversity and multicultural education in Country New South Wales, Australia. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 42(5), 17–34. Gao, H. (2011). An analysis of the phenomenon of global “Mandarin Fever.” Asian Social Science, 7 (12), 253–257.

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Liu, G. Q., & Lo Bianco, J. (2007). Teaching Chinese, teaching in Chinese and teaching the Chinese: Australian perspectives. In J. Lo Bianco (Ed.), Emergence of Chinese, language policy (pp. 95–117). Springer. Liu, Z., & Zhang, L. (2019). Development of Chinese language teaching in Laos universities with the influence of “The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).” Journal of Beihua University (Social Sciences), 20(5), 22–29. Lo Bianco, J. (2009). Second languages and Australian schooling. Australian Council for Educational Research. Ma, X., Gong, Y., Gao, X., & Xiang, Y. (2017). The teaching of Chinese as a second or foreign language: A systematic review of the literature 2005–2015. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38(9), 815–830. Mason, S. (2015). ‘Hey, I’m a real teacher!’ The value of language teachers and the role of non-contact time in Queensland schools. The New Zealand Language Teacher, 41, 9–22. Mason, S., & Matas, C. P. (2016). Language teacher supply: A content analysis of newspaper coverage across the ‘Anglobubble.’ Issues in Educational Research, 26(3), 446–463. Matas, C. P., & Mason, S. (2015). Language policy literacy for language teachers: How important is it? Language Policy, 5, 12–20. Moloney, R. A. (2013). Providing a bridge to intercultural pedagogy for native speaker teachers of Chinese in Australia. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 26(3), 213–228. Moloney, R., & Wang, D. (2016). Limiting professional trajectories: A dual narrative study in Chinese language education. Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 1(1), 1. National Security Education Program (NSEP). (2016). Critical languages. Retrieved 24 July 2021, from https://nsep.gov/content/critical-languages. Orton, J. (2008). Chinese language education in Australian schools. The University of Melbourne. Pérez-Milans, M. (2015). Language education policy in late modernity: (Socio) linguistic ethnographies in the European Union. Language Policy, 14(2), 99– 107. Scott, J. (2014). A matter of record: Documentary sources in social research. John Wiley & Sons. Singh, M., & Han, J. (2014). Educating teachers of “Chinese as a local/global language”: Teaching “Chinese with Australian characteristics.” Frontiers of Education in China, 9(3), 403–428. Singh, M., & Nguy˜ên, T. H. N. (2018). Localising Chinese: Educating teachers through service-learning. Palgrave Macmillan. Sun, J., & Shouse, R. (2015). U.S. policies and initiatives for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education. In J. Ruan, J. Zhang, & C. B. Leung (Eds.), Chinese education in the United State (pp. 47–62). Springer.

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Wang, D. (2019). Multilingualism and translanguaging in Chinese language classrooms. Palgrave Macmillan. Wang, D., Moloney, R., & Li, Z. (2013). Towards internationalising the curriculum: A case study of Chinese language teacher education programs in China and Australia. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 38(9). Wang, W., & Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2016). Teaching Chinese to international students in China: Political rhetoric and ground realities. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 25(5–6), 723–734. Wei, M. (2020). A study of Chinese talents demands in Cambodia based on “The Belt and Road Initiative.” Higher Education Forum, 9, 116–119. Xu, H. (2012). Challenges native Chinese teachers face in teaching Chinese as a foreign language to non-native Chinese students in US classrooms [Master’s thesis of University of Nebraska]. Yang, J. (2020). A study of the organization of teachers in Djibouti Chinese language teaching center under the belt and road initiative. Journal of Higher Education, 8, 11–13. Zhang, D., & Zheng, J. (2021). The mirror images of confucius institutes at home and abroad: A review of Chinese and English literature on confucius institutes (2015–2020). Renmin University of China Education Journal, 1(3), 151–169. Zhang, X. (2016). Some further thoughts on European benchmarks for the Chinese language. Research on International Chinese Teaching, 11(3), 50–59. Zhao, H., & Zhang, C. (2018). Horizon of one belt and one road: History and current status of Chinese language’s education in Thailand. Journal of Shanxi Youth Vocational College, 3, 16–20.

CHAPTER 3

中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) Education Within 中国 (Zh¯ ongguó/China)

Abstract To better appreciate the challenges of teaching/learning 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language it is necessary to provide some background information on how 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) is taught within 中国 (Zh¯ ongguó/China), which provides knowledge of and insights into the context in 中国 (Zh¯ ongguó/China). Doing so is necessary to help teachers, educational researchers, and policy actors around the planet understand the issues at stake. Thus, this chapter introduces the situation of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in 中国 (Zh¯ ongguó). Keywords Chinese education · China · Chinese P¯ıny¯ın Scheme · Hànzì · Teaching approaches · Issues

The Chinese Pi¯nyi¯n Scheme (汉语拼音方 案, the Chinese Pronunciation System) In China, children in lower primary have been taught P¯ıny¯ın since 1958. The Chinese P¯ıny¯ın Scheme was formalized in 1958 after an extensive collection of ideas on its construction, in which Latin letters were at © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Y. Han and X. Ji, Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15153-8_3

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Table 3.1 The Chinese P¯ıny¯ın Scheme Consonants Vowels Synthetic syllables

b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, zhi, chi, shi, z, c, s, r, y, w a, o, e, i, u, ü, ai, ei, ui, ao, ou, iu, ie, üe, er, an, en, in, un, ün, ang, eng, ing, ong zhi, chi, shi, ri, zi, ci, si, yi, wu, yu, ye, yue, yuan, yin, yun, ying

the end adopted as its components partly considering their position in the internationalization of the Chinese language (Cui, 2019). To fit the pronunciation of Chinese following the Chinese ideology 洋为中用 (yáng wéi zh¯ ong yòng: adapting foreign things to Chinese needs), the 26 Latin letters were further customized; thus, a 63-constituent Chinese P¯ıny¯ın Scheme (see Table 3.1) was formed, in which there are 23 consonants, 24 vowels and 16 synthetic syllables (Cao, 1993). Together with the four tones, a comprehensive pronunciation system of Chinese was established. P¯ıny¯ın education in Chinese primary schools, thus, started from 1958 following the instruction in the Chinese P¯ıny¯ın Scheme which clearly states that “As a tool in assisting 汉字 (Hànzì/Chinese characters) learning and 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà/Mandarin) popularizing, the Chinese P¯ıny¯ın Scheme should be firstly practiced in teacher-education institutions as well as primary and secondary schools” (Cao, 1993, p. 33). In the 1958 Primary School Chinese Teaching Outline P¯ıny¯ın was described as a tool to help with 汉字 (Hànzì/Chinese characters) and 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà/Mandarin) education in terms of pronunciation, while in the 1992 updated version of the document P¯ıny¯ın was specified as a possible and applicable substitute for unlearned Hànzì in the writing system, which implies a change of cognition in the function of P¯ıny¯ın (Cao, 1993). In 1982, the 19th Conference of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was held in 南京 (Nánj¯ıng: the capital city of Jiangsu province of China), in which《ISO7098 文献工作——中文罗马字 母拼写法》(ISO7098 Information and Documentation—Chinese Romanization) was passed making the Chinese P¯ıny¯ın Scheme an international standard (Feng & Yu, 2016). Since then, the document has undergone several changes in 1991, 2001, and 2015. The ISO7098: 2015 version is the one in use currently.

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¯ ´ /Chinese) Education 中文 (Zhongw en ¯ o´ , China) in 中国 (Zhonggu Prior to presenting our argument about teaching/learning 汉字 (Hànzì) as a local/global language, we provide background information from research reporting on related issues of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) Education in 中国 (Zh¯ ongguó). Some readers may not be aware that primary school students in 中国 (Zh¯ ongguó) encounter difficulties in learning to read and write 汉字 (Hànzì/Chinese characters) and 拼音 (P¯ıny¯ın; 拼/p¯ın: spell, piece together; 音/y¯ın: pronunciation) similar as pupils from other countries. The challenges for teachers of teaching these young children 拼音 (P¯ıny¯ın) include having them recognize, pronounce, and write P¯ıny¯ın correctly, and develop appropriate learning strategies (Wu, 2014). Wu (2014) suggests possible ways to better prepare teachers to be able to teach primary school students in 中国 (Zh¯ ongguó/China) how to learn to read, pronounce, and write P¯ıny¯ın, and then learn 汉字 (Hànzì, characters). Firstly, teachers could clarify the specific reasons for learning P¯ıny¯ın which include recognizing and pronouncing P¯ıny¯ın correctly, spelling and pronouncing P¯ıny¯ın accurately, and writing P¯ıny¯ın. Secondly, teachers need to promote pupils’ learning autonomy, but without any explanation of how to achieve it. Translanguaging pedagogies are among the teaching/learning strategies teachers could use, and this would involve writing Hànzì and P¯ıny¯ın together. Further, teachers need to better understand good language learning strategies such as using illustrations (e.g., colour plates) and cooperating with other students (e.g., in a classroom role-play). In addition, teachers need to develop the capability to cultivate good learning habits among their pupils, including model demonstration or reading repeatedly. Based on a study of exploration of P¯ıny¯ın teaching strategies to grade one pupil, Lin (2018, p. 232), a female primary school Chinese teacher working in 厦门 (Xiàmén), 福建 (Fújiàn) province, suggests, firstly, teachers could learn design games (see Table 3.2) to help children learn P¯ıny¯ın. Secondly, teachers could take advantage of the pictures in the textbook and guide students to construct knowledge by themselves. Based on the fact that pictures in the textbook are colourful and vivid, with everyday life scenes in, teachers are suggested to guide students to observe the pictures carefully and to tell their own stories based on the pictures. In

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Table 3.2 Game of P¯ıny¯ın Game

Procedure

“找一找”/finding

Teachers stick cards with initial consonants and vowels to the blackboard and ask students to find the ones in their names and arrange them together correctly After teaching single consonants and vowels, teachers could ask students to arrange each of them by using strings or hand gestures Teachers could ask students to make P¯ıny¯ın tags for their pencil boxes or bags and stick the tags to them accordingly

“摆一摆”/arranging

“贴一贴”/sticking

the process of telling their stories, students could draw on their everyday life experiences and funds of knowledge, which contributes and facilitates their P¯ıny¯ın learning (Lin, 2018). Thirdly, teachers are supposed to reinforce students’ integration of P¯ıny¯ın and Hànzì learning in reoccurrences of P¯ıny¯ın and Hànzì in their textbook. P¯ıny¯ın education needs to be integrated organically with Mandarin and Hànzì education and to make rational use of students’ everyday life experiences (Lin, 2018). This recommendation is based on the Chinese language Curriculum Criterion for Compulsory Education (2011 version) that clearly stated the goals and content of Chinese education. For example, for stage one (Year 1 and 2) students, in terms of Hànzì recognition and writing, the goals are, firstly, to like Hànzì and have the intention to recognize and write Hànzì; secondly, recognize commonly used Hànzì (around 1600); thirdly, master the basic strokes of Hànzì and could write Hànzì (around 800) in the correct stroke order and structure as well as could feel the beauty of Hànzì; fourthly, try to cultivate a good habit in Hànzì writing—to write in a correct sitting gesture, in accordance with the writing norms as well as clean and neat; fifthly, to master P¯ıny¯ın: know how to read and write consonants, vowels and tones as well as could spell P¯ıny¯ın syllables; sixthly, to learn Hànzì recognition independently based on P¯ıny¯ın knowledge and to master the skill of looking up Hànzì in a dictionary through alphabetic order or strokes (MoE, 2001). Ji (2017) from 厦门 (Xiàmén), 福建 (Fújiàn) province undertook a study of discussion of P¯ıny¯ın teaching strategies based on her work in the area of primary school Chinese education. She proposed several strategies in the promotion of P¯ıny¯ın teaching such as the application of situational

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pictures so that students could integrate learning with their life experiences. While illustrating enhancing teachers’ professional capabilities so that they could apply knowledge flexibly in their teaching Ji suggested that in an era of fast renewal of knowledge based on the development of technology, teachers need to constantly renew their knowledge and combine P¯ıny¯ın teaching with the new knowledge to motivate students’ P¯ıny¯ın learning, one example she presented is that while teaching yü teachers could say y represents a mother and ü is her naughty baby; the baby was crying and the mother wiped his tears, then they went home together. As researchers, we would question this because we did not get the point. What was the new knowledge and how did this motivate students? This also made us think about other questions such as why are teachers unable to teach these children? What is missing in these teachers’ education? Why do teachers not know how to use the children’s languages/dialects to help them learn P¯ıny¯ın (e.g., through translanguaging pedagogies)? These are all questions that deserve more study. Zhang et al. (2019) conducted a cognitive diagnostic assessment of Hànzì learning among lower primary school students (Year 1 to 3) in five public schools in Beijing. They found primary school students’ (N = 2148) overall unsatisfactory state of Hànzì learning: four out of five pupils in each grade demonstrated deficiency in Hànzì learning. They did better in awareness of strokes and components than pictophonetic Hànzì learning and the fine processing of phonetic radicals; for them, the most difficult one is to accurately grasp the pronunciations of irregular pictophonetic Hànzì, which could only be acquired at a later stage. Correspondingly, strategies and solutions for improvement in Hànzì education were raised. According to Zhang et al. (2019) Hànzì teaching needs to be based on knowledge of the source of each Hànzì (connecting shape with meaning), on knowledge of radicals, on knowledge of the regular pictophonetic Hànzì rules and awareness of exceptions, on knowledge of enlargement of pupils’ psychological Hànzì dictionary by learning the same Hànzì in various contexts so that they could have a more profound understanding of the Hànzì, and emphasis on teaching Hànzì writing through calligraphy, for instance. According to Zhang (2021), solutions would be: (1) to set achievable goals in Hànzì writing: teachers need to build their Hànzì writing objectives on reinforcement of students’ writing capabilities; (2) to enrich their teaching plan so that various content are at hand and could be

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drawn on conveniently; (3) to practise stratified teaching by grouping both Hànzì and students writing capabilities into groups and pay attention to students’ growth in Hànzì writing; to use technology in assisting Hànzì teaching: on the one hand, technology provides anther platform for sharing more teaching resources, and on the other hand, it could be a tool for motivating students by demonstrating some students’ excellent Hànzì writing works; (4) to improve students’ autonomy in Hànzì writing through engaging students in designing of classroom activities; and (5) to enrich practical Hànzì writing activities: teachers need to design their classroom activities based on students’ age and their funds of knowledge, which grants students chance to make connections between Hànzì and their everyday life and to experience/feel the function and significance of Hànzì in their lives. Together, these studies are important because they provide detailed information necessary for getting a good sense of the challenges of teaching/learning 拼音 (P¯ıny¯ın, the Chinese pronunciation system) and 汉字 (Hànzì, the Chinese writing system of characters) within 中国 (Zh¯ ongguó/China). These studies provide insights into a range of explanations for these challenges and some possible approaches for addressing them. Understanding this complex array of issues is necessary in order to appreciate the position taken in this study and the argument that is made about in relation to teaching/learning 汉字 (Hànzì/Chinese characters) as a local/global language.

Conclusion This chapter has presented a sketch of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in China. The reviewed studies have revealed the reality and issues in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in China, which denotes the fact that 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education is as challenging in China as in other countries. Thus, more research in the area is necessary for better 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education globally. Chapter 4 will present evidence to reveal contradictions in making 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learnable in the Australian educational context.

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References Cao, C. (1993). The goals, requirements and pedagogy of primary school Chinese pinyin education. Chinese Construction, (05), 33–35. https://doi. org/10.16412/j.cnki.1001-8476.1993.05.016. [曹澄方. (1993). 小学汉语拼 音教学的目的、要求和教学法. 语文建设, (05), 33–35.] Cui, M. (2019). The establishment of Chinese pinyin letters in the early of New China. Contemporary China History Studies, 26(04), 99–110+159. [崔明 海. (2019). 新中国成立初期汉语拼音字母的确定. 当代中国史研究, 26(04), 99–110+159.] Feng, Z., & Yu, W. (2016). International significance of the Chinese romanization standard. Foreign Language Teaching and Research (Bimonthly), 48(6), 937–942. [冯志伟, 余卫华. 2016.《中文罗马字母拼写法》标准的国际意义. 外 语教学与研究, (6), 937–942.] Ji, M. (2017). An exploration of pinyin teaching strategies for ministry of education edition Chinese textbook. Primary Education, (11), 233–234. https:// doi.org/10.16681/j.cnki.wcqe.201722147. [纪美松. (2017). 基于部编版小 学语文教材的拼音教学策略探讨. 基础教育, (11), 233–234.] Lin, T. (2018). An exploration of pinyin teaching strategies for ministry of education edition Chinese textbook of year one. Primary Education, (7), 232–233. https://doi.org/10.16681/j.cnki.wcqe.201813143. [林铁南. (2018). 部编版 语文教材一年级汉语拼音教学策略探索. 基础教育, (7), 232–233.] MoE: Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. (2001). Chinese curriculum standard of full-time compulsory education. Beijing Normal University. [中华人民共和国教育部. (2001). 全日制义务教育语文课程标准. 北京:北京师范大学出版社]. Wu, Y. (2014). Issues and solutions in primary school pinyin education. Teaching and Management, (10), 42–43. [吴艳玲. (2014). 小学生汉语拼音学习存在的 问题与对策. 教学与管理, (10), 42–43.] Zhang, Y. (2021). Strategies for cultivating hanzi writing capabilities in primary school Chinese education. Learning Weekly, 32, 109–110. [张银霞. (2021). 汉字书写能力在小学语文教学中的培养策略. 学周刊, 32, 109–110.] Zhang, Q., Bian, Y., Chen, P., & Zhang, J. (2019). The cognitive diagnostic assessment of lower primary school students’ Chinese character learning. Educational Research, 468(1), 76–85. [张启睿, 边玉芳, 陈平, 张积家. (2019). 小学低年级学生汉字学习认知诊断研究. 教育研究, 468(1), 76–85.]

CHAPTER 4

Contradictions in Making 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) Learnable

Abstract This chapter provides an innovative approach to considering the contradictions teachers experience in making 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learnable as a local/global language in Australia. Contradictions in making 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learnable is firstly presented, followed by a critical examination of appropriate 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) educational practices of the participants and a study of the contradictions in current translanguaging research. Through engaging with the work of emerging teacher-researchers the analysis of contradictions presented in this chapter provides an understanding of the complexity of educational ways of “doing” languages education language, which suggests how appropriate educational theory can contribute to good teaching and good language education. Keywords Contradictions · Critical examination · Appropriate · Inappropriate · Educational practices · Translanguaging

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Y. Han and X. Ji, Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15153-8_4

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Researching Contradictions in Making ¯ ´ /Chinese) Learnable en 中文 (Zhongw Using critical educational research, this chapter specifically focuses on the teaching pronunciation of 普通话 (Put¯ ˇ onghuà/Mandarin, commonly spoken Chinese language) using 拼音 (P¯ıny¯ın, phonetic writing using Roman script). This chapter presents the analysis of evidence collected through ethnographic (classroom observation, classroom recording, and interview) methods from primary schools in 澳大 利亚 (Àodàlìyà/Australia). Through a study of five novice teachers with pseudonyms: 风/F¯eng, 雅/Yˇa, 颂/Sòng, 唐/Táng, 诗/Sh¯ı, it presents an educational argument for using learners’ everyday experiential knowledge as the source material for generating curriculum content. With due regard to ethical considerations relating to confidentially and anonymity, the following basic information is provided about the novice teachers’ backgrounds, attributes, and characteristics (see Table 4.1). The 5-emerging teacher-researchers were invited because they were teaching primary school students—an under-researched demographic in the field of teaching/learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language as Li finds that “A younger-age trend of overseas Chinese learners is shown in the Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (TCSOL), which has attracted great attention of media but lacks enough academic attention (2018, p. 300). He further stated that learners of Chinese were mainly adults and thus, facing overseas younger-age Chinese learners, renovation is urgently needed in terms of textbook, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment as well as teacher education. Further, these emerging teacher-researchers were also selected because they were involved in work and language integrated professional learning. On the one hand, they were undertaking university studies in educational research and the professional dimensions to teaching/learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese). On the other hand, these teacher-researchers were engaged in supporting the teaching/learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) in local primary schools, while also documenting evidence of their efforts to do as part of their commitment to producing a research thesis. Through this approach to work and language integrated professional learning the teacher-researchers documented significant incidence that contributed to the learning of what it means to be emerging language learners and teacher-researchers, the doing of language learning and

Age

Late 20s

Mid-20s

Late 20s

Mid-30s

Around 30

风/F¯eng, male, Ph.D

雅/Yˇa, female, Master’s

颂/Sòng, male, Master’s

唐/Táng, male, Ph.D

诗/Sh¯ı, female, Ph.D

Majored in international business and trading for Bachelor’s and English linguistics for Master’s; two years’ part-time English-teaching experience in a Chinese college; no 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/ Chinese) teacher experience Majored in English for Bachelor’s; three months English-teaching experience as a high school teacher (Years 7 and 8) in her fourth year of undergraduate studies; two months’ 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/ Chinese) teacher experience Majored in English for Bachelor’s; worked in a Chinese primary school for six years; no中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/ Chinese) teacher experience Majored in English for Bachelor’s and English translation for Master’s; worked as a college English teacher for 4 years; no中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/ Chinese) teacher experience Majored in English for Bachelor’s and English linguistics for Master’s; worked in a private English training centre for 2 years

Academic and/or teaching background

An overview of the participants

Pseudonym, gender, and pursuing degree

Table 4.1

No

No

Yes. 1 year, as an exchange student in the U.S

Yes. Half a year, as an exchange student in France

No

Overseas experience before

Had a part-time job in a Chinese restaurant; travelled long distance to her local school for Chinese teaching

Enjoyed life by making local friends; went to churches; playing games often; had part-time jobs

Enjoyed life: went to art galleries and museums often

Part-time job is a coffee shop

Enjoyed life; went to scenery spots each weekend

Life in Australia

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teaching, and what might be said about these as a basis for informing their future teaching careers. The emerging teacher-researchers spoke 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as their primary language and were proficient in English. They had received school and university education in China. Thus, their views on teaching and learning, as well as teachers and learners were informed by the sense and sensibilities of exam-driven, textbook-based, teacher-directed education. They found that their existing sense and sensibilities regarding education worked in an uneasy contradiction with those governing successful teaching and learning in Australia (Singh, 2016). Their teacherresearch projects involved them producing documentary records of lesson plans, teaching/learning materials, meetings with school mentors along with their diarizing their reflections on their school experiences along the literature selected for its relevance to their developing curriculum and pedagogical knowledge. To appreciate the context of the work of these emerging teacherresearchers in schools it is necessary to provide the following portraits of the program in which they participated. The participants of this study were teacher-researchers from the ROSETE Program which focused on educating emerging teacher-researchers through investigating ways of making Chinese learnable for beginning second language learners (Singh & Ballantyne, 2014). The ROSETE Program was initiated by the New South Wales Department of Education in 2006 in partnership with Ningbo Education Bureau and subsequently Western Sydney University. The emerging teacher-researchers undertook either a Doctorate (36–48 months) or Masters by Research (18 months). Their research topics were based on their experiences of teaching/learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) in public primary schools in 悉尼 (X¯ıní /Sydney). As educational researchers we did not have privileged, prior knowledge to bring to this study about what contradictions these emerging teacherresearchers might experience. However, as educational researchers, we adopted specific roles and expectations which makes data collection and analysis problematic. Being educational researchers did not mean that our competence in teaching 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language could be presumed. In contrast, our view of educational research focused on learning with these emerging teacher-researchers about the complexities—the contradictions—inherent in their everyday work and taking on the responsibility of providing an analysis of their evidence that they might review, revise or reject as they made judgements about their

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professional learning. To avoid interfering in the data collection process any more than required to conduct the interviews and classroom observations, it was only after this study was completed that each of the emerging teacher-researchers was provided with detailed feedback. The analysis explores contradictions relating to the selection of appropriate teaching/learning content and students age levels, and the strains between monolingual versus multilingual mindset informing 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) language education. The evidentiary analysis focus brings to the fore the contradictions in the experiential knowledge and ideologies of these beginning teachers of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) to and the educational needs of their multilingual students in schools where English is the medium of instruction. Another contradiction is evident in our preference educational researchers to use the concept 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local (Australian) language, and the participants in this study preferred use of the term “foreign language”. Overall, the analysis of evidence about the work of these emerging teacherresearchers brings to the fore contradictions between valuable practices for teaching/learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) and localizing this now local/global language in the everyday lives of their students.

Developmentally Appropriate Educational Practices The question of what constitutes developmentally appropriate or developmentally inappropriate educational practices is important, especially for emergent teachers learning to work with young children. Amy Betawi and Sinaria Jabbar (2019) from The University of Jordan (Jordan) found that irrespective of their age, college year, GPA (grade point average), or academic major, pre-service teachers who had lengthy inschool experiences learn to use developmentally appropriate practices. In our study, “developmentally appropriate educational practices ” refers to teachers’ using knowledge of children’s age, experiential knowledge, strategies for learning, existing sociolinguistic capabilities to make informed, thoughtful curriculum decisions to promote children’s learning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) so that they can use it in their everyday lives. In the absence of such knowledge, teachers use “developmentally inappropriate non-educational activities ” that hinder students’ language

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learning. Examples of inappropriate activities include rigid teachercontrolled tasks unrelated to extending on students’ actual existing sociolinguistic capabilities, remote from their experiential knowledge, inappropriate for their age, and unrelated to their language learning strategies. “Developmentally inappropriate non-educational activities ” include teaching 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as separate from students’ existing knowledge of English and their daily sociolinguistic activities, rather than integrating these into their curriculum (Table 4.2). Appropriate Educational Practices Versus Inappropriate Non-Educational Activities 孝顺 (Xiàoshùn) is a compound two-syllable word. Together 孝 (xiào) and 顺 (shùn) express one meaning, namely obedience to one’s parents or filial piety. However, 孝顺 (xiàoshùn) also contains double-layered connotations. First, the implied meaning of 孝 (xiào) is that (grown) children should support their parents financially. This layer of meaning can be found in the key components of 孝 (xiào), where 耂 represents senior people and 子 means son. While no longer explicitly son-centric, the Table 4.2 诗/Sh¯ı’s inappropriate non-educational activities (孝顺/xiàoshùn) Evidentiary excerpt

Key codes

诗/Sh¯ı: My students are lower grade primary school students and all of them are Sydney locals, so the main medium of teaching is English. I use some Chinese as the medium as well if there is something, I could not find an equivalent in English or the English translation deviates from the full meaning of a Chinese concept, for example 孝顺 [xiàoshùn/filial piety]. Usually, I write the Chinese P¯ıny¯ın [pronunciation of Chinese characters in alphabets with tones above] on whiteboard first, then I explain to them the full meaning of the concept and teach them the pronunciation so that when I mention the concept again in class, they have some impression and know it is the one on the whiteboard. (Interview)

Lower grade primary school students 孝顺/xiàoshùn/ filial piety: obedience to one’s parents

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masculinist presumptions built into this concept, 孝 means sons should carry or take care of their parents as they get old. Second, 顺 (shùn) means that children should be obedient to the will of their parents. The left part 川 means streams or waters running down smoothly, while the right part 页 originally represents mind and thinking; thus, 顺 means ease of mind. 顺 in 孝顺 means a son should do anything to ease his parents’ mind and cause not any worry for his parents, which could only be achieved through following his parents’ will unconditionally. While teaching concepts is an indispensable part of teaching 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language so too are “developmentally appropriate educational practices ”. 诗/Sh¯ı’s account of teaching 孝顺 (xiàoshùn/filial piety) to lower primary school students raises the question of whether her curriculum work and instruction approach in this instance constituted a developmentally appropriate educational practice, or developmentally inappropriate. Through a teacher-controlled task, 诗/Sh¯ı focused on teaching a concept that was inappropriate for the age of the children with whom she worked in a manner that was remote from their experiential knowledge of how and why they obey their parents. In her effort to teach 孝顺 (xiàoshùn) she gives no indication of this concept’s connections with the children’s daily sociolinguistic activities associated with obeying their parents, the knowledge they have in English. Capable teachers who get to know their students—their age, experiential knowledge, strategies for learning, existing sociolinguistic capabilities—make informed, thoughtful curriculum decisions regarding instructional strategies making concepts, such as 孝顺 (xiàoshùn) learnable and usable in their everyday lives. Adults in 悉尼 (X¯ıní /Sydney) who are learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) might be interested in how young adults enrolled in higher education in China negotiate their intergenerational obligations. For them studying 孝顺 (xiàoshùn/filial piety) through accounts of how these urban elites negotiate, endorse, or resist the gendered norms, values, and practices of intergenerational obligations while managing work opportunities and spousal obligations is likely to be “developmentally appropriate educational practices ”, rather than lower primary school students (Eklund, 2018; Gui, 2021). Moreover, understanding how the state acts in concert with the family to sustain its legitimacy, through being grounded in responsibilities and burdens provides insights into those who are marginalized (Wang, 2020).

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Reinforcing Stereotypes Versus Decolonizing Orientalist Perceptions Teaching is never innocent. This is particularly evident when teaching reinforces and maintains prejudices, legitimizing demeaning or hostile views. Teachers of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language need to think critically about the content of their planned teaching/learning activities, paying close attention to how best to deal with stereotypes. 唐/Táng was the first teacher of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) in his school where he provided 40 minutes language lessons each week to students in each Year level, from Kindergarten to Year 6. 唐/Táng: My classroom medium language is mainly English, because they have little knowledge of Chinese. My goal is to let them learn Chinese and build up their confidence in learning the new language. If students have a certain Chinese language foundation, it is more possible to combine Chinese and English, but it is not possible at the beginning of their learning. Even in English, some students could not understand what I am saying. In this case, I will ask those students who understand me well to explain to their peers. They understand each other better. (Interview)

唐/Táng’s views on choosing a classroom medium of instruction raise the question of whether the medium of instruction in the target language (Chinese here) is appropriate for Chinese beginning learners. Is this a stereotype that English is the only legitimate medium for instruction when the learners are of English background? If “Even in English, some students could not understand what I am saying” but some others could understand him well and help with the explanation of information, what will happen when Chinese is applied as a medium of instruction or how would English-and-Chinese translanguaging go in the situation? These are questions could not be all answered in this single research project but offer possible perspectives for future research. 唐/Táng: While preparing my lessons, I keep having flashbacks of what I’ve taught them. It drives me to think of ways to use the old learnings in a new way to bring out some deeper knowledge. After teaching the terms such as wˇo (I/me), nˇı (you) and shénme (what), I try to use them whenever possible, especially in my teaching language. Sometimes I get inspired when using them in a way that I’ve never tried before. It helps me to think further of what can be done after. (interview)

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唐/Táng expressed his principle in making plans of teaching content: to base new knowledge on learned knowledge and through practising to reinforce the learned knowledge memorization and application. However, compared with the previous piece of data, 唐/Táng seems paradoxical in the medium of instruction or he might not have a good understanding of the medium of instruction and did not take his involvement of learned knowledge as his medium of instruction. Thus, he might lack knowledge in terms of the medium of instruction or translanguaging, which could inform Chinese teacher education programs. The following evidentiary excerpt from 唐/Táng suggests the need to interrogate the representation of 中国人 (Zh¯ ongguórén, Chinese people) when teaching 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language (Table 4.3). Even with a semblance of positivity, 唐/Táng’s use of 皮蛋/pídàn to emphasize the difference between 中国 (Zh¯ ongguó/ China) and 澳大 利亚 (Àodàlìyà/Australia) contributes to conditions for denigration the former. Despite the rather inconspicuous, apparently innocent reference to 皮蛋/pídàn 唐/Táng acknowledged it generated feelings of negativity among her students about 中国人 (Zh¯ ongguórén/ Chinese people) eating rotten and smelly food. Here 唐/Táng acknowledges his role in reproducing undesirable stereotypes about 中国人 (Zh¯ ongguórén/ Chinese Table 4.3 唐/Táng’s reinforcing stereotypes (皮蛋/pídàn) Evidentiary excerpt

Key codes

唐/Táng: I think sometimes it is a necessity to combine English and Chinese so that I could express fully what I want to teach. When teaching various Chinese food, I like to teach those that are special, such as dumplings and pídàn. Pídàn is translated as “century egg” or “thousand-year egg” here in Australia and I did not know this translation before I came here. I do not like this translation because it gives me the feeling of negativity. Instead of a rotten and smelly impression “century egg” gives, pídàn is very popular in China and it is delicious food. So, I use pídàn instead of “century egg” when talk about it. I would explain it fully in English so that my students could have a better understanding of it

皮蛋/pídàn: preserved eggs or thousand-year-old eggs Feeling of negativity; rotten and smelly impression

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people) rather than undoing these feelings of negativity. To refute such a stereotype 唐/Táng might have focused on 鸡蛋 (j¯ıdàn/hen’s egg) rather than 皮蛋/pídàn. 风/F¯eng was a teacher of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) in his school where he provided 40 min language lessons each week to students in Stage 2 (Year 3 and 4). Rather than giving expression to intellectual acquiescence to simplistic images and negative doctrines of 中国人 (Zh¯ ongguórén/ Chinese people), he elected to avoid such denigration: 风/F¯eng: Boys and girls, listen to my instructions. 1. First, draw a miànb¯ ao on your card. And write down the miànb¯ ao in p¯ıny¯ın above this picture. 2. If you finish miànb¯ ao, can you draw a bottle of niúnai? ˇ The second task you are going to draw is a bottle of niúnai. ˇ 3. The third task you need to draw is a piece of tus¯ ˇ ı. 4. Everyone, the last task you need to draw is s¯ anmíngzhì. Please draw a piece of s¯ anmíngzhì (Classroom Observation) (Table 4.4). 风/F¯eng made informed, thoughtful curriculum decisions to promote children’s learning of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) based on his emerging understanding of developmentally appropriate educational practices. Moreover, based on a debriefing session with her school mentor about 唐/Táng’s experience, he was aware that negative representations of 中国 人 (Zh¯ ongguórén) go hand in hand with negative representations of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese). Using knowledge of his students’ age, their experiential knowledge, strategies for learning, and existing sociolinguistic capabilities 风/F¯eng decided to teach the concepts 面包 (miànb¯ ao/bread) and 牛奶 (niúnai/milk). ˇ Importantly, 风/F¯eng also taught two loanwords, namely 土司 (tus¯ ˇ ı/toast) and 三明治 (s¯ anmíngzhì/ sandwich). These words in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) were words his students use in their Table 4.4 风/F¯eng’s developmentally appropriate educational practices (food)

Teaching/Learning content

Equivalent

面包 牛奶 土司 三明治

Bread Milk Toast Sandwich

miànb¯ ao niúnai ˇ tus¯ ˇ ı s¯ anmíngzhì

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everyday lives in English. In doing so, 风/F¯eng made possible the crosssociolinguistic transfer of learners’ knowledge in their primary language embodies language to leverage their learning of their second language. A meta-analysis of research studies conducted by Yang et al. (2017) indicates pedagogical possibilities for cross-linguistic transfer between these two languages that focus on phonological awareness, decoding skills, vocabulary, and morphological awareness. Importantly, their metaanalysis indicates that the common linguistic features shared by English and Chinese allow for cross-linguistic transfer in the teaching/learning of emergent bilingual learners. Because unlearning stereotypes is integral to teaching/learning 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language, emergent teacherresearchers have to learn to be more thoughtful and tactful about what they teach. 颂/Sòng was a teacher of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) in his school where he provided 30 min language lessons each week to students in Stage 2 and 3 (Year 3–6). 颂/Sòng carefully avoided accepting and endorsing stereotypes about 中国人 (Zh¯ongguórén/Chinese people) by focusing on knowledge that was empowering, rather than injurious to his community: 颂/Sòng:

Students: 颂/Sòng: Students: 颂/Sòng:

Now we know how to order food: wˇo yào ... Ok, don’t follow me, I just give you an example. Now I’m going to be a waiter. If I am the waiter, I might ask you. First, I may say Nˇı hˇao, because I am the waiter trying to be very polite. I will say “Nˇı hˇao, nˇı yào shénme?” nˇı [using his finger pointing at the students], wˇo [pointing at himself]. Yào, yào means? Want. You want what. Say after me, shénme. Shénme. Now I am the waiter; I’m going to ask you. Then raise your hand and tell me your choice. We have four choices here. If you want order two kinds of food, you can say “Wˇo yào chˇaofàn hé” that means “and”, “hé chˇaomiàn”. The Chinese word for “and” that’s hé. Who wants to have a go? (Classroom Observation)

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颂/Sòng empowered the language he is teaching by contextualizing his teaching content to food-ordering hypothetically in a Chinese restaurant, which is appropriate and achievable for Australian local students. Students’ social linguistic knowledge is activated in the processing of learning this practical skill of ordering food. On the one hand, the complete turn-taking of asking and answering offered students applicable conversation material practised every day in a restaurant. On the other hand, the teaching content in “Nˇı hˇao, nˇı yào shénme?” (What would you like to have?) and “Wˇoyàochaofàn ˇ hé chaomiàn” ˇ (I would like fried rice and fried noodles) are familiar or easy-to-understand concrete goods within students’ knowledge scope. 风/F¯eng:

S: 风/F¯eng: S: 风/F¯eng:

Yina, please bounce the ball. P¯ ai qiú again. Haoyu, please ji¯e qiú. Please chuán qiú to Mingxu. And Mingxu, can you do this one? Yeah, dài qiú. Now let’s stop the game here and we need four students to do another round. Perform this one in the front. … Yina, listen to me carefully. Please chuán qiú to What’s your name? Kein Please chuán qiú to Kein. And you need to ji¯e qiú. And you four can come back. Thank you for help. Ok, zuòxià. And now you four in a new group. So, who is going to start the game? (Classroom Observation) (Table 4.5).

风/F¯eng, similar to 颂/Sòng, provided another good example of applying students’ sociolinguistic knowledge in content teaching and knowledge reinforcement. This game section was after learning those instructions of playing a ball game for several weeks when most students could Table 4.5 风/F¯eng’s developmentally appropriate educational practices (ball)

Teaching/Learning content

Equivalent

拍球 接球 传球 带球 坐下

Bounce the ball Catch the ball Pass the ball Dribble the ball Sit down

p¯ ai qiú ji¯e qiú chuán qiú dài qiú zuò xià

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understand those instructions. To reinforce their learning by providing practical opportunities to internalize what they learned through making connections of instructions and movements, 风/F¯eng designed this game. Translanguaging, as a pedagogical practice, was applied well in the above data as well, which will be elaborated in the following section.

Contradictions in Translanguaging Research Translanguaging pedagogies are of particular interest to educators and educational researchers in the field of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) language and literacy education because of their work in transnational education with multilingual learners and language users. Research into translanguaging pedagogies suggests their potential to transform the complex relationships between educators and educational researchers, as well as those between teachers and students. What are translanguaging pedagogies? Rather than just spontaneously switching from one language (code) to another, teachers learn to make proactive, deliberate, tactful uses of translanguaging pedagogies to have their emergent multilingual learners draw upon their complex repertoire sociolinguistic knowledge for receptive or productive communicative purposes in different contexts. Linguistic Separatism Versus Cross-Sociolinguistic Transfer Linguistic separatism mistakenly holds that languages should be taught separately, denying any possible educational benefits from students using the full repertoire of languages. However, over the past three decades educational research has brought into focus the advantages that teachers are making of translanguaging pedagogies: 唐/Táng: I had students come up to me at the end of a lesson and said “Hello!” and “Goodbye!” in Japanese to me because they had learned a little Japanese previously. I responded them by saying “Hello!” and “What’s your name?” in Japanese because I can speak Japanese as well. They could not answer my question because their limited knowledge of Japanese. My students of Indian background would also compare their mother tongue with Chinese while learning. (Interview)

Translanguaging pedagogies are helpful in developing emergent multilingual students’ metalinguistic awareness, vocabulary and grammar. For

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example, Zhang and Chan (2021) report that teachers in a Xinjiang university employ translanguaging pedagogies through using English, Mandarin Chinese, and Uyghur as the media of instruction. 诗/Sh¯ı: I sometimes use Japanese in my teaching, because all my students have been learning Japanese as their foreign language as well. When I teach them Chinese numbers, for example, I relate them to the pronunciation of Japanese numbers so that they could make the connection and learn quickly. For example, number three has almost the same pronunciation in Chinese and Japanese as s¯ an; the pronunciation of number seven in Chinese is the second part of the pronunciation of number seven in Japanese as q¯ı. (Interview)

Translanguaging pedagogies provide new opportunities for language teaching/learning in multilingual educational contexts. Cenoz and Santos (2020) studied the implementation of translanguaging pedagogies and lesson plans by a group of teachers from different trilingual schools where Basque, Spanish, and English were included in the curriculum. 诗/Sh¯ı provides theoretical and practical information about her curriculum work: 诗/Sh¯ı: I have applied some Japanese resources in my Chinese class, because I find students’ Japanese learning background gives them confidence in learning Chinese. Students’ learning enthusiasm has been boosted, which is shown from their voluntary in raising hand to answer questions in class. Their Japanese teacher told me students share their Chinese knowledge in Japanese class as well, for example, some of them would recite numbers 1 to 10 in Chinese in the Japanese class. They think the two languages are similar. (Interview)

Helping trilingual children reach their full educational potential is challenging in countries where monolingual policies in education and associated biases inhibit the strengthening of their multilingual capabilities. Choi’s (2019) ethnographic study describes the complex, nuanced, and sophisticated language practices of a trilingual child communicating meaning across Korean, Farsi, and English. This translanguaging research has implications for teachers working with multilingual learners in schools. Anwaruddin (2018, p. 303) was encouraged García and Wei’s (2014) conceptualization of translanguaging as “a transformative pedagogy capable of calling forth bilingual subjectivities and sustaining bilingual performances that go beyond one or the other binary logic of

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two autonomous languages” (pp. 92–93). Further, Anwaruddin (2018, p. 307) explains that García and Wei (2014) believe that translanguaging practices disrupt the “binary logic of two autonomous languages”, and “changes ways of teaching and ways of learning” (p. 93). This definition raises the question, what does translanguaging research transform? Transformation means that translanguaging research challenges people’s understandings of languages which are impacted or determined by power relations of their contexts. Has translanguaging research transformed the relationship between researchers having divergent sociolinguistic resources, empowering them to articulate and critique different views? Can translanguaging (research) disrupt the hegemony of monolingual bias in English-medium research? Translanguaging poses challenges to researchers and can be a daunting task for researchers who do not speak the languages of other researchers whose work they cite in their publications. Let us explore contradictions in teaching and learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language evident in the field of translanguaging research. 李嵬 (Lˇı Wéi) is a prominent scholar in translanguaging research with an extensive record of published literature. Translanguaging researchers might reasonably be expected to accurately cite and reference 李嵬 (Lˇı Wéi)’s name as a sign of their translanguaging sense and sensibility. It is not uncommon to be able to observe among translanguaging researchers to use citations that misrepresent 李嵬 (Lˇı Wéi). Accuracy and Misrepresentation in Translanguaging Research Citations to Wei Wei, L. (2021). Complexities of Chineseness: Reflections on race, nationality and language. Language & Communication, 78, 35–39. Wei, L. (2011). Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(5), 1222–1235. Wei, L. (2014). Researching multilingualism and superdiversity: Grassroots actions and responsibilities. Multilingua, 33(5–6), 475–484.

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Wei, L. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30. Wei, L., & Hua, Z. (2019). Tranßcripting: playful subversion with Chinese characters. International Journal of Multilingualism, 16(2), 145–161. Citations to Li Li, W., & Zhu, H. (2013). Translanguaging identities and ideologies: Creating transnational space through flexible multilingual practices amongst Chinese university students in the UK. Applied Linguistics, 34(5), 516–535. Self-Citations to Li Li, W. (2011). Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(5), 1222–1235. Li, W. (2016). New Chinglish and the post-multilingualism challenge: Translanguaging ELF in China. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 5(1), 1–25. Li, W. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30. Li, W. & Zhu, H. (2010). Voices from the diaspora: Changing hierarchies and dynamics of Chinese multilingualism. International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 205: 155–71. 李嵬 (Lˇı Wéi) has a monosyllabic family surname (李, Lˇı) and a monosyllabic given name (嵬, Wéi). As a matter of cultural practice, in sociolinguistic terms, the surname (李, Lˇı) precedes the given name (嵬, Wéi). However, many citations and references to this name erroneously misrepresented it by a reversing order, with the given name (嵬, Wéi) taken as the surname last. The inaccurate referencing of translanguaging research by 李嵬 (Lˇı Wéi) renders citations to his work inaccurate and invalidates the publication record. Further, accuracy in the citation of researchers’ names would add to the credibility of translanguaging research (da Silva, 2020). Identifying how researchers’ self-citations provides one strategy for representing their names, especially early career researchers in a manner that gives expression to translanguaging perspectives.

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Making Multilingualism Visible Yildiz (2012) traces the way multilingual conceptual knowledge is made visible. Students seek a bilingual educational experience through the visible performance and representation of multilingualism, taking them beyond what their monolingual history has highlighted. Multilingual/translingual teaching/learning might be expected to visibly construct how the participants in this study see Chinese as a local/global language practice. In this context, a critique of the monolingual, Chinesecentric mindset is necessary to bring into question superficial inclusion, whether structurally enforced or not. Following Yildiz (2012), a postmonolingual theoretical framework makes it possible to analyse evidence of the tensions between the co-existence of multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language practice and the participants’ monolingual mindset as evident in their concepts of language and who can identify as a Chinese speaker, and whether this caused the participants to examine their place, and that of Chinese in local/global contexts.

Conclusion Teaching 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a local/global language means it can happen anywhere and can proceed in many different directions. As language educators, we are interested in the direction of this process. The key question driving this study is: what can we as educational research working emergent teacher-researchers do as educators to encourage learners—children and adults, to move in a direction that is good, desirable, and worthwhile? Accordingly, this question leads us to consider what is educationally distinctive about the interrelated practices of teaching/learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese), what is peculiarly educational about it. Undertaking educational research provides one means for developing educational theory support language educators in their work of making 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as a learnable, usable as a local everyday language. Methodologically, the educational research in this study is meant to problematize the taken-for-granted aspects of language education by bringing into focus the contradictions where no one necessarily sees problems. The distinctively educational character of this research is that it both identifies what these emergent teacher-researchers know

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about how they are creating contradictions in languages education, while it also indicates what we, as teachers, teacher educators, educational policy actors, and educational researchers need to know to educationally to change this paradoxical situation. Through engaging with the work of emerging teacher-researchers the analysis of contradictions presented in this chapter provides an understanding of the complexity of educational ways of “doing” languages education language. The identification of these contradictions reminds us that educational research necessarily operates with a sense of doubt any claims made have to be modest. In addressing this challenge in relation to the complexities of education in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese), this study suggests how appropriate educational theory can contribute to good teaching and good language education. Chapter 5 will analyse evidence in paradox in choosing resources for 中文 (Zh¯ongwén/Chinese) education.

References Anwaruddin, S. (2018). Translanguaging as transformative pedagogy: Towards a vision of democratic education. Revista Brasileira De Linguística Aplicada, 18, 301–312. Betawi, A., & Jabbar, S. (2019). Developmentally appropriate or developmentally inappropriate, that’s the question: Perception of early childhood pre-service teachers at The University of Jordan. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 24(1), 40–50. Cenoz, J., & Santos, A. (2020). Implementing pedagogical translanguaging in trilingual schools. System, 92, 102273. Choi, J. (2019). A child’s trilingual language practices in Korean, Farsi, and English: From a sustainable translanguaging perspective. International Journal of Multilingualism, 16(4), 534–548. da Silva, J. (2020). Chinese names in the biomedical literature: Suggested bibliometric standardization. Publishing Research Quarterly, 36(2), 254–257. Eklund, L. (2018). Filial daughter? Filial son? How China’s young urban elite negotiate intergenerational obligations. Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 26(4), 295–312. García, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Palgrave Macmillan. Gui, Y. (2021). Expectation and evaluation of spouse’s filial piety and marital satisfaction in China. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/ fpsyg.2021.595854

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Li, Y. (2018). Some thoughts on the younger-age trend of overseas Chinese learner. Chinese Teaching in the World, 32(3), 291–301. Singh, M. (2016). Intercultural language and literacy education: Professional standards for post-monolingual school-embedded teacher-researcher education. TESOL in Context, 25(2), 20–43. Singh, M., & Ballantyne, C. (2014). Making Chinese learnable for beginning second language learners? In N. Murray & A. Scarino (Eds.), Dynamic ecologies: A relational perspective on languages education in the Asia-Pacific region (pp. 199–214). Springer. Wang, D. (2020). Jia, as in Guojia: Building the Chinese family into a filial nationalist project. China Law and Society Review, 5(1), 1–32. Yang, M., Cooc, N., & Sheng, L. (2017). An investigation of cross-linguistic transfer between Chinese and English: A meta-analysis. Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 2(1), 1–21. Yildiz, Y. (2012). Beyond the mother tongue: The postmonolingual condition. Fordham University Press. Zhang, R., & Chan, B. (2021). Pedagogical translanguaging in a trilingual context: The case of two EFL classrooms in a Xinjiang University. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 1–12.

CHAPTER 5

Paradox in Resources for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) Education

Abstract This chapter examines the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ linguistic resourcing practices in their classes in Australia since linguistic resources play an important part in a language class. Through critical examination of data, a tension between monolingual and multilingual mindsets in choosing resources for Chinese education in Australian contexts has been revealed. Thus, for Australian students’ benefits, it proposes that Chinese teachers could start with generating teaching/learning content from students’ daily authentic activities, which enlightened a direction for Chinese curriculum construction in the Australian context and beyond. Keywords Paradox · Resources · Monolingual mindset · Multilingual consciousness · Multimodal resources · Critical thinking

Introduction Linguistic resources play an important part in a language class, which enables effective teaching, assists students’ understanding, and cultivates students’ interest and motivation in learning. Resources for language © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Y. Han and X. Ji, Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15153-8_5

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class in a postmonolingual era expresses the ideology that linguistic resources suitable for language class are limitless, which could be drawn from both students’ and teachers’ linguistic repertoire as long as they could contribute to students’ language learning. Thus, postmonolingual resourcing refers to not only resources of the target language, in this case Chinese, but the whole repertoire of both teachers and students that contributes to interlinguistic understanding (Singh, 2017). Resources from students’ sociolinguistic backgrounds tend to be neglected, as the common view in a language class is to maximize the application of the target language. Employment of students’ background sociolinguistic resources for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learning promotes the inclusiveness of teaching and removes boundaries between monolingualism and multilingualism. Since postmonolingualism is not against any single language but seeks to enable understandings across linguistic borders (Singh & Han, 2017), resourcing should reflect the postmonolingual nature that values individuality while pursuing universality. This chapter examines the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ linguistic resourcing practices in their classes in Australia.

Disjunctions Between Language and Ethnicity Using a postmonolingual theoretical framework there is evidence from the participants in this chapter revealing some sense of disjunction between (localizing) 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) and the ethnicity of those who learn and use it given their prevailing monolingual mindset. What does it mean for the participants in this study to see and hear an Australian from Senegal or Morocco speak Chinese for their purposes? Yildiz (2012) argues that such linguistic interventions broach the monolingual boundaries of intellectual cultures to provide sources of innovation or originality. Yildiz’s (2012) study raises the question, in what sense is multilingual Australia a productive site for the formation of practices for the multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language, and for questioning the monolingual mindset of the study’s participants who see themselves as having privileged access to Chinese—and how it is taught, learnt, and used—due to country of birth and the intellectual culture inherited. This could also mean analysing the evidence for tensions between the multilingual production and use of conceptual knowledge in the transnational research community, and the restrictions that ethnocentric, monolingual mindset impose on transnational 中

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文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education. The production and use of Chinese conceptual knowledge for use as theoretical resources could represent a defiant appropriation of research produced largely in the English language by postmonolingual teachers/researchers in multilingual Australia or China.

Monolingual Mindset in Resources for ¯ ´ /Chinese) Education 中文 (Zhongw en Despite a good intention, monolingual mindset might be hidden beneath a beautiful appearance in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ educational practices, for example: 唐/Táng: I want to build up my own teaching system and I hope the system is not only for me but could be a systematic and effective teaching resource for other Chinese language teachers as well. I watched an online video about a Laˇ owài’s [“Laˇ owài” is a nickname for Anglos] life in China. He stayed in China for a while and could talk like a Chinese native speaker. My goal is to teach my students to the extent that if they go to China, it will not take them long until they can communicate fluently with Chinese locals. After learning with me for several years, they will build up the Chinese language and culture foundation as well as the confidence in starting their life in China. What they need only is an acceleration in their language capacity in a native Chinese language environment. I have the confidence in achieving this goal because of my previous success in doing so. (Inverview)

唐/Táng expressed his ambition in building a transmissible systematic and effective teaching system for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education, which is a grand goal; however, he put his focus on localizing Chinese use within China. This ignores the fact that Chinese is a local language in Australia regardless of whether or not his students could have the opportunity to live in China in the future. 雅/Yˇa: When I taught students Zòngzi [粽子, a kind of rice dumpling], the traditional Chinese food for Dragon Boats’ Festival, I prepared some ingredients and made Zòngzi once together with them. I hope this could contribute to their understanding of Chinese culture as well as to their language learning. I did not prepare all the ingredients for making Zòngzi, instead, I prepared those were not available for them to prepare but leave

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out some easy-to-get ingredients to them for preparation. I think this could create them a sense of participation and achievement. (Interview)

How to efficiently practise content and language integrated learning, Zòngzi and the cultural meaning it carries in this case, with students’ sociolinguistic knowledge so that they could have a better understanding of both the word and culture is an area that deserves more research. In this case, 雅/Yˇa tried to achieve the goal of creating students “a sense of participation and achievement” by asking students to complete ingredients preparation tasks before class; however, how can this “sense” of achievement be connected to 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) and culture teaching/learning is not clear, or 雅/Yˇa deviated her original goal of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) and culture teaching to “create them a sense of participation and achievement” which should not be the focus of a language class. Deeply, her pedagogy through classroom activity could not serve her teaching objectives, reflecting either her pedagogy deficiency or her teaching objectives ambiguity. Zòngzi is not an uncommon food in Australia. Each year, when the Dragon Boat’s Festival [the fifth of May on the Chinese lunar calendar, to memorize the renowned Chinese poet Quyuan] comes, where there are Chinese people, there are Zòngzi. In Chinese shops, in Sydney for example, Zòngzi is sold all year round. Therefore, if 雅/Yˇa could ask her students to make some pre-class preparation by asking them to go to the local Chinese shops to have a look at Zòngzi and describe what it is like, or to take some photos of Zòngzi and take a guess of its flavour or even buy some and have a taste, which would be a practice of taking Zòngzi as local food and “Zòngzi” as a local language. 风/F¯eng: I gave each of my students a Chinese name at the beginning of the semester. Once I taught the Chinese Hànzì 明 [míng, bright] I pointed at one student whose Chinese name is 小明 [Xiaˇ omíng, a common Chinese name] and told them 明 carries the meaning of bright and hope because the left 日 [rì] means the sun and the right 月 [yuè] means the moon, both of them can be bright so Chinese parents use this Chinese character to name their kids expressing their hope in their kids. Students are fascinated about the Chinese naming culture and ask me a lot about the meaning of their given Chinese names. (Interview)

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Chinese names with cultural meanings were given to students by 风/F¯eng; however, he did not base those names on students’ sociolinguistic knowledge. Even though 明 (míng: bright) expresses positive meaning in Chinese culture, what does it have to do with the student who was given this name? Apparently, at the end of this data students express their interest in Chinese names and eagerness to know the meanings of their names. If their names could be based on something they’ve already known, it would be better for their understanding and memorization of the pronunciation and Hànzì. 诗/Sh¯ı: When I taught students “tea”, I let them watch a video about Chinese tea art. In the video, a Chinese girl in Chinese traditional clothing showed the process of making tea and drinking tea. The tea leaves in the video, after putting into hot water for a while, are very beautifully floating. I hope this could impress them and help them with Chinese culture understanding and language learning. (Interview) 颂/Sòng: When I taught them Chinese tea chá, I told them the story that the pronunciation of the English word “tea” was from a Chinese reginal dialect in which chá is pronounced similar to tea. Tea was so popular in ancient China and when foreigners took tea back to their country, they brought back the pronunciation of it as well. (Interview)

Both 诗/Sh¯ı and 唐/Táng chose the typical Chinese drink “tea” as their teaching content. 诗/Sh¯ı intended to cultivate students’ knowledge of Chinese culture by showing them a video of tea art, while 颂/Sòng explained the origin of the English word “tea” was from a Chinese regional dialect. They both delivered rich Chinese culture to Australian students. However, the teaching of the pronunciation of “chá” was ignored, which could have been achieved well if they had linked the pronunciation with students’ existing knowledge. “Chá” has the same pronunciation as the English word “char”. “Yum Cha” is the Chinese Cantonese way of saying “drinking tea” or/and “eating breakfast”, which is a local expression in Australia and is familiarized by some local students. If the Chinese teachers could base their teaching of the pronunciation of Chinese tea on the knowledge, learning “chá” would be easier for the students. 诗/Sh¯ı: I think popular Chinese culture should be an important part in Chinese class as well. I am not denying the importance of traditional

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Chinese culture; rather, we are living in a modern society, and modern Chinese culture is an indispensable element if students want to know the authentic China. We do eat dumplings, but there is also Chinese Internet-popular food. Once I showed my students a kind of Chinese Internet-popular food and we made it in our class together. Students enjoyed the process and the food. (Interview) 唐/Táng: I am a person who want to diversify my Chinese lessons. Recently while I was listening to the really Internet-popular Chinese song Wolf Disco, I thought it would be a good resource for my Chinese lesson. So, I played this song in my class giving students some ideas of Chinese popular music culture and I designed a game based on the song to practice the learned content. (Interview)

Both 诗/Sh¯ı and 唐/Táng regarded Chinese popular culture as an important source for their Chinese lessons with an intention to tell their students China does not only possess traditional culture but also modern culture; however, behind this modern culture teaching surface is the Chinese-centric monolingual mindset which put the Chinese culture at the centre and based teaching content on it. From a learner-friendly perspective, their teaching content could base on students’ existing sociolinguistic knowledge, students’ familiar Australian pop culture, for example, rather than what was popular in China. Besides, as a language class rather than a culture appreciation class, how language content could be built into culture appreciation is a topic that deserves more exploration for Chinese teachers. 唐/Táng: When students started to learn P¯ıny¯ın, they struggle to differentiate them from English sounds. For example, “qi” is widely read as /kwi/, which is incorrect in Chinese. I understand that students’ first language plays as a hurdle in such conditions. I then gave them a P¯ıny¯ın chart with pictures. Students could read them to shape the interpretations of letters and sounds while see pictures of how the lips and mouth are supposed to function. (interview)

A P¯ıny¯ın chart would hardly not help students’ mastering of the Chinese pronunciation for “qi” since this is one of the difficulties in the Chinese pronunciation section. Why not link “qi” to the pronunciation of “che” in “cheese” so that an immediate understanding of the pronunciation could be achieved.

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Monolingual Music-Integrated ¯ ´ ) Teaching en 中文 (Zhongw The mutual influence between language and music has been widely researched. In the neuroscience field, Scho et al. (2010) displayed similar parts of the brain are involved in processing language and music; Patel (2008) indicated music’s specific impact on the cerebral development of semantic concepts. Certain regions of the brain are activated by music while learning a language (Rebuschat et al., 2012). Music has also been approved as an efficient method in facilitating students’ acquisition of literacy skills in the early learning stages for the engaging sounds contributes to the construction of an interactive learning community so that students’ knowledge would be boosted through inclusive instruction strategies by music intervention (Tomlinson, 2013). Music-integrated pedagogy is being applied to 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education and revealed its practicality and significance for making Chinese learnable for beginning learners. Zhu (2017), in her study of teaching Chinese with music, mentioned a trial of teaching grammar with rap, which allows a collection of ways to be recognized and tied into the learning. Creative application of music brings out different learning styles and offers channels for learners to interpret content. Diffusive as it is, such practice widens the practicality of linguistic items, linking meanings to contexts and purposes. Not only is musical engagement beneficial with respect to linguistic content, but it also demonstrates a degree of contribution to learning efficiency. To be more specific, teaching approaches and learning styles are rematched and reorganized to address problems and find solutions. Teachers and students build shared knowledge through music for language and this knowledge works as a special channel for further learnings to operate. Xie (2017) and Zhu (2017) both conducted action research to testify the impact of using music to teach some basic Chinese expressions for beginning learners in Australian local schools. They utilized task-based language teaching pedagogy to promote the learnability of Chinese and proved that it was efficient. For selecting music as a Chinese teaching resource, content and form need to be taken into account. One genre suitable for beginning learners is nursery rhymes. Exposure to nursery rhymes repeatedly has been found to enable language learners to interact with the language content in memorable and attractive tunes, therefore, contributing to

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the cultivation of their target language capabilities, such as listening and speaking at an essential level (Pourkalhor & Tavakoli, 2017). The application of melodic elements combined with multimedia tools could engage young language learners in the target learning content, which is an enjoyable experience for a classroom setting (Ludovico & Zambell, 2016). Thus, 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers could develop students’ sociolinguistic-music-based integrated pedagogical approaches to cater to pupils’ learning needs. Data show 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese language) teachers in this study incorporate music into their teaching: 风/F¯eng: While students review words and expressions learnt through games, I play their beloved songs of TF Boys [a Chinese famous band with three boys as members] as the background music. (Interview) 诗/Sh¯ı: When I taught students how to say Chinese numbers from 1 to 10, I played a very popular Chinese number song. What is special about the song is that the Chinese way of saying the numbers would be repeated from number 2 according to the number. For example, number 3 would be repeated for three times like this: “s¯ an, s¯ an, s¯ an”, following different rhythms and students love the song and learned how to count from 1 to 10 in Chinese quickly. (Interview) 唐/Táng: I once played a music video “老鼠爱大米” (“Mice Love Rice”) for the class to have fun. Students loved it a lot and asked me to teach them how to sing. (Interview)

It can be seen that music was employed in various ways with specific strategies that address different aspects of learning by the above three 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers. 风/F¯eng uses a song that students like as background music for revision, which creates a familiar atmosphere. 诗/Sh¯ı uses a number song to bring students to a new pattern that has rhythms. Students’ interests are aroused, and it has helped them to learn. In 唐/Táng’s case, students actively ask to learn more because of the stimulus of music. They wish to approach the song, and hence willingly seek to have the linguistic progress so that it can be a way to link them to another area. Music is a good linguistic resource; however, several aspects of the above practice could be improved are, firstly, a Chinese-centric monolingual mindset is reflected from the choice of Chinese-only songs, which

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could be transformed into a more inclusive and efficient method if teaching content could be based on students’ familiar songs from their sociolinguistic backgrounds. Secondly, all the music resources either in Chinese or English are supposed to serve language learning purposes, rather than to “have fun” only. If some Chinese content learning could be designed before class, the teaching outcome with music engagement might be better.

Multilingual Resourcing Consciousness Good language class requires a good class design which, to a large extent, is determined by teachers’ intentionally linguistic resources choice. Thus, in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) classes, teachers’ multilingual resourcing consciousness plays a vital role. 唐/Táng: In terms of choosing teaching resources, I think each Chinese teacher has his/her own style. For me, I usually choose resources from my everyday life elements and to reflect if those elements would fit into my students’ taste. The reflection process is also the chance for me to grow as a Chinese language teacher. (Interview)

唐/Táng’s multilingual resourcing capability is revealed from his “everyday life elements” and from his adaptation of Chinese elements to fit into his students’ taste, in which his consciousness in choosing teaching resources is important because it reflects his student-centred pedagogy as well as his endeavours for self-development as a 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher. This consciousness is valuable; however, it reflects self-centredness because the teaching resources are from his rather than his students’ everyday life elements. Employment of authenticitybased learning material of students’ cultural preferences could promote students’ interactive proficiency in daily life (Allehyani et al., 2017). For language teachers, drawing students’ sociolinguistic resources takes extra effort because the prerequisite is to get to know their students’ everyday life and their preferrable daily activities. Extra time is required in deciding on the appropriateness and authenticity of the potential teaching sources, and in transferring the sources to practical teaching content for class implementations. This benefits both students and teachers. Students’ understanding of real-life linguistic and sociocultural features from the

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target language community could be broadened and deepened (Ahmed, 2017). While, for teachers, their practical teaching experiences could be enriched during and after the course designing process.

Multilingual Resources in 中文 ¯ ´ /Chinese) Education en (Zhongw There is evidence of participants in this study constructing practices for the multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language that creatively mix students’ languages. Students’ sociolinguistic knowledge were built into 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) class so that students could learn the teaching/learning content well. 诗/Sh¯ı: I build my teaching contents into classroom activities so my students could be engaged. For example, if the teaching contents are under the food category and are ingredients for making dumplings, I will build them naturally into a dumpling-making activity. I would play a dumplingmaking video in class first, giving students the chance to have a general idea of the process. Then I will show them the recipe for making dumplings and teach them several ingredients in the recipe so that later when we make dumplings together, we will repeat the Chinese way of saying them, for example, Chinese cabbage is báicài. (Inverview)

The advantage of sociolinguistic language education lies in the fact that it contributes to the generation of authentic language activities for language learners, which can make up the inappropriateness of teaching materials ignoring localized and culture-specific divergences among learners of different cultural backgrounds (McKay & Bokhorst-Heng, 2008). Sociolinguistic activities in language class facilitate language learning through the engagement of learning content from real-life experiences (Morton, 2013). Thus, it is productive in cultivating language learners’ communicative competence through exposure to new learning content in familiar circumstances/environments (Dang & Seals, 2018). There is evidence that shows the everchanging sociolinguistic resources and intellectual cultures of students, as shown in Table 5.1 of 唐/Táng’s teaching resource. Soon after the English Internet-popular song “Dinosaurs ” attracted a large number of views and be familiarized by many littles (it is composed and sung by a little girl) 唐/Táng imported this song into his 中文

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Table 5.1 An example of the everchanging sociolinguistic resources English version (English Internet-popular song)

Chinese version (Translation)

Dinosaurs eating people. Dinosaurs in love. Dinosaurs having a party; they eat fruit and cucumber. They fell in love. They say “Thank you”. A big bang came and they died. Dinosaurs, dinosaurs fell in love but they did not say goodbye. But they did not say good bye

小恐龙, 小恐龙, 吃人。小恐龙, 小恐龙, 相 爱。小恐龙开派对; 他们吃水果和黄瓜。 他们 相爱啦。他们说 “谢谢”。大爆炸, 全完了!小 恐龙, 小恐龙相爱, 但是没有说 “再见”。 他们没有说 “再见”。(Interview data from 唐/Táng)

(Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) class by translating it into Chinese. Taking a sociolinguistic perspective 唐/Táng chose and designed his teaching content sources by combining students’ sociolinguistic background knowledge and the target language. Through building new language content into students’ existing experience and knowledge, the distance between new and old knowledge was bridged so that students could learn the target language in an authenticity-oriented context, in which a sense of familiarity was produced and novel linguistic expressions seemed unobtrusive. 唐/Táng shared another experience of drawing students’ sociolinguistic resources for his 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) class: 唐/Táng: I also use some Australian local resources such as games. Last time when I went camping with students, I learned two games from the local teachers. One of them is “In the river, out of the river, bridge”. This game is very simple, it is to jump to the left, to the right, or jump across a line in the middle with two legs separately on the two sides of the line, which is a game to practice students’ response speed. I redesigned the game to fit into my Chinese class by using it to practice Chinese listening and speaking. I may change it to “kèch¯e, huˇoch¯e, zìxíngch¯e” (coach, train, bicycle) when we learn vehicles. When I say “kèch¯e” students need to jump to the left of a predetermined line; when I say “huˇoch¯e” students need to jump to the right side and when I say “zìxíngch¯e” students need to separate their legs to both sides of the line. I use this game because Australian local students are all familiar with the game, which indicates that I do not need to elaborate too much on the rules.

Drawing students’ sociolinguistic resources, 唐/Táng adapted a local game by fitting 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) into the original English

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structure: “In the river, out of the river, bridge” was transformed into “Kèch¯e, huˇoch¯e, zìxíngch¯e”. 唐/Táng explained the reason for adapting and adopting this game to his class—students’ familiarity with the game contributes to their understanding of the new game with only changes in instruction terms. This 旧瓶装新酒 (jiù píng zhu¯ ang x¯ın jiu, ˇ use an old bottle to hold new alcohol) way of practising a game shows the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ capability of drawing students’ sociolinguistic resources. Since language is the embodiment of social practice (Pennycook, 2010), teaching resources from daily situated sociolinguistic activities facilitated productivity of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education. 诗/Sh¯ı: When we were learning Chinese zodiac, among which 鸡 [j¯ı, chicken] is one of them. My students mentioned Honey Chicken as the most popular Chinese food in Australia. I found their interests in the food and extended my teaching of 鸡 [j¯ı, chicken] to other food with it, such as 鸡块 [nuggets], 鸡翅 [chicken wing], 鸡腿 [drumsticks] and 鸡胸 [chicken breast]. (Interview)

Seizing students’ interests in Chinese food “Honey Chicken” 诗/Sh¯ı extended her teaching of the Chinese zodiac 鸡 (j¯ı, chicken) to food with the Chinese character. All the food of extension—鸡块 (nuggets), 鸡翅 (chicken wing), 鸡腿 (drumsticks), and 鸡胸 (chicken breast)—are from students’ sociolinguistic backgrounds and their everyday occurring sociolinguistic activities (Table 5.2). Taking a student-centred pedagogy, the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher associated real linguistic forms with social practices and paid attention to making language teaching more focused on students’ daily sociolinguistic activities for producing authentic learning materials and resources to cater to students’ needs. This type of teaching/learning content extension based on students’ existing knowledge base can be also seen from another teacher 唐/Táng (Table 5.3). 唐/Táng: Sometimes I encourage students to use the newly learned knowledge creatively for a purpose. After trying to write P¯ıny¯ın, Hànzì and translation of 篮球 [lánqiú, basketball], they will be given a minute to use it in a Chinese sentence structure they learnt in previous classes and practice with partners. When I have the chance to watch them playing basketball or play with them, I would ask them to use the related language we learnt as much as they can such as 接球 [ji¯e qiú], 拍球 [p¯ ai qiú], 传球 [chuán qiú] and 投篮 [tóu lán]. (Interview)

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Table 5.2 Extended learning from 鸡/j¯ı/chicken

Table 5.3 Extended learning from 球/qiú/ball

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Practical teaching content

Students’ existing sociolinguistic knowledge

蜂蜜鸡 (f¯engmì j¯ı) 鸡块 (j¯ı kuài) 鸡翅 (j¯ı chì) 鸡腿 (j¯ı tuˇı ) 鸡胸 (j¯ı xi¯ ong )

Honey Chicken Nuggets Chicken wing Drumsticks Chicken breast

Practical teaching content

Students’ existing sociolinguistic knowledge

篮球 接球 拍球 传球 投篮

Basketball Catch the ball Bounce the ball Pass the ball Shoot (at the basket)

(lán qiú) (ji¯e qiú) (p¯ ai qiú) (chuán qiú) (tóu lán)

唐/Táng’s application of students’ sociolinguistic resources could be seen from two of his actions: firstly, he asked students to practise newly learnt content in previously learnt sentence structures so that a sense of familiarity could contribute to students’ learning; secondly, he asked students to practise linguistic content in real-life sociolinguistic activities, which promote students’ language learning in real-life circumstances.

Comparison and Contrast of Resources Postmonolingual resourcing could be achieved by comparison and contrast of resources from different cultural origins, China and Australia mainly in this case. Australian resources, as 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese language) students’ background sociolinguistic resources, are necessities in 中文 class. Comparison and contrast are often adopted as a method to teach content under similar topics such as festivals and holidays. Comparison and contrast scaffold students’ learning of new content based on their existing knowledge of similar familiar items as well as provide students with an opportunity for the cultivation of cultural awareness.

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诗/Sh¯ı: I made a comparison and contrast diagram by month of Australian festivals and Chinese festivals, from which my students found that China has more festivals. My further explanation that most of the Chinese festivals are also public holidays made them envy Chinese people. We also compared the Australian and Chinese school term systems: four short terms in Australia and two long terms in China. I asked their preference. They were attracted by the Chinese way of schooling because the two long vacations. (Interview) 唐/Táng: I was once invited to a class to talk about Chinese New Year before Australian New Year. I made a comparison of the two New Years in terms of their different dates and customs. Students were curious about the different New Years and asked me some questions about Chinese New Year, mainly relating to food, clothes, customs, stories and gifts. I taught them G¯ ong xˇı f¯ a cái [恭喜发财] as a way of greeting for wishing people to make a good fortune in the new year and told them they might get a red envelop with money because of this greeting. They practiced it diligently and tried hard to remember it. (Interview)

Comparison and contrast of festivals of different cultural origins stimulate students’ curiosity and interest in knowing Chinese culture and in learning the language. Resources/knowledge of Australian festivals is the foundation, on which Chinese knowledge could be based and passed to students. With borrowing and comparison and contrast of things of one life with things of another, the Chinese teachers are able to practise their multicultural and multilingual resources while students get to align their life experiences with new thinking. This allows various ways of celebration of interest, which not only boost linguistic integration but also strengthen cultural understanding. Originally, postmonolingual resourcing is essential in cultural transmission for accessing untranslatable concepts and experiences (Zhang et al., 2005). Due to various differences such as geographical and historical factors in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) class, ideological gaps are unavoidable, which could be bridged through the adoption of postmonolingual resources.

Multimodal Teaching Resources Human brain is of multimodal nature; thus, the application of multimodal resources in language classes may contribute to students’ engagement and exploration of more efficient pedagogy (Jewitt, 2008). Multimodal

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approach has proved to be a powerful tool in English language education (Ajayi, 2015; Zhang, 2009); however, few studies can be found in 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education research area. This chapter finds that multimodal resources were applied in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) classes by the teacher-researchers investigated. It was found that they employed visual resources, body languages, music, etc., to assist and facilitate their 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teaching as well as students’ learning. Take body language for instance, 唐/Táng: I like incorporating body language into teaching and students love it too. One of their favourites is “Guess What”, which starts by having a student mimic gestures of words learned, for example, yóuyˇong (游 泳/swim). Others need to guess the word and speak it out loud. The one with the most appropriate pronunciation could be the next performing the gesture. By doing so, the tone of yóuyˇong could be exercised. (Interview) 诗/Sh¯ı: When students learn to count from 1 to 10 in Chinese, I offer them Chinese hand signs to promote remembrance. For instance, holding thumb and pinkie out together means 6. The body language gives students an extra channel to assert their understanding. They enjoyed the new experience a lot and always put fingers out to copy my patterns while counting. Gradually, when I put a hand sign out, some students can tell me what number it represents and how to say it in Chinese. (Interview)

Body language is a major method here for both 唐/Táng and 诗/Sh¯ı to facilitate 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learning: learning action words (yóuyˇong /游泳/swim) and the Chinese way of counting. 唐/Táng’s gesture-oral method engages students in practising Chinese tones (Shi, 2017), while 诗/Sh¯ı’s gesture-oral approach connects numbers with traditional Chinese gestures. When specific Chinese traditions are encompassed, 唐/Táng uses them as a medium to help store language and a stimulus to activate memory, which was proved to be effective. Students support this kind of learning environment, in which interdependent relationships are built and learning is promoted (Taylor & Parsons, 2011). Gesture, as “a form of elaborated encoding for young learners, in aiding target language memorisation and slowing attrition” (Porter, 2016, p. 236), could contribute to students’ language learning and promote memorization of new words and expressions due to retrieval cues and richer memory traces.

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Chinese teachers’ multimodal teaching stimulates students’ senses as well as develops and shapes students’ actions, which promotes students’ overall engagement in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learning (Shi, 2017). In order to achieve learning goals that reflect organizational mechanisms, students need to approach knowledge from different angles. Multimodal resources have specialized focuses on learning styles and teaching purposes through which multiple solutions are available for problems. Teachers’ multimodal strategies transform into students’ learning preferences and desires. They create their wants through experiencing various choices. Furthermore, multimodal teaching enables students to see universality when exploring thoughts and values. Teachers and students collaborate through multimodality to celebrate human logic and the creativity of language.

Open-Mindedness, Growth Mindset, and Critical Thinking in Choosing Resources While multilingual resources could mostly contribute to 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education, unsuitable and inappropriate resources may cause problems, which require 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ open-mindedness and critical thinking to tailor them for Chinese classes. 诗/Sh¯ı: I asked a school teacher to buy some teaching material on Chinese culture, such as the Chinese Zodiac and riddles. They bought a series of Chinese Zodiac story books, but I found that the stories in their books are different from the traditional Chinese Zodiac stories. Their stories are modernized. I’m a bit confused at the beginning by these stories because I have not heard the stories in this way, for example, animals competing or having parties, which are obviously Westernized Chinese Zodiac stories, but I accepted the stories soon because I think it is also a way to know Chinese culture, or, if students would have a better understanding of or an interest in Chinese language because of these different stories, why not! (Interview)

These data show that, on the one hand, the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher’s multilingual knowledge from both Chinese and Australian resources provides them with the opportunity as well as capability to offer comparison and contrast of holidays and customs from two cultures to students, which, in return, could promote students’ formation and

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development of their postmonolingual capabilities. On the other hand, 诗/Sh¯ı’s postmonolingual resourcing capability is reflected in her ability to identify, distinguish, and accept Westernized Chinese Zodiac stories. Postmonolingual capabilities are not only about knowledge of two or more languages and cultures but also open-mindedness and growth mindset of accepting new things that arise from their multilingual linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Discussion and Conclusion Evidence for this chapter has revealed a tension between monolingual and multilingual mindsets in choosing resources for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Australian contexts. The Chinese teachers were found, on the one hand, controlled by Chinese-centric monolingual mindset in resourcing seen from their purposeful application of solely Chinese language resources, while on the other hand, displayed a multilingual mindset through trying to draw resources from students’ sociolinguistic backgrounds—they practised the multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language, which is contrary to Orton’s (2008, 2013) findings that Chinese teachers in Australia were unwilling to understand their local students’ learning needs and abilities, and lacked the capabilities in customizing their learning styles in local educational environments. Such multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language practice of the 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers in this study has brought to the fore students’ repertoire of sociolinguistic knowledge to structure their active participation in learning and using Chinese locally. Students would develop their Chinese language resources to perform disciplinary work— studies in their various school subjects—by working across the students’ languages (Australia is a multilingual society like China). The participants in this study reflected on their repertoire of languages (which include mainly English and Chinese), and how they cultivated their awareness of this to generate multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language practice to learn to mobilize their students’ multiple language resources to extend and deepen their sociolinguistic repertoires. In order to make Chinese learnable for Australian school children, making full use of students’ daily recurrent sociolinguistic activities could be a “mediator” in designing and constructing appropriate Chinese teaching content and strategies for instruction; in such process, students’

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existing linguistic knowledge of English practised daily for conducting those Australian-based activities could be transferred to their learning of Chinese (Singh & Han, 2014). Orton also suggested that “genuine language courses” (2016, p. 374) accessible for students be implemented in Australian 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) classes, in which localized resources based on negotiation by teachers and students are to be utilized. It revealed no explicit evidence in this study that the Chinese teachers sought suggestions for learning content from students; however, evidence of the teachers’ teaching content and activities surrounding students’ daily sociolinguistic activities indicated that they did possess some knowledge of students’ everyday life. This is not denying that this aspect could be made explicit to future 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers in teacher education programs. Multilingual resources, especially those from Chinese learners’ own cultural and sociolinguistic backgrounds enrich their language learning experiences and contribute to their classroom learning engagement as well as learning outcomes. Learning knowledge that is associable to existing concepts grants students a foundation to build cognitive networks. Participants reported that they found it easier to teach Chinese with resources of both Chinese and Australian. When teachers’ resources align with students’ tastes, the resonance solidifies understanding and deepens learning. In cases where the two resources disagree with each other, students tend to approach Australian resources first and take Chinese resource for enrichment. Multilingual resources could function as a facilitator in promoting students’ language learning as well as broaden their horizons as Yildiz (2012) pointed out that the distinction between two resources stretches learners’ minds to observe the details of intercultural connections. Multimodal ways of teaching were found in this study, the application of which could contribute to students’ engagement and teachers’ exploration of more efficient pedagogy (Jewitt, 2008; Shi, 2017). The significance of multimodal teaching in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) classes lies in: it contributes to students’ understanding and construction of the language (Li & Tian, 2020; Zhang, 2011); it integrates relevant resources (Li & Tian, 2020); it provides teachers spaces for flexibility (Zhang, 2011), and it promotes teaching effectiveness (Li & Tian, 2020; Zhang, 2011). According to March and Simon (1993), memory can be divided in terms of content into active ones and passive ones. Those active ones involve courses of action that nurture interests and values. They are stored

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with a high chance of being evoked in the future. As Chinese teachers bring multimodal resources into the teaching and learning process, the extra stimuli diversify learning styles and construct active memory. This study has found that 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in Australian classrooms includes a wide range of multimodal resources such as music and body gestures. Such additional elements enlarge the manageable range for memory. Students learn Chinese from different angles and associate it with various resources for memory. On another front, the multimodal resources also play as a key in organizing knowledge internally. March and Simon (1993) believe stimuli will effectively determine what can be evoked. When additional resources are available for students to engage multiple senses, learnings are organized in memory in a unique manner. Multimodal resources not only play as an additional way to teach and learn but also function actively while activating and evoking the language. We noticed that students displayed enthusiasm towards multimodal stimuli and associate with them more easily. They ask further questions regarding details or compare them with what they already know. Language learning thus becomes a course of action that has a particular purpose; for instance, to sing a song or to make an artwork. The memories of language therefore will possess a particular value. March and Simon describe these as active memories that are quicker to retrieve than passive ones. For the promotion of more productive 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education outcomes in Australia, it is a necessity for native 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers to understand and acquaint local students’ habits and preferences for construction of appropriate and studentfriendly teaching/learning content and methods (Moloney & Xu, 2015). For the cultivation of students’ communicative competencies, as shown in the evidence of this chapter, Chinese teachers could start with generating teaching/learning content from students’ daily authentic activities. Thus, taking a postmonolingual perspective, students’ daily recurring sociolinguistic activities provide a rich source for directing Chinese curriculum construction in the Australian sociocultural context, which could retain their interest and increase their sense of achievement in learning Chinese. Chapter 6 presents and analyses evidence for 汉字 (Hànzì) education.

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References Ahmed, S. (2017). Authentic ELT materials in the language classroom: An overview. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 4(2), 181– 202. Ajayi, L. (2015). Innovative approaches in English-language arts: How two teachers teach high school students to use multimodal resources for interpretation of Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. Journal of Literacy and Technology, 16(1), 65–105. Allehyani, B., Burnapp, D., & Wilson, J. (2017). A comparison of teaching materials (school textbooks vs authentic materials) from the perspective of English teachers and educational supervisors in Saudi Arabia. International Journal of English Language and Linguistics Research, 5(2), 1–14. Dang, T. C. T., & Seals, C. (2018). An evaluation of primary English textbooks in Vietnam: A sociolinguistic perspective. TESOL Journal, 9(1), 93–113. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.309 Jewitt, C. (2008). Multimodality and literacy in school classrooms. Review of Research in Education, 32(1), 241–267. Li, X., & Tian, X. (2020). Research and overview of multimodal TCFL teaching mode in China—Statistical analysis based on Chinese hownet. Education Modernization, 7 (31), 5–12. Ludovico, L. A., & Zambelli, C. (2016). Towards a music-based framework for content and language integrated learning in preschool. CSEDU, 1, 75–84. March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1993). Organizations (2nd ed.). Cambridge. McKay, S. L., & Bokhorst-Heng, W. D. (2008). International English in its sociolinguistic contexts: Towards a socially sensitive EIL pedagogy (pp. 180– 199). Routledge. Moloney, R., & Xu, H. (2015). Taking the initiative to innovate: Pedagogies for Chinese as a foreign language. In R. Moloney & H. L. Xu (Eds.), Exploring innovative pedagogy in the teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language (pp. 1–17). Springer. Morton, T. (2013). Critically evaluating materials for CLIL: Practitioners’ practices and perspectives. In J. Gray (Ed.), Critical perspectives on language teaching materials (pp. 111–136). Palgrave Macmillan. Orton, J. (2008). Chinese language education in Australian schools. The University of Melbourne. Orton, J. (2013). Developing Chinese oral skills: A research base for practice. In I. Kecskés (Ed.), Research in Chinese as a second language (pp. 9–32). De Gruyter Mouton. Orton, J. (2016). Issues in Chinese language teaching in Australian schools. Chinese Education & Society, 49(6), 369–375. https://doi.org/10.1080/106 11932.2016.1283929 Patel, A. (2008). Music, language, and the brain. Oxford University Press Inc.

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Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice. Routledge. Porter, A. (2016). A helping hand with language learning: Teaching French vocabulary with gesture. The Language Learning Journal, 44(2), 236–256. Pourkalhor, O., & Tavakoli, M. (2017). Nursery rhymes and language learning: Issues and pedagogical Implications. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies, 5(1), 111–116. Rebuschat, P., Rohrmeier, M., Hawkins, J., & Cross, I. (2012). Language and music as cognitive systems. Oxford University Press. Scho, et al. (2010). Similar cerebral networks in language, music and song perception. CNRS and Aix-Marseille University; Florida Atlantic University; CNRS and Pierre Mendes University; Toulouse University; Timone Hospital; Middle Tennessee State University. Shi, J. (2017). Opening all your senses: An exploration of the multimodal approach to engage students’ learning of Chinese as a foreign language [Master thesis Western Sydney University]. Singh, M. (2017). Post-monolingual research methodology: Multilingual researchers democratizing theorizing and doctoral education. Education Sciences, 7 (1), 28. Singh, M., & Han, J. (2014). Educating teachers of “Chinese as a local/global language”: Teaching “Chinese with Australian characteristics.” Frontiers of Education in China, 9(3), 403–428. https://doi.org/10.3868/s110-003014-0032-x Singh, M., & Han, J. (2017). Pedagogies for internationalising research education: Intellectual equality, theoretic-linguistic diversity and knowledge Chuàngx¯ın. Palgrave Macmillan. Taylor, L., & Parsons, J. (2011). Improving student engagement. Current Issues in Education,14(1). Tomlinson, M. M. (2013). Literacy and music in early childhood. SAGE Open, 3(3), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244013502498 Xie, Z. S. (2017). Teaching Chinese through integrating songs in task-based learning: A teacher action research project [Master thesis]. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/2033935646?pq-origsite=gscholar Yildiz, Y. (2012). Beyond the mother tongue: The postmonolingual condition. Fordham University Press. Zhang, D. (2009). Multimodal discourse theory and media technology in foreign language teaching. Foreign Language Education, 4, 15–20. Zhang, M. (2011). An analysis of multimodal mode in teaching Chinese as a foreign language. Higher Education Research, 11, 216–217. Zhang, Y., Vines, P., & Zobel, J. (2005). Chinese OOV translation and post-translation query expansion in Chinese-English cross-lingual information retrieval. ACM Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing (TALIP), 4(2), 57–77.

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Zhu, X. (2017). An exploration of using rhythm to make Chinese learnable: An action research project in Western Sydney primary schools [Master thesis Western Sydney University].

CHAPTER 6

To Be or Not to Be? Resources for 汉字 (Hànzì) Education

Abstract This evidentiary chapter concentrates on presenting and analysing how 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers practice 汉字 (Hànzì/Chinese characters, the Chinese writing system) education in the Australian context. It first presents some basic knowledge of 汉字 (Hànzì), so that speakers of other languages could have an essential understanding of it. Then it elaborates the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ Chinese-centric monolingual mindset in different kinds of 汉 字 (Hànzì) teaching, for example, pictographs (Xiàngxíngzì, 象形字) as well as their a postmonolingual mindset in 汉字 (Hànzì) education, which shows their dilemma in teaching 汉字 (Hànzì). Keywords Hànzì education · Indicatives · Associative compounds · Pictographic-phonetic compound ideograms · Monolingual mindset · Postmonolingual mindset

` `i) Knowledge Essential 汉字 (Hanz To understand 汉字 (Hànzì) teaching methods, some basic knowledge of Hànzì construction is essential. The Hànzì system is constructed by © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Y. Han and X. Ji, Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15153-8_6

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three levels of structures: micro, middle, and macro levels. The micro level refers to strokes, which are the smallest unit in the Hànzì structure. In the Hànzì system, there are 32 basic types (Stallings, 1976, cited in Huo, 2012). A single stroke does not carry the sound or meaning of a character, with several exceptions, for example, “一” could be a horizontal line as a single stroke without any sound or meaning, but it is also the Chinese number one with “y¯ı” as its pronunciation. One Hànzì could be composed of one to 36 strokes (Lu et al., 2008). The middle level refers to radicals, which are composed by strokes. In Shuowenjiezi there are 540 radicals (Tang, 2018). The formation process of the Hànzì radical system involves “the categorization of graphemes and their meanings”, in which four methods are used: “addition, selection, reformation, and creation” (Wang, 2018, p. 511). Thus, radicals are meaningful. Wang (2018) further pointed out major characteristics of radicals: firstly, the ˇ positions of radicals in Hànzì are consistent, for example, radical 女 (nü, represents “female”) in Hànzì 妈 (m¯ a, mother), 姐 (jiˇe, elder sister), 妹 (mèi, younger sister); secondly, radicals play their function both in shape and meaning in Hànzì construction. The macro level refers to Hànzì themselves. Individual Hànzì is constructed by radicals and expresses one or more meanings. The function of a Hànzì is not exactly the same as the function of an English word in that each Hànzì represents a complex combination of shape, sound, and meaning (Huang & Ma, 2007). Therefore, to produce meaningful sentences, a mastery of sufficient Hànzì is necessary, for example, 我有一个姐姐 (Wˇo yˇou y¯ı gè jiˇejie./I have an elder sister). Hànzì, a distinctive feature of Chinese, especially compared with languages from the Indo-European languages family, makes the language unique but difficult to learn. The original formation of Hànzì comes from Chinese people’s ways of viewing and understanding the world; however, in thousands of years of development and iteration most Hànzì in use today look different from their original structure. Hànzì learning is an inevitable part of learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) because it is the “the core part of Chinese ‘culture’” (Han, 2017, p. 111), which could be seen from Yan and Xiong’s description of Hànzì “字字存太极, 笔笔有 阴阳” (2014, n. p., as cited in Han, 2017, p. 113) translated by Han as “each Hànzì contains Tai Chi and each stroke bears Yin and Yang” (2017, p. 113); thus, to make Hànzì meaningful for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learners is one of the most significant tasks for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers.

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There are six categories of Chinese characters (六书): pictographs (Xiàngxíngzì/象形字), indicatives (Zhˇıshìzì/指事字), associative compounds (Huìyìzì/会意字), and pictographic-phonetic compound ideograms (Xíngsh¯engzì/形声字), phonetic loans (Jiajièzì/假借字), ˇ and derivatives (Zhuanzhùzì/转注字) ˇ as Xu Shen (1985) classified in his book《说文解字》(Shuowenjiezi)1 . The six categories are different: pictographs and indicatives are originally designed Hànzì (造字法), associative compounds and pictographic-phonetic compound ideograms are combinations of the originally designed Hànzì (组字法), while phonetic loans and derivatives are the transformative applications of the other four Hànzì formation methods (用字法) (Wang & Liu, 2020, p. 23).

` `i) Education Studies in 汉字 (Hanz 汉字 (Hànzì/Chinese characters, the Chinese writing system) is the only written system of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) regardless there are many dialects or languages based on the system as shown clearly from Hansen’s (1993) study of the Chinese language (see Fig. 6.1). Thus, understanding and mastering Hànzì could lay a foundation for learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) as well as other languages such as Japanese and Korean.

Fig. 6.1 Chinese folk theory of language (Hansen, 1993, p. 387)

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Hànzì is critical for learning 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese); however, they are in no sense easy to learn, which leads to the consequence that Hànzì education is avoided in some circumstances due to its complex nature to learn (Allen, 2008) and P¯ıny¯ın takes its place “due to its similarities to alphabetic languages” (Huo, 2012, p. 7). Hànzì, thus, was positioned as a second choice in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education (Orton, 2008). To face the challenge and to find effective approaches for making Hànzì learnable, especially for Chinese beginning learners, Hànzì teaching methods have been studied by a group of researchers (e.g., Han, 2017; Huo, 2012; Qiu & Zhou, 2010; Zhang, 2014), focusing on various aspects of Hànzì education, for example, from a visual perspective, from the stroke order perspective, and from a structural perspective. Huo raised “visual pedagogy” in Hànzì teaching by stating: Visual pedagogy in Chinese character teaching can be regarded as the teaching method which uses the visual nature that exists in Chinese characters, by exploring the original etymology or creating visual connections by teachers and learners themselves. The ultimate goal of visual pedagogy is to improve Chinese character learning efficiency. (2012, p. 6)

Huo found that visual pedagogy benefits students in Hànzì recognition and remembrance. Through pictures and stories in visual pedagogy of Hànzì teaching, students’ fear of learning Hànzì was overcome and their interest motivated, which further contributed to a better teacher– student relationship. Zhang (2014) and Qiu and Zhou (2010) studied stroke order in Hànzì writing and they contend that, in Hànzì writing, following stroke order is important as it contributes to the establishment of the “motor schema” stored as Hànzì knowledge in memory and therefore contributes to fewer errors in Hànzì writing. Zhao and Xin (2002) studied effective strategies in Hànzì education and found that Hànzì application in reading and writing is effective, learning radical components is effective, while Hànzì shape memorization or mechanically writing Hànzì may not be effective. Han (2017) studied a group of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ Hànzì teaching methods to their Australian beginning learners and found the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers were in a dilemma—on the one hand, they accept students’ opinions of viewing Hànzì as pictures and taking Hànzì writing as drawing; thus, they admit that as long as the Hànzì drawn by students are “recognisable”, they are acceptable. On the other hand, they insist that in Hànzì

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writing correct stroke orders should be strictly followed. Thus, Han proposed a postlingual pedagogy in Hànzì teaching, which emphasizes meaning-making of Hànzì through building connections: The connection between Hànzì symbols and what they represent in the real world; through the connection between learners’ shared universalism of minds on logic, and the nature and attributes of the world built in Hànzì, and through an analysis of perceptions, conceptions and abstractions of thoughts that are contained in Hànzì. (2017, p. 59)

Four aspects of logical thinking were identified by Han within the teacherresearchers’ classroom instructions: reasoning and deduction, mathematical knowledge, genericity of knowledge, and generation of time concepts, which adds knowledge to the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) Hànzì education field. Due to the fact that students of the investigated 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers were Hànzì beginning learners, for whom the first three categories are usually priorities based on their scale of difficulty (also based on the data), this chapter illustrates Hànzì teaching of pictographs, indicatives, and associate compounds.

Chinese-Centric Monolingual Mindset ` i´ngz`i/象形字) Education in Pictographs (Xiangx The monolingual mindset in Hànzì education was first revealed in the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ pictographs (Xiàngxíngzì/ 象形字) pedagogy. Pictographs are the foundation of the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) system, which is the earliest form of Hànzì (Xu, 1985). Duan Yucai described pictographs as “象形者, 实有其物, 日、 月是也。 ” (Pictographs are those Hànzì that what they represent can be found in the world and they are in the shapes of the entities they represent, for example, 日 [the sun] and 月 [the moon]) (Tang, 2018, p. 5). While teaching Hànzì pictographs are often 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ first choice for the reason that they are direct reflections of the world and it is easy for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers to demonstrate the connections between pictographs and the real world. For Chinese native pupils, pictographs are also among the first group of Hànzì learning, accounting for twenty-six per cent (Luk & Bialystok, 2005). Bloom (2013) holds that language is arbitrary. Hànzì, especially

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pictographs prove that there are exceptions as what Han contends that “the Chinese language, especially its writing system, is less arbitrary” because of “the connection between the visual look of pictographic Hànzì and what they represent in the real world” (2017, p. 61). Teaching pictographs, the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers thought they are helping students to make connections between Hànzì and the real world: 颂/Sòng: Usually I choose these pictographs to teach my students mainly because they are beginning learners of Chinese and they have little Hànzì knowledge. For them, each Hànzì is a picture, so when I prepared a Hànzì to teach I would give them some time to observe the Hànzì before I explain to them. I would ask them their opinions about the Hànzì: “What does it like?” or “How do you think it means?” For example, when I taught students 月 (yuè, the moon) I asked their opinions about what it looks like. One student said it looks like a ladder. I showed them a picture of a crescent and told them that Chinese people create Hànzì based on real things; they draw a picture of what the thing looks like and develop it into a Hànzì. Students considered Chinese people are smart and Hànzì are not very difficult to learn as long as they make the connections between the Hànzì and the thing it represents. They asked me more about this type of Hànzì. (Interview) 唐/Táng: My students are Chinese beginners so I choose easy Hànzì to teach them, not for how many Hànzì they could remember but to arouse their curiosity in learning. Hànzì are not easy to learn, or maybe it is the most difficult written language in the world, but Hànzì are different from other languages in that there is logic in Hànzì. Pictographs are my priorities in giving them a taste of Hànzì, for example I taught them 山 (sh¯ an, mountain) by showing them a real mountain of three peaks that looks like Hànzì 山 very much and asked them to guess the meaning of Hànzì 山, which is easy for them. I told them ancient Chinese people designed Hànzì like this to refer to some real things in the world. Students thought this kind of Hànzì interesting and would like to learn more. (Interview)

When explaining Hànzì 月 (yuè/the moon) and 山 (sh¯ an/mountain), two pictographs, both 颂/Sòng and 唐/Táng employed their knowledge of Hànzì origins and intended to put these into their students’ mind: to make connections between the two Hànzì and the entities “the moon” and “mountain” from the real world. This method of teaching Hànzì is unproblematic itself since by providing “physical and shape connections to what they represent” (Han, 2017, p. 76), students without Hànzì

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knowledge could make sense of the Hànzì as what Han (2017) and Ke (1996) argued this pictographic approach makes Hànzì accessible to learners without reserved knowledge of Hànzì and contributes to Hànzì recognition. However, students could be told that this is only one of the ways to learn the Hànzì and they could have their own strategies. Practically, 颂/Sòng had a good start in asking students “What does it like?” or “How do you think it means?” while showing the Hànzì to his students. One student’s response “it looks like a ladder” demonstrated the student’s thinking and understanding of the Hànzì; however, 颂/Sòng’s Chinesecentric monolingual mindset of seeing the Hànzì structure dominated him; thus, he ignored the student’s opinion and carried on his teaching. 诗/Sh¯ı: One day while I was teaching my students Hànzì 鸟 (niaˇ o/bird) among a group of animals, a student asked me how to say and write ˇ “feather” in Chinese. I wrote 羽 (yü/feather) on the white board but did not know how to explain it clearly to students because it was not in my teaching plan. I checked 羽 after class in Shuowenjiezi and to my surprise it is a pictograph and the two 习 composing it represent for two feathers. I explained this to my students and showed them pictures the next lesson and they could understand it quite well. I found myself did not have enough knowledge of the Hànzì system and because it is my mother tongue so I take things for granted. This Chinese teaching opportunity to speakers of English without any Chinese knowledge give me the chance to renew my Hànzì knowledge. (Interview)

Either to satisfy students’ curiosity or remove students’ doubts in 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education, taking a student-centred perspective would be beneficial for learning purposes. The student’s inquiry about the Hànzì for “feather” actually provided 诗/Sh¯ı with the chance to ˇ ask the students’ opinions of seeing and understanding 羽 (yü/feather). However, she did not seize the opportunity of educating her students; instead, she saw it as a good chance to educate herself. After searching and understanding Hànzì 羽 from a Chinese perspective, she instilled what she learnt to her students directly without providing students with the chance to think and understand in their own ways. Choosing pictographs as the priority in Hànzì education for Hànzì beginners is unproblematic because pictographs are the foundation of the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) system and they are the earliest forms of Hànzì (Xu, 1985). Pictographs reflect the direct connection between Hànzì forms and the entities they represent, which offers Hànzì learners

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easy access to the Hànzì system that is very complicated and complex. Take the above-mentioned羽as an example: in Shuowenjiezi it is defined as “鸟长毛也。象形。凡羽之属皆从羽。 ” (long feathers of birds, pictograph, all Hànzì related to feathers have 羽 in them) (Yin, 2016, p. 86). 羽 itself expresses the meaning of feather; it is also a radical for many more Hànzì such as 翱 (áo, spread wings to fly)、翔 (xiáng, fly in circle/hover) 、翅 (chì, wing)、翀 (ch¯ ong, fly straight up) all related to “fly” in their meanings. Thus, the acquisition of Hànzì 羽 lays a solid foundation for learning more Hànzì with 羽 inside. However, the point here is that before instilling any solid knowledge from the Chinese-centric perspective, it might be better and more beneficial for the students if their understanding of seeing the Hànzì is valued because the final goal of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education is that students could remember Hànzì rather than the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers.

黑猫 (H¯eim¯ ao, Black Cat) or 白猫 (báim¯ ao, White Cat)?---Indicatives (Zhˇıshìzì/指事字) Education Indicatives are defined by Duan Yucai as “指事者, 不泥其物而言其事, 丄 (上)、丅 (下)是也。” (Indicatives are those Hànzì whose structure could be identified at first glance but whose meaning could only be elicited by careful study, for example, 上and 下.) (Tang, 2018, p. 5). Indicatives are Hànzì formed with meaning that can be deduced through observing the intricacies of the Hànzì themselves (Han, 2017, p. 62). Different from pictographs that represent entities concrete and visible in the world, indicatives are abstract and no visible equivalent could be found in real life. This type of Hànzì “were constructed based on human or Chinese logic and their meaning may be largely understood or deducted by the learner through a logical or structural analysis” (Han, 2017, p. 62). Thus, their meanings are more symbolic (Wu, 1969, p. 424). The logic contained in the construction or configuration of the indicatives could be the breakthrough point for Hànzì education to Chinese beginning learners. 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers could use these Hànzì to theorize the world and students could understand it well based on their shared logic or the universalism behind cultures (Jullien, 2014). 上 and 下 are two indicatives unavoidable in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ Hànzì teaching for their easy strokes and clear logic for students to write and to understand. In Han’s (2017) book Post-lingual Chinese Language Learning Hànzì Pedagogy, she illustrated the logic within the

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two indicatives and the associative compound (see next section for details) 卡 when the two are combined: The horizontal line in both Hànzì represents a surface of “something”; the vertical line represents direction which in these two cases starts from the horizontal line. The Chinese dot point (a Chinese dot point would be referred to as a small line/stroke in English) represents an object, and the surface line refers to where the object is located. The idea “上” and “ 下” contain three strokes/components: a location, an object and a directional symbol. “上” or “下” itself has therefore conveyed a clear idea about locality and objects. Interestingly, if Hànzì “上” is put on top of “下”, and the horizontal lines are merged into one, a new Hànzì is created and would be written as “卡”; the meaning of “卡” can be deducted according to the situation or an object “being stuck/sandwiched” between “上” and “下”. The meaning of “卡” was not randomly assigned by Hànzì creators but can be logically deduced based on the knowledge of “上” and “下”. That may partly explain why some Hànzì are called indicatives. Chinese thought and logic can be gleaned through analysing the structure of Hànzì. (Han, 2017, p. 63)

The two indicatives 上 and 下 were taught by the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher 颂/Sòng studied in this book as well. He explained the indicatives as well as the associative compound 卡—a new Hànzì produced by combining the two indicatives 上 and 下 together—for his students. He explained the logic in the three Hànzì ( 上, 下, and 卡): 颂/Sòng: I taught Hànzì 上 and 下 previously. I thought students would have no idea seeing them the first time, so I guided them to understand the two characters by giving some hints step by step. For example, I would write 上 and 下 on the whiteboard, told them they indicated two directions and asked their understanding. They might still do not know the meanings, but I further told them the longer horizontal line in 上 meant a surface and the vertical line indicated a direction. Usually, they would know the meaning after my explanation and guidance, which I think is a good way to help students learn. … Many Hànzì have their logic and critical thinking, and Hànzì teaching is a process of cultivating students’ critical thinking. For example I taught students 上 and 下 last time, which when putting together would be 卡. How to explain 卡?Could not go up or go down. This kind of critical thinking could help students understand Hànzì. To facilitate their understanding of 卡 I took Santa as an example.

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I asked students to imagine that Santa has put on some weight and when Christmas comes, he gets stuck in the chimney with two arms up and two legs down. He could neither go up nor go down. (Interview)

While teaching Hànzì 上, 下, and their combination 卡, 颂/Sòng, on the one hand, applied his background knowledge of Hànzì; thus, explained their meanings based on Chinese people’s logic when creating them. On the other hand, 颂/Sòng resorted to students’ sociocultural knowledge of Santa and Christmas for assisting students’ understanding of the construction of Hànzì 卡. 颂/Sòng’s Hànzì education pedagogy through drawing sociolinguistic and sociocultural resources from both his and his students’ background reveals his postmonolingual capabilities. Thus, 颂/Sòng succeeded in leading his students step by step to achieve comprehension of the three Indicatives 上, 下, and 卡. The set of logic and reason in Hànzì is a stimulus to liberate minds rather than confine them. As 颂/Sòng mentioned, guiding students to their understanding based on their logic instead of telling them what the meaning enlarged the potential of students’ understanding of the Hànzì. 颂/Sòng’s teaching integrates universalism of the logic and reason behind Hànzì (Han, 2017; Jullien, 2014). Based on the understanding of 上 and 下, the understanding of 卡 becomes easier to achieve as Han contends that “Hànzì itself enables a logical thinking method to be enacted by students as it has the capacity to provide a systematic way of instructing, analysing, experimenting and presenting itself” (2017, p. 89). In terms of a monolingual or multilingual mindset, people may have different opinions on this case. Based on a classic Chinese saying by Xiaoping Deng (邓小平, proposer of the China Open Door Policy) that “不管黑猫白猫, 抓到老鼠就是好猫。 ” (“Does not matter if a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice”.) we propose that it does not matter if a method is of Chinese or Australian origin, as long as it benefits 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) students and contributes to 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education. We are not against Chinese ways and knowledge for teaching the language, we are against the Chinese-centric or whatever-centric monolingual mindset for any language education, which is still prevailing explicitly or implicitly in/beyond the language education field.

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Chinese-Centric Monolingual Mindset in Associative Compounds (Hu`iy`iz`i/会意字) Education ) are another type of Hànzì that Associative compounds (Huìyìzì/ ” are logical within themselves. Xu defined it as “ (Associative compounds are those Hànzì whose meanings are combined by the meanings of their components) (Yin, 2016, p. 39). Each associative compound, as its name suggests, is constituted by the combination of two or more pictographs, indicatives, pictographic or indicative parts intending to represent and express an abstract meaning (Wu, 1969; Xu, 1985). Similar to indicatives, associative compounds also represent a more abstract world (Han, 2017; Huo, 2012). The 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers studied possess the abovementioned knowledge, which contributes to who they are. In associative compounds education, they automatically drew these kinds of knowledge of Hànzì to make meaning of what they teach: 唐/Táng: I think Hànzì teaching needs to be planned as a system because Hànzì is a system. Ideographs could be taught first so that students could lay a foundation for further learning because most Hànzì are combinations of simple Hànzì. For example, I taught my students 分. I explained to them this character is composed by two sections: the above section 八 indicates the left and right directions and the below 刀 is a knife. I took a knife to my class and I showed them when it is open it looks like 刀. Then I told them分literarily means to divide something to two sections by using a knife. They could understand the Hànzì very well. (Interview) 唐/Táng: After they learned 山 and 分, I taught them 岔, which is a combination of the two. We had a review of 山 and 分 first and then I wrote 岔 on the whiteboard and asked them to guess the meaning of it. They believe it means to divide a mountain, which is on the correct track. I explained to them it means a fork in the mountain or it could be used together with “road” to mean a fork in the road. (Interview)

While teaching associative compounds 分 and 岔, 唐/Táng drew on his 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) Hànzì construction knowledge to explain them to students. The logic in Hànzì 分 and 岔 is within their knowledge repertoire and they could pass this knowledge to students so that students could also understand the Hànzì. On the surface, it seems there is not any problem with such behaviour; however, deeply, this Hànzì

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knowledge inculcation reflects a monolingual mindset, in which the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher was practically putting his sociolinguistic and cultural knowledge into his students’ minds; even though the students’ correct deduction of the meaning of Hànzì 岔 indicates their understanding of the logic in Hànzì as Whorf argues laws of logic are “the same for all observers of the universe” (1956, p. 208), it does not guarantee students’ mastery of them. Similarly, another two 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers, 诗/Sh¯ı and 颂/Sòng, followed the same path: 颂/Sòng: I taught students 竞 [jìng /compete/competition] which I considered quite difficult for them at first, so I checked online to find some resources to make it not that difficult to understand. I found the original complex form of it (競) is easier to understand because any competition involves at least two people. So when I taught students 竞 I explain to them it is a simplified form for people to remember. I showed them the complex form and explained to them the meaning of it and how Chinese people designed this Hànzì. After my explanation, students could understand it. (Interview)

When 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher 颂/Sòng taught Hànzì 竞, an associative compound that does not directly represent concrete entities and expresses abstract meaning, he sought help from his background sociolinguistic and sociocultural resources and passed the understanding to students. Students could understand his explanation and the Hànzì; however, this reveals the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ monolingual mindset.

A Postmonolingual Mindset---Understanding ` `i) from Students’ Perspective 汉字 (Hanz Though each 汉字 (Hànzì) has its own formative rule(s) or logic when it was invented, which are still in use in the Chinese education system, there could be more than one way to learn and understand them. The 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers did show their postmonolingual capabilities in making 汉字 (Hànzì) learnable to Australian children. 颂/Sòng: Because my students are beginners of Hànzì, they look at each Hànzì as a picture. So, before I use my Chinese way to explain each

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Hànzì to them, I would ask them to observe the Hànzì and share their opinion of the Hànzì as well as took a guess of the meaning. For example, when we learnt “叫” [jiào, call/shout] in 你叫什么名字? [Nˇı jiào shénme míngzi? What’s your name?] students pointed out the left section looked like a box and square, and the right part looked like number 4. Their way of understand it was so different from mine. If they hadn’t shared their opinion like this, I would not have imagined I could explain this Hànzì to Australian students in such a way. This is not the Chinese way but they could understand it better, so in other classes I used this way to explain to my students.

Before passing his Chinese knowledge of Hànzì formation, 颂/Sòng asked his students’ opinions of seeing the Hànzì 叫 (jiào, call/shout). Students shared their thinking about the left section as a “box” or “square” and the right section as a number 4, which is beyond 颂/Sòng’s thinking. 颂/Sòng in this process of inquiring and accepting students’ ways of understanding the Hànzì 叫 and passed on the new ways to other classes revealed his postmonolingual mindset, which refers to an inclusive mode of thinking which welcomes multilingual mindset and opposes monolingual mindset as well as emphasizes a tension between them. In the language education field, it means educational practitioners’ mindset of legitimizing multilingual resources to be resorted to serving for better language education purposes. Other 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers demonstrated theirs as well: 唐/Táng: Once I taught my students number four in Chinese: 四 [sì, number four], I asked my students to share their opinions of the character. One student pointed out that it looked like a window with its curtains tied to the left and right sides. Other students all nodded their head saying “Yeah, yeah.” I found this interesting, which is a very efficient way for my students to remember it. Don’t you think it is quite vivid? 诗/Sh¯ı: When students asked me to teach them how to say panda in Chinese, I wrote 熊猫 [xióngm¯ ao/panda] on the whiteboard and explained to them the left character 熊 [xióng ] means bear and the right character 猫 [m¯ ao] means cat; and when they are put together, it means panda. Not until one of my students asked me why a bear and a cat together means panda, I realized they couldn’t get it. I’ve never thought of this question before. The classroom teacher helped me with explaining 熊 looked like a panda holding and eating bamboos with its arms [匕] and legs [匕], and the four dots below are four bamboo leaves dropping down while they are

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eating. Students could picture the scene and understanding the character. I think I really need to learn more of my students’ ways of explaining Hànzì.

唐/Táng asked his students’ understanding of the Chinese number four (四) and regarded his students as having a vivid description of it as a window with its curtains going to the left and right directions. 唐/Táng’s student-centred pedagogy also shows his postmonolingual or even postlingual capabilities in accepting new knowledge. 诗/Sh¯ı confused her students by explaining putting 熊 (xióng /bear) and 猫 (m¯ ao/cat) together to form panda (熊猫/xióngm¯ ao). With the help of the classroom teacher, who explained the Hànzì in her way from a perspective 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) students could understand easily, 诗/Sh¯ı achieved her teaching of Hànzì 熊猫, which also stimulated 诗/Sh¯ı to reflect on her Hànzì pedagogy. Though rare, the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers showed their consciousness of paying more attention to students’ ways of understanding and learning Hànzì. Compared to other Chinese teachers who showed more teacher-centred monolingual mindset in Hànzì teaching, they are more student-centred and postmonolingual in the fact that they could base their teaching on students’ opinions of the Hànzì they are teaching and learning as well as make the new thinking transmissible knowledge and pass it on.

Conclusion The 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers were found falling into a dilemma because they often question the legitimacy of drawing resources from their and students’ background culture for teaching 汉字 (Hànzì), resulting in their constant movement between the two extremes. On the one hand, the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers revealed their monolingual mindset—as if there is a single homogenous “Chinese worldview”. The insistence on showing Chinese people’s supposedly homogenous and unique way of seeing the world as being different from the world’s many other views is questionable. On the other hand, they consulted their students’ views of seeing the 汉字 (Hànzì) they are teaching and learning for students’ better understanding and remembering of them.

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Postmonolingual language teachers are responsible for raising students’ awareness and critique of dominant biases wherever these arise. Cultivating students’ critical thinking in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) provides a contribution to students’ diversity of the knowledge. In the same vein, this raises the question that who should be responsible for cultivating those 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers to be ones with a postmonolingual mindset in teaching 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) and 汉 字 (Hànzì), as well as how to draw multilingual resources from both the teachers’ and their students’ background knowledge serving for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education. The 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers revealed their postmonolingual mindset in Hànzì education from their capabilities of not only drawing resources for Hànzì teaching from their background knowledge but also their students’ resources of understanding Hànzì. While implementing Hànzì education to non-Chinese background (Australian) students they explain Hànzì by drawing their postmonolingual resources to make meaning of Hànzì and to demonstrate the logic and reason within Hànzì. These discoveries add valuable research findings to the study of Hànzì instruction as a field of research deficiency. On the one hand, the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ postmonolingual Hànzì pedagogy provides students with a structural vision for comprehension, and enhance students’ understanding of Hànzì structure, formation, and the logic built-in. The Chinese perspective Hànzì methods allow students to get to know “the rules of the radicals” in Hànzì writing (Yu & Geng, 2020, p. 373) from the perspective of how they were constructed and how the world was theorized by Chinese people. This capability was emphasized by Guder and Lee by pointing out that the establishment of sinographemic capabilities requires obtaining knowledge of the internal rules of Hànzì (2018, p. 34). On the other hand, the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers activated students’ understanding and sharing of Hànzì knowledge from their perspective, which contributed to students’ recognition and impression of Hànzì. To combine the two ways and explore more methods in 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) and Hànzì education could be applicable and feasible. Postmonolingual Hànzì methods contribute to 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ professional development and growth. It offers 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ opportunity to renew and extend their Hànzì knowledge for teaching purposes. The findings of this

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chapter reveal that the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers have knowledge gaps in terms of the ways some Hànzì (e.g., 羽) are constructed, which offered them chances to check for more information to understand the Hànzì themselves and pass on the knowledge to students later. Thus, postmonolingual Hànzì education requires not only Hànzì knowledge but also knowledge beyond Hànzì. Teaching Hànzì has provided them with opportunities to utilize the theoretical tools from their background linguistic and cultural repertoire. In many cases, refinements and renewals of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ Hànzì knowledge take place as they seek to dispel doubts of students and meaning-making of the Hànzì they teach. Postmonolingual Hànzì teaching has revealed its characteristic of openness. Firstly, postmonolingual Hànzì teaching opens up 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) learners’ minds by enabling them to witness the divergence between another language and their native one. Hànzì learners, by looking into the divergence between languages, “are able to see and accept the distance between languages, and to explore the underlying thoughts and logic behind how the Hànzì system was built/created from the starting point of representing the concrete visual world, then expressing the universal human logic and reaching abstract thoughts and critical thinking” (Han, 2017, p. 67). Secondly, postmonolingual Hànzì methods “creates an open space for learners to be creative, generating, developing and expanding their own understanding in learning” (Han, 2017, p. 86). Thirdly, postmonolingual Hànzì methods enable 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers to be opened up. The 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers have revealed their capabilities as qualified educationists who do not take the construction of Hànzì for granted, rather, they believe that through their ways of explanation and meaningmaking and their innovative approaches as well as students’ contribution in Hànzì methods, students have the capability to learn Hànzì well. This finding is in line with Han’s finding and argument that “the process of Hànzì teaching and learning provides language teachers with opportunities to not only deliver what they know from textbooks but to take on a linguistic researchers’ ‘mindset’, making language learning an open meaning-making process for their students and themselves” (2017, pp. 84–85). They investigate the history of Hànzì formation as well as their development through history and generate creative

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explanations according to their understanding of students’ comprehensive capability. Innovative ways of explaining Hànzì allow them to see from new perspectives, which contributes to knowledge innovation and creation. However, compared to past research supporting the need for 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) beginning learners this study is conventionchallenging in that except for drawing valuable conventional resources for Hànzì construction, it also legitimizes unconventional/innovative ways of Hànzì construction. This finding does not deny the necessity of learning and mastering Hànzì radicals and strokes; rather, this serves the needs of beginning learners for understanding and forming an interest in Hànzì upon which further 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education might be based. All roads lead to Rome. This unification of both conventional and unconventional ways might base a solid foundation for students’ future mastery of the Hànzì system. Chapter 7 will summarize the book and propose several guidelines for 中文 teacher (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education.

Note 1. Shuowenjiezi 《说文解字》 ( ): a book authored by Xu Shen, which provides the historical and cultural context of 汉字 (Hànzì) formation.

References Allen, J. R. (2008). Why learning to write Chinese is a waste of time: A modest proposal. Foreign Language Annals, 41(2), 237–251. Bloom, P. (2013). Natural language and natural selection. In S. Pinker (Ed.), Language, cognition, and human nature: Selected articles (pp. 110–159). Oxford University Press. Cidianwang. Retrieved on July 21, 2021, https://www.cidianwang.com/shuowe njiezi/yu2980.htm Guder, A., & Lee, H. (2018). Discussing CFL and teaching and learning Chinese characters from a European perspective: On the basis of “European Benchmarks for the Chinese Language (EBCL)”. Research on International Chinese Education, 18(2), 30–39. [顾安达, 李和舫. (2018). 从非汉字文化圈视角论中文作为外语与其汉字教学问题——以“欧洲 汉语能力基准项目”为基础. 国际汉语教学研究, 18(2), 30–39.] Han, J. (2017). Post-lingual Chinese language learning hanzi pedagogy. Palgrave McMillan. Hansen, C. (1993). Chinese ideographs and western ideas. The Journal of Asian Studies, 52(2), 373–399.

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Huang, J. S., & Ma, M. Y. (2007). A study on the cognitive of complexity and difficulty of Chinese characters when reading and recognizing. Displays, 8, 8–25. Huo, L. (2012). The impact of visual pedagogy on students’ learning of Hanyu— A case study of a western Sydney public school [Master Thesis, Western Sydney University]. Jullien, F. (2014). On the universal: The uniform, the common and dialogue between cultures. Polity Press. Ke, C. (1996). An empirical study on the relationship between Chinese character recognition and production. The Modern Language Journal, 80(3), 340–349. Lu, H., Zhai, Z., & Liang, L. (2008). Study of mathematical structure of Chinese characters. Journal of Dongguan University of Technology, 15(5), 26–30. Luk, G., & Bialystok, E. (2005). How iconic are Chinese characters? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 8(1), 79–83. Orton, J. (2008). Chinese language education in Australian schools. The University of Melbourne. Qiu, Y., & Zhou, X. (2010). Perceiving the writing sequence of Chinese characters: An ERP investigation. NeuroImage, 50, 782–795. Stallings, W. (1976). Approaches to Chinese character recognition. Pattern Recognition, 8, 87–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-3203(76)90037-6 Tang, K. (2018). Shuowenjiezi. Zhonghua Book Company. Wang, G. (2018). The formation process and mechanism of the radical system of Chinese characters. Studies of the Chinese Language, 385(4), 460–469+511– 512. Wang, W., & Liu, X. (2020). A Probe into the inheritance relationship between the construction of compound indicatives and paratactic representations in Chinese. Contemporary Rhetoric, 217 (1), 18–28. Whorf, B. (1956). Language, thought and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf . MIT Press. Wu, J. (1969). Chinese language and Chinese thought. Philosophy East and West, 19(4), 423–434. Xu, S. (1985). Shuowenjiezi. Retrieved on July 18, 2021, from https://www.cid ianwang.com/shuowenjiezi/ Yin, J. (2016). Intensive reading of Shuowenjiezi. Fudan University Press. Yu, A., & Geng, G. (2020). Introducing Chinese Hanzi at the beginning of teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL). Global Chinese, 6(2), 359– 380. Zhang, H. (2014). A review of stroke order in Hanzi handwriting. Language Learning in Higher Education, 4(2), 423–440. Zhao, G., & Xin, J. (2002). What is the most effective strategy for learning Chinese characters: A survey among CSL beginners. Applied Linguistics, 2, 79–85.

CHAPTER 7

Transnational 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) Teacher Education

Abstract As the concluding section of this book, this chapter summarizes the major findings of the study in terms of the tensions in the current Transnational Chinese Language Education (TCLE) field as well as provides a group of practical guidelines, for example, to adopt a postmonolingual mindset in Chinese class, which could be incorporated into future postmonolingual transnational 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teacher education programs. In the end, the limitations of this study and suggestions for further research in the field are presented. Keywords Chinese Teacher Education · Tensions · Monolingual mindset · Multilingual practices · Guidelines · Translanguaging

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Y. Han and X. Ji, Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15153-8_7

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Tensions Between Monolingual Mindset and Multilingual Practices Through the use of Yildiz’s (2012, p. 5) postmonolingual theoretical framework this study focused on presenting evidence that showed the participants confronted tensions between their assertions of a monolingual mindset (a Chinese-centric bias) and their students’ multilingual/translingual teaching/learning practices. It is the monolingual mindset (a Chinese-centric bias) that frames Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) in terms of stable and discrete languages (“Chinese” versus “foreign”) in the process that separates language competencies from students’ knowledge and the uses they can make of the language locally (wherever they are in the world). This study presented evidence of the monolingual mindset that prevails in Transnational Chinese Language Education (TCLE) and the evidence is analysed critically in terms of the tensions between making an educational advantage of multilingual/translingual teaching/learning practices. Evidence of practices showed the multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language. Such multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language practice would bring to the fore students’ repertoire of sociolinguistic knowledge to structure their active participation in learning and using Chinese locally. Students would develop their 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) resources to perform disciplinary work—studies in their various school subjects—by working across the students’ languages (Australia is a multilingual society like China). There appeared to be some evidence of the participants in this study reflecting on their repertoire of languages (which include English and various Chinese languages), and how they cultivated their awareness of this to generate multilingual/translingual teaching/learning of Chinese as a local language practice to learn to mobilize their students’ multiple language resources to extend and deepen their sociolinguistic repertoires.

Guidelines for Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Language Teacher Education As “a guide by the side”, no one could deny the leading role of teachers, especially in a language class where the teacher, to a large extent, is the only expert in the target language. The training they get determines their

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future pedagogical choices and thus the effectiveness of their teaching as well as the outcome of students’ learning as Lo Bianco contended: The ultimate target of all language education planning and policy work is the effectiveness of the teacher, such as the skills they are able to marshal and their persistence in their roles. Good teaching is the single most important controllable variable in successful language learning and this in turn depends crucially both on the receptiveness of schools hosting language programs and the quality of teacher education, ultimately determined by university and federal government support. (2009, p. 28).

Teachers’ effectiveness, according to Lo Bianco, depends on “the receptiveness of schools hosting language programs and the quality of teacher education”. It is an overt fact that in an environment where monolingualism is implemented explicitly or implicitly, teachers’ multilingual and multicultural diversity would be suppressed for fitting into the system; while on the other hand, if language teachers are unrestricted and supported (as what postmonolingualism does) in drawing any valuable resources from their multilingual and multicultural backgrounds to contribute to the effectiveness of their language class, students could be the eventual beneficiaries. There is no single fixed pattern for postmonolingual 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education and teacher education methods since “post” indicates myriad and infinite possibilities, the design and application of which could depend on contextual reality; however, there are general guidelines postmonolingual 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education and teacher education could refer to: To Adopt a Postmonolingual Mindset A postmonolingual mindset permits different languages to be used in 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) classes. It values the multilingual capacities of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers and students. Thus, their multilingual capabilities form the basis, on which 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education could be based. The question of Chinese or English either as the medium of instruction or as assisting linguistic resources in 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education would be solved automatically; the legitimacy of resorting for other linguistic resources contributing to 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education would be unquestionable. What 中文

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(Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers need to do is thorough preparation and design of how to make two or multiple languages compatible with each other or one another to maximize 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education effectively. A postmonolingual mindset allows multilingual resources to come into 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) classes; it widens and deepens the combination of two or more languages for pedagogical purposes and knowledge reproductions as well as knowledge globalization. It requires 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ capabilities in not only designing effective pedagogies but also valuing and liberating multilinguistic knowledge of students, which in return offers students a comfortable environment and confident self whereby optimal learning outcomes could be reached. To Apply Student-Centred Pedagogy To be student-centred means to use students’ knowledge in assisting 中 文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education. To utilize the knowledge formed in the school-based milieu as much as possible requires the Chinese teacherresearchers to work as an “enabler” and a “sensor”, to furnish the students with discourse power in terms of deciding on their suitable and preferred learning tasks and activities in Chinese class (Zhao, 2019). Comparatively, such student-centred learning activities are not only very popular among the local school students in terms of making Chinese learnable for them, but also stimulate the natural occurrence of learnerdirected translanguaging in the Chinese classroom. Therefore, integrating these multi-faceted students’ funds of knowledge-oriented instruction strategies into such localized learning content can mutually make Chinese a learnable language for the Australian local school students. Application of student-centred pedagogy benefits 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) students. To be exact, through participating in situated learning activities, the students tend to reshape their original identities (from being silent bystanders to active participants) in this real learning community of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) practices. Being the “legitimate members” in such a Chinese learning community also helps to reduce their inner tension and conflict, as these students naturally involve themselves in interactions with their peers, friends, and classmates through being exposed to their joint social practices, rather than being restricted to individual learning exercises (Zhao, 2019).

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To Practise Translanguaging García and Wei (2014) argued that “translanguaging enables emergent bilinguals to enter into a text that is encoded through language practices with which they’re not quite familiar” and “to truly show what they know” (p. 80). Grounded in the current research context, the utilization of learners’ translanguaging capabilities is here linked and committed to making (spoken) Chinese a localized and learnable language for the Australian students through exploring their various embodiments of funds of knowledge shaped in the school-based community. In this sense, the significance of adopting such learning activities in Chinese class on the one hand lies in constructing a real situationbased learning space where the students are able to retrieve their prior, existing, and powerful knowledge for mobilizing their translanguaging competencies. On the other hand, this real learning community for implementing their localized social practices positions the local students into a tangible place and space for making Chinese (L2) happen in the form of various local practices through mediating their L1 knowledge (English). In this way, this deepens our understanding of the notion of translanguaging (García & Wei, 2014) and language as a local practice (Pennycook, 2010), and broadens its practical application to the field of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education. Employing multi-dimensional student-centred instruction strategies contributes to facilitating the emergence of these students’ dynamic bilingualism through activating their potential translanguaging capabilities in Chinese classes. Meanwhile, these contextualized learning activities are attached as important to the sustainable learning of Chinese from the ecological perspective. Progressively, such a tangible Chinese learning community in school tends to develop into a place where the local students are encouraged to study as a team for knowledge co-production, thereby enabling the pupil-directed translanguaging to happen naturally through their being continually exposed to the self-regulated language learning practices and their retained knowledge (García, 2009; García & Wei, 2014). The turn to such bilingual pedagogy mainly concentrates on utilizing the local students’ already established knowledge base to make connections for their absorbing of new information. Translanguaging, a postmonolingual way of language practice, has been approved as a powerful tool “to construct understandings, to include others, and to mediate understandings across language groups”

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(García, 2009, p. 151). Therefore, the classroom medium of instruction should not be confined to English only in any kind of language class. In Australian 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) classrooms, the medium of instruction is context-based and individuality-dependent that both English and Chinese might be employed. Pedagogical translanguaging relates to students’ learning needs and styles, while spontaneous translanguaging caters to fluid interlinguistic communications (Cenoz & Gorter, 2017). Students’ mother tongue is believed to be the most efficient to explain ongwén/Chinese) teachers technical terms (Zhang et al., 2020). 中文 (Zh¯ tend to employ English for metalinguistic scaffolding and the meaningmaking process, especially to students who are beginning learners. 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ English is a crucial component of their postmonolingual capability that connects Chinese meanings to students’ English understandings. At the same time, 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ Chinese capability is frequently employed for differentiation as some students prefer to experience as much target language as possible (Zhang et al., 2020). A reasonable balance between English and Chinese reflects 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers’ understanding of postmonolingual practices. It allows them to meet the different needs of students and cater to fluid situations. Above all, it is the teacher educator’s responsibility to cultivate and optimize future 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers in terms of, but not limited to, the practice of a postmonolingual mindset, student-centred pedagogy, and translanguaging.

Conclusion Upon the conclusion of this book, the authors would like to make a summary of the uniqueness and limitations of this study and recommend possibilities for future 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education and teacher education studies. This study is an extension and innovation of the recent postmonolingual studies mainly in that it brings postmonolingualism into the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education field. Through examination of 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education in the Australian contexts, it reveals the tension between monolingualism and multilingualism in the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) education area. The limitations of this study lie in the fact that the 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers in the study are indistinctively from the same research program, which might limit the practicality of the research findings. Therefore, future

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studies in the field could include more 中文 (Zh¯ ongwén/Chinese) teachers from various Chinese teacher education programs in different regions and countries globally.

References Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2017). Minority languages and sustainable translanguaging: Threat or opportunity? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38(10), 901–912. García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Wiley-Blackwell. García, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Palgrave Macmillan. Lo Bianco, J. (2009). Second languages and Australian schooling. Australian Council for Educational Research. Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice. Routledge. Yildiz, Y. (2012). Beyond the mother tongue: The post-monolingual condition. Fordham University Press. Zhang, Q., Osborne, C., Shao, L., & Lin, M. (2020). A translanguaging perspective on medium of instruction in the CFL classroom. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632. 2020.1850744 Zhao, K. (2019). Localised, student-centred curriculum construction: A case study of making Chinese learnable for Australian primary school students [Doctoral thesis, Western Sydney University].

Index

A Àodàlìyà, 42, 49 appropriate educational practices, 45, 47 appropriateness, 69 associative compounds, 85, 91, 93, 94 B báim¯ ao, 90 C Chinese fever, 18 Chinese language, 18, 25, 34, 42, 68, 73, 77, 85, 102 Chinese P¯ıny¯ın Scheme, 33, 34 citations, 55, 56 conflict, 3, 4, 26, 104 consciousness, 69, 96 consonants, 34, 36 contextualise, 105 contradictions, 38, 44, 45, 55, 57, 58 critical thinking, 76, 97

critique, 55, 57, 97 cross-sociolinguistic knowledge, 13 cross-sociolinguistic transfer, 51 D decolonising Orientalist perceptions, 48 derivatives, 85 divergent, 2, 3, 25, 55 E emergent bilinguals, 13, 51 G global language, 3–5, 13, 35, 38, 42, 44, 45, 47–49, 51, 55, 57 growth mindset, 77 H Hànzì, 7, 21, 22, 34–38, 65, 79, 83–99

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Y. Han and X. Ji, Postmonolingual Transnational Chinese Education, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15153-8

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H¯eim¯ ao, 90

I identity, 5, 12, 24–26, 104 inappropriateness, 70 inappropriate non-educational activities, 46 indicatives, 85, 87, 90–93 instruction, 2, 25, 27, 34, 47, 48, 50, 52–54, 67, 72, 77, 87, 97, 104, 105

L linguistic resources, 11, 61, 62, 68–70, 103 linguistic separatism, 53 Lˇıniàn, 7 Lˇı Wéi, 55, 56 localisation, 3, 5, 11 local language, 57, 62–64, 70, 77, 102

M Mandarin, 2, 22, 34, 36, 42, 54 Medium of instruction (MoI), 25–27, 45, 48, 49, 103, 105 metacognitive, 13 metacognitive insights, 13 metalinguistic, 13, 106 metalinguistic awareness, 13, 53 mindset, 2, 4, 45, 57, 62, 63, 66, 68, 77, 87, 89, 92, 94–97, 102–104, 106 Misrepresentation, 55 monolingual, 2, 13, 23, 45, 54, 55, 57, 62, 63, 66, 68, 77, 87, 89, 92, 94–96, 102, 103, 106 multilingual, 2, 5–7, 27, 45, 53, 54, 57, 62, 63, 69, 70, 76–78, 92, 95, 97, 102–104, 106

multimodal, 74–76, 78, 79 multimodality, 76 music-integrated, 67

O open-mindedness, 76, 77

P paradox, 49, 58 pedagogy, 21, 22, 26, 27, 42, 64, 67, 69, 72, 74, 78, 87, 92, 96, 97, 104–106 phonetic loans, 85 pictographic-phonetic compound ideograms, 85 pictographs, 85, 87–90, 93 pídàn, 49, 50 P¯ıny¯ın, 7, 10, 33–38, 42, 46, 50, 66, 86 postmonolingual, 2, 13, 23, 27, 57, 62, 63, 73, 74, 77, 79, 92, 94–98, 101, 103–106 power, 3, 4, 104 Put¯ ˇ onghuà, 7–11, 34, 42

R relation, 4, 6, 9, 20, 22, 38, 53, 55, 58, 75, 86 resource, 8, 9, 11, 26, 38, 55, 58, 61–63, 67, 69–79, 92, 94–97, 99, 102–104

S Shuowenjiezi, 84, 85, 90 sociocultural knowledge, 11, 12, 92 sociolinguistic activities, 11, 46, 47, 70, 72, 73, 77–79 sociolinguistic knowledge, 11, 52, 53, 64–66, 70, 73, 77, 102

INDEX

stereotype, 48–51 Synthetic syllables, 34 T tension, 2, 57, 62, 77, 95, 102, 104, 106 ti¯ anxià, 4 transition, 3 translanguaging, 10–13, 35, 37, 48, 49, 53–56, 104–106 translingual, 2, 57, 62, 70, 77, 102 transnational, 3, 5, 11, 13, 53, 62 V visual pedagogy, 86 vowels, 34, 36

111

W wángdào, 4

X xiàoshùn, 46, 47 X¯ıní , 44, 47

Z Zh¯ ongguó, 7, 35, 38, 49 Zh¯ ongwén, 2–7, 11–13, 18–23, 25–27, 35, 38, 42–51, 53, 55, 57, 58, 62–64, 67–79, 84–99, 102–106