Chinese Language Development for Non-Chinese Background Teachers (NCTs)

Chinese Language Development for Non-Chinese Background

Teachers (NCTs)

Master Thesis – work in progress

Claudia PrescottCTTC, MGSE, The University of Melbourne

[email protected]

非汉语背景的老师

Chinese language learning

1. Current context – ISSUES

2. Language training – ISSUES

3. Curriculum design – SOLUTIONS


1. Current Context Key Issue #1

Nationally,

– approx 2% of Chinese Second Language learners complete Yr 12

– 95% of L2 classroom learners drop out

In Victoria,

– no classroom learner

achieves A+

(Orton 2008, and LoBianco & Slaughter 2000)


Key ISSUE #2

NCT – Victorian numbers:

• 400+ Chinese teachers

• 15 x NCTs / 4 x under 40 years old

∴ Roughly 4% of Victorian Chinese teachers NCTs

Roughly 66% of Victorian Japanese teachers are NJTs


Key ISSUE #3

Pre-service training:

NO specific training to teach the basic distinctive features of Chinese:

• oral skills - tones, pronunciation, rhythm and stress

• literacy skills - orthographic, phonological and morphological knowledge

• traditional ideology and cultural codes


Generic teacher training

No specific work on: • metalinguistic awareness of unique features of

Chinese• intercultural competence in relation to Chinese • language learning strategies specific to Chinese.

> Even L1 background teachers learn little about how to teach the language > contributes to drop out rate


L2 learners can be more successful.

They need to be taught in new ways.

Neither I nor other NCTs have the language skills to do this kind of new

teaching.

I set out to develop that kind of proficiency.


2. Language Training – ISSUES

WHY Bother?

• Australia more reliant on China than any other nation in the world.

• China our biggest trade partner, single largest export destination and foreign investor.

• Australian Foreign Policy predicts China’s new economic model = China seeing a better 30 years than it just had!


As the media attestsToday no single subject matters more for Australia’s future

prosperity than what is happening in China. (Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific Editor, The Australian, 22/5/11)

Corporate and political leaders don’t even reach the simplest stage of understanding. (Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific Editor, The Australian, 22/5/11)

The lack of Australian business people with Chinese experience is a major obstacle for the country. (Tom Stanley, COO, KPMG’s Global China Practice, 6/6/11).

Other countries are investing more heavily in China by any meaningful measure of competitiveness. (Alan Dupont, Director, CISS, University of Sydney, 22/6/11)

Australia is entering a strange new world for which it is nowhere near psychologically or attitudinally prepared. (Michael Wesley, Director, Lowy Institute, 5/6/11)


2010: set out to raise own language level

• Beijing – Intermediate Chinese language course (Semester One)

• Goal…increase language proficiency

• Sacrificed…children and teaching position

Result?


Emails to supervisor:

“Teachers continue to force feed us characters at a very fast pace (over 100 new characters per wk) without adequate time to use them”.

“HOW can I have applied 1500 characters in 3 months?? It really is very demoralising!”

“We’re now using SIX different textbooks!!”

“They really need to test Asian students and Western students separately!”

“I’m so frustrated with the total absence of student-centred focus. I've no time or space to operate in my own learning style”.


2010: efforts to raise own language level cont.

• Melbourne – 4th Year Chinese (Semester Two)

• Goal…increase language proficiency

• Sacrificed…time, cost, energy


More of the same …

• 60 students / incl 2 Anglo Saxon • reading & writing based • teacher centred → teacher as expert • all memorisation → short term memory burden • NO learner perspective• NO skill development


Contradiction

• 85% average Intermediate course –Beijing

• 75% average 4th Yr course – Melbourne

… yet I still don’t meet AFMLTA (2007) Standards!


Teacher standards - Chinese-specific annotations 1 using Mandarin in a principled way for regular classroom

management /organisation, instruction and discussing and creating a classroom environment appropriate to the needs of students

2 reading and writing informal e-mails and /or letter

3 principles of character formation (strokes, components, radicals)

4 knowledge of characters found in school contexts and the ability to write them accurately

5 understanding the relevance and use of idiomatic expressions (e.g. four character expressions)

6 awareness of the relationship between traditional and simplified character systems, and the regions where these are used

(AFMLTA, “Professional standards for accomplished teaching of languages and cultures – Language specific annotations: Chinese”, DEEWR, 2008).


3. Curriculum design – SOLUTIONS What we need

• Produce a design for people like me

• Get the Chinese we NCTs want

language skills to meet AFMLTA Standards

improve student outcomes


WHY Bother?

→ NCTs add value by understanding the learner

→ Do not face difficulties native teachers face:

– converting experiential knowledge into pedagogical knowledge

– conceptualising and representing Chinese from the learners’ perspective

– understanding the task from the learners’ perspective

(Andrew Scrimgeour, “Managing a differentiated classroom”, Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, University of South Australia, June 2010).


Proposed new content & method

Design questions: What content? What methods?

Specialist areas:• CLIL• Rhythm based oral development• MLA based literacy development• AIM


CLILContent and Language Integrated Learning

Content areas being worked on:

• Martial arts• ICT• Cooking

Other:History, Culture, Health, Current Affairs, Buddhism

For example:

Kathy Macfarlane, “A case study of an I.C.T. CLIL Program", Independent Schools Victoria, January 2011


CLIL example

• Martial Arts – Long Fist / Chángquán

• 16 classes over 8 wks

• No English

• Movement + language = retention

• Video = personal evidence


Rhythm based oral developmentCognitive science shows powerful role gestures + language play

in deep learning processes

Proposed benefits:

• Gestures improve intonation, rhythm, fluency and tone

• Gesture = implicit knowledge = enhanced learning

• Movement + discourse = synchronicity = retention

For example:

Church, Ayman-Nolley and Mahootian 2004; Gullberg 2006; Tellier 2008


MLA based literacy development(metalinguistic awareness)

Curriculum posed by CTTC:

• 400 components (semantic, phonetic and visual functions)

• Traditional characters (seeing ‘the full story’)

• ‘Character Catalogue’ online resource (character analysis)

For example:

Scrimgeour, A., (2010 in press). Issues and approaches to literacy development in Chinese second language classrooms, in "Chinese as a Second Language: Local Contexts, Global Challenges".


AIMAccelerative Integrated Methodology

Currently used in an ISV CLIL trial:

• Pared down language

• 200 high frequency vocab items

For example:

Jenny McKinney, “Voices Speak, Gestures Shout!", Hearsay Language Learning Downunder, 2011


Conclusion

A new tertiary language course designed for teachers of Chinese

Teachers will master language for running their classroom in one or two specialist areas

They will acquire the needed language AND some proficiency in using the methods and

resources proposed


Chinese Language Development for Non-Chinese Background Teachers (NCTs)

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