Learning The Chinese Language Using A Performed Culture Pedagogical Approach

ABSTRACT: This is a multiple case study analysis of a select group of middle school students learning the Chinese language and Chinese culture through the inquiring, performing, reflecting, and producing (IPRP) model, a performed culture pedagogical approach. With the purpose of deepening the understanding and perspectives of students' Chinese language and cultural learning processes, this researcher examined nine participants' Chinese language and cultural learning experience in a classroom setting for 18 weeks. Within the perspectives of Vygotsky's (1978a, 1978b) sociocultural theory, the researcher used the constant comparison method and the categorical aggregation method to collect and analyze three data sources: field notes of class observations, semistructured participants' interviews, and video-recorded performance sessions. The findings of this study revealed that IPRP, as a new and practical performed culture pedagogical approach, links Vygotsky's (1978a, 1978b) sociocultural theory with the World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 2015). The current study's findings suggest the IPRP model could be used to provide a solution to improve the integration of Chinese language and culture learning at the practical level.

Performed Culture in Chinese Language Education: A Culture-Based Approach for U.S. Collegiate Contexts elaborates on a cultural awareness-oriented, cultural performance-based, and cross-cultural communication-focused foreign language pedagogical paradigm—Performed Culture Approach — in the context of U.S. collegiate Chinese language education. Guangyan Chen draws on the data collected through questionnaires, comparisons between this pedagogy and mainstream pedagogical frameworks, and analyses of curricular development, lesson plans, and classroom discourses. Chen promotes the performed culture approach by delineating the theoretical framework of this pedagogy, reporting studies that empirically support cultural primacy in Chinese language education, and illustrating this pedagogy through analyses of a curricular structure, a lesson plan, and classroom discourses. Chen shows how this pedagogy addresses the gaps between the social need for global citizens and the insufficient integration of culture into foreign language education. The performed culture approach also addresses the overall drop in U.S. collegiate foreign language enrollment as this pedagogy connects foreign language programs to university missions and social needs.

This book is a general introduction to the performed culture approach, which trains students how to express themselves in a way that native speakers of the target culture feel appropriate in given situations. Target readership includes Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language teachers and graduate students. Chapters of this book include: (1) Performed Culture; (2) Performing Culture: Performance-Based Curriculum; (3) Speaking and Listening in Culture; (4) Reading and Writing; (5) a Performative Approach to Grammar, Vocabulary, and Discourse; (6) Evaluating and Developing Materials for East Asian Languages; and (7) Conclusion and Recommendations. The following are also included: Acknowledgments; Preface; Introduction; Bibliography; Works Cited; Appendices; and Index.

This volume explores best practices in implementing the Performed Culture Approach (PCA) in teaching Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). Offering a range of chapters that demonstrate how PCA has been successfully applied to curriculum, instructional design, and assessment in CFL programs and classrooms at various levels, this text shows how PCA’s culture-focused paradigm differs fundamentally from the general communicative language teaching (CLT) framework and highlights how it can inspire innovative methods to better support learners’ ability to navigate target culture and overcome communication barriers. Additional applications of PCA in the development of learner identity, intercultural competence, autonomy, and motivation are also considered. Bridging theoretical innovations and the practice of curriculum design and implementation, this work will be of value to researchers, teacher trainers, and graduate students interested in Chinese teaching and learning, especially those with an interest in incorporating performance into foreign language curriculums with the goal of integrating language and culture.

This new major reference work provides a comprehensive overview of linguistic phenomena in a variety of Sinitic languages in a global context, highlighting the dynamic interaction between these languages and English. This “living reference work” offers a window into the linguistic sphere in China and beyond, and showcases the latest research into diverse and evolving linguistic phenomena that have resulted from intensified interactions between the Sinophone world and other lingua-spheres. The Handbook is divided into five sections. The chapters in Section I (New Research Trends in Chinese Linguistic Research) present fast-growing research areas in Chinese linguistics, particularly those undertaken by scholars based in China. Section II (Interactions of Sinitic Languages) focuses on language-contact situations inside and outside China. The chapters in Section III (Meaning, Culture, Translation) explore the meanings of key cultural concepts, and how ideas move between Chinese and English through translation across various genres. Section IV (New Trends in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language) covers new ideas and practices relating to teaching the Chinese language and culture. The final section, Section V (Transference from Chinese to English), explores dynamic interactions between varieties of Chinese and varieties of English, as they play out in multilingual sites and settings

The Third Space and Chinese Language Pedagogy presents the Third Space as a new frame through which foreign language pedagogy is conceptualized as a pedagogy of negotiating intentions and expectations in another culture. The field of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in the past decades has been expanding rapidly at the beginning and intermediate levels, yet it is lacking in scholarship on the true advanced level both in theory building and research-supported curriculum and material development. This book argues that it is time for CFL to go beyond merely satisfying the desire of gazing at the other, whether it is curiosity about the other or superiority over the other, to focusing on learning to work with the other. It reimagines the field as co-constructing a transcultural Third Space where learners are becoming experts in negotiating intentions and expectations in another culture. It presents a range of research-based CFL pedagogical scholarship and practices especially relevant to the advanced level and to the goal of enabling learners to go past fans or critics to become actors/players in the game of cross-lingual and intercultural cooperation.

Teachers of Chinese as a foreign language in many international contexts are searching for pedagogic solutions to promote effective learning. Models of innovative and successful approaches are urgently needed. This volume presents a collection of compelling and empirically rich research studies that showcases innovative developments in the practice of teaching Chinese as a foreign language. The studies focus on three interrelated areas: learners, teachers, and applications of new technologies. Specifically, the studies explore methods for fostering learner-centred classrooms, autonomous learners, intercultural learning, the role of teacher views and identities, the nature of a ‘middle ground’ approach, and technologies that accommodate the unique aspects of the Chinese language, with new options for mobile and interactive learners. Providing both inspiration and practical models for language practitioners and researchers, it offers a vital resource for teachers’ professional development, and for pre-service teacher education.

Abstract: Viewing the goal of language teaching as preparing learners to communicate successfully in the languages and cultures being studied, this thesis adopts the Performed Culture Approach, which expands the meaning of "culture" and integrates the acquisition of behavioral culture with the learning of the target language. This study addresses in-school behavioral culture as one of the primary and fundamental microcultures in language teaching. The assumption is that since schooling is considered a process of socialization and enculturation, the behavior patterns and social norms in teacher-student and student-student interactions have implications for language teaching and learning. With this assumption, this study conducted a questionnaire survey among college students and teachers in American and Chinese cultures. The purpose of the survey is to explore how students of the two cultures behave in the perceived course of transactions with their teachers and classmates, and what the expectation of the teachers in the two cultures are with respect to how students in the teachers' culture are expected to behave in these transactions. Five transactions were examined in the survey: greeting one's teacher, expressing different opinions from one's teacher, dealing with a problem in a study group, responding to compliments from other classmates, and returning a favor to a classmate. Comparisons between the results of the American student respondents and those of the Chinese student respondents indicate differences in terms of the perception the student respondents of the two cultures have as to how they would do things in these transactions. The results of the teacher survey reveal that the ways that the students from the two cultures would be most likely to behave were recognized and accepted by members of their own culture. In addition, the results of the survey virtually confirm the researcher's preliminary observations. This indicates that the perceived course of these transactions and the actual transactions between the teacher and the students are largely parallel. The findings of this study indicate it would be beneficial to introduce the behavior patterns of Chinese students (which can be widely applied to other interactions in various contexts in Chinese culture) into the Chinese language classroom. Furthermore, for American learners of Chinese language, to behave in ways that are acceptable in American culture cannot ensure that students will behave in culturally appropriate ways in a similar situation in the target culture. This further indicates the necessity for American language learners to learn how to do things in school that would be appropriate in Chinese culture. The significance of in-school Chinese behavioral culture entails incorporating the school saga as a primary saga into Chinese language teaching and learning in K-12 and university language classrooms. Using the performance-based approach, this thesis discusses the design of the pedagogical materials which embody the support that teachers can provide for compiling the school saga. The results of the survey also contribute to the development of pedagogical materials for the language classroom.

In this book, the authors embark on a critical investigation of the complex field of Chinese language education, with a particular focus on exploring new trends and teaching and learning. They delve into the intricacies of language, education and its effectiveness in teaching Chinese as a first language. The book has three objectives: establishing a field of study in Chinese language learning and teaching, providing critical discussion and progressive insights on language education, and offering relevant pedagogical perspectives of learning and teaching Chinese as L1 and L2. The chapters investigate learning and teaching of Chinese in different aspects, including four skills, culture, literature, technology-assisted learning, and learners’ identity. By focusing on the teaching practices of Chinese at different levels, it sheds light on teaching Chinese as a first language. Theoretically, it broadens the linguistic and geographical reach of previous works on language education that mainly examine English as a lingua franca or children’s first language acquisition. Drawing upon theories in language learning, the book demonstrates the applicability of language theories in the first language and Chinese as a non-alphabetic language and examines the impact and effectiveness of some theories in Chinese learning and teaching. Academic researchers, teacher educators, teachers and students interested in Chinese language and education will find this a highly relevant text for its focus on curriculum, pedagogy and assessment of teaching Chinese as a first language.

A Transdisciplinary Approach to Chinese and Japanese Language Teaching illustrates how the transdisciplinary approach to second language acquisition (SLA) centers around collaboration to provide a learning-conducive environment with rich semiotic resources for second/foreign language learners. The volume consists of 14 chapters from leading experts in SLA and Chinese and Japanese language educators from Canada, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. As a first work of its kind, the contributions feature both theoretical interpretations of transdisciplinary concepts that can apply to Chinese/Japanese as a second language learning and case studies showcasing how college-level Chinese and Japanese language educators design and implement pedagogical projects in collaboration with partners across languages, disciplines, communities, and borders by adopting a transdisciplinary perspective to analyze students’ learning outcomes. This book will benefit researchers, administrators, educators, and teacher educators in higher education with an interest in world language education and interdisciplinary and project-based teaching.