Teacher Voices in Chinese Language Teaching: Personal Reflections on Culture 3030892123, 9783030892128

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Who is Teaching Who What? Chinese as a Foreign Language Teaching in Australian Schools
Why This Book?
Contextual Background to the Book: The Status of Chinese as a Foreign Language in Australia
Teacher Interviews
Intercultural Competence
Who is Teaching Who What?
A New Metaphor: Building a House or a Home?
Numbers of Students of Chinese
Numbers of Students of Year 12 Chinese Courses
Comparisons between Languages
References
Chapter 2: Intercultural Competence as a Goal of Language Learning: What Are Chinese Teachers Doing with Culture?
The Survey
Culture in Language Pedagogy
Teacher Voices
On Being a ‘Native Speaker’
Caught Between Two Worlds
A Way to Conceptualise Relationships Between Self, Culture, and Identity
Are Previous Culture Teaching Models Being Perpetuated?
References
Chapter 3: A Way to Discover Culture in Language
Teacher Voices
SD1: Responding to Compliments in Chinese
Summary
SD2: Asking for Directions from a Stranger in Chinese
Summary
SD3: Being Called a ‘foreigner’
Summary
SD4: The Use of Titles When Greeting Others
Summary
SD5: The Eating Greeting
Summary
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: Teacher Voices on Thoughts About Language and Culture Teaching
Personal Background and School Context
General Beliefs About Culture
Beliefs About Culture and Language Teaching
Interculturality and Pedagogy
Teacher Jiang
Teacher Chen
Teacher Song
Teacher Fan
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: The Way Forward
Appropriateness of a Western Intercultural Competence Model
Dominance of Visible Culture
Pedagogical Diversity
Playing the Role of Gatekeeper
Recent Studies and Their Contributions to This Discussion
Reading Strategies in L2 Chinese Learning
Oral Corrective Feedback
Motivation
Limitations and Implications/Recommendations for Further Research
Recommendations
Further Research
References
Appendix A: Online Survey for CFL Teachers
References
Appendix B: Interview Questions (Part A)
Index

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING CHINESE

Teacher Voices in Chinese Language Teaching Personal Reflections on Culture Scott Smith

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.

Scott Smith

Teacher Voices in Chinese Language Teaching Personal Reflections on Culture

Scott Smith Morling College Macquarie Park, NSW, Australia

ISSN 2946-2479     ISSN 2946-2487 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese ISBN 978-3-030-89212-8    ISBN 978-3-030-89213-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89213-5 © The Author(s) 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

Contents

1 Who  is Teaching Who What? Chinese as a Foreign Language Teaching in Australian Schools  1 2 Intercultural  Competence as a Goal of Language Learning: What Are Chinese Teachers Doing with Culture? 33 3 A Way to Discover Culture in Language 63 4 Teacher  Voices on Thoughts About Language and Culture Teaching 93 5 The Way Forward129 Appendix A: Online Survey for CFL Teachers137 Appendix B: Interview Questions (Part A)141 Index143

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List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. 1.3 Fig. 1.4 Fig. 1.5 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3

Quality Teaching Framework (https://education.nsw.gov.au/ teaching-­and-­learning/professional-­learning/scan/past-­issues/ vol-­36%2D%2D2017/quality-­teaching-­in-­our-­schools) 8 Interculturality and pedagogy in flux amongst teachers of Chinese in Australian schools 17 Shifts in Chinese language learner enrolments in Australian schools (visual representation only) 18 Journeys of second language and heritage Chinese language learners20 Presentation of cultural practices, cultural values, and cultural identity in two fields of learning 22 Misalignment of identity and cultural layers 51 Alignment of identity and cultural layers 52 Awareness and adjustment of self, identity, and culture 52 Sharing and shifting as a result of communities of practice participation53 Deconstruction of Chinese character: ‘樓’ (building) 103 Deconstruction of 繁 into its component parts 107 The relationship between idiom, belief, and practice 110

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 1.3 Table 1.4 Table 1.5 Table 1.6 Table 1.7 Table 3.1

Distribution of participants 9 Eight areas of development in intercultural competence 13 NESA eligibility for Stage 6 (Grades 11&12) language courses 19 Number of primary and secondary students of Chinese in each Australian state/territory in 2008 and 2015 23 Number of students studying Year 12 Chinese in NSW and VIC 25 Proportion of Year 12 tertiary-recognised language enrolments by language, Australia 2006–2019 26 Languages spoken at home (by household), Australia, 2011, 2016 26 Frequencies of selected types of compliment responses in Chinese65

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CHAPTER 1

Who is Teaching Who What? Chinese as a Foreign Language Teaching in Australian Schools

Abstract  This chapter surveys the historical and current state of uptake of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) in Australian schooling (primary and secondary). The question of whether Australia, through its education system, is developing more Chinese language users cannot be answered through simple data analysis. Even though numbers of Chinese language learners appear high in relation to other foreign languages, the comparison is fraught with idiosyncratic issues such as the reality of large numbers of Chinese heritage background learners and low numbers of learners for whom Chinese is entirely ‘foreign’. There is growth in the number of learners, but this must be interpreted in light of who the learners are. For instance, if a majority of teachers and learners have a Chinese heritage, then ‘CFL’ might be an unhelpful term. Put another way, how can ‘Chinese teaching Chinese to the Chinese’ be counted in assessments of the growth or decline of CFL in Australia? The issue is complex for Australia, where over 500,000 residents were born in Mainland China. The chapter begins with an overview of the basis for this book. It presents the author’s personal background, as well as the research context in which the book is situated. An overview of the research methodology and participants is presented and the key concept of ‘intercultural competence’ is defined with reference to the literature. Keywords  Chinese as a foreign language • CFL • Intercultural competence • Quality Teaching Framework © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Smith, Teacher Voices in Chinese Language Teaching, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89213-5_1

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The limits of my language mean the limits of my world —Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)

Why This Book? The motivation for this book comes from personal observations made from within the language teaching community, and from experiences living in Australia and China. As a non-Chinese background teacher of Chinese language, my perspective is different from that of my Chinese colleagues. As an L2 learner of Chinese I have a specific viewpoint from which to reflect and comment on the role of culture in Chinese language teaching and what it might mean to develop intercultural competence. L1 Chinese speakers generally grow up within a Chinese cultural context, and over 90% of Chinese language teachers in Australia possess this heritage (Orton, 2016). I, however, studied Chinese language and learned about the diverse culture of Chinese people as an adult L2 learner in China over a nine-year period between the ages of 32 and 40. Having grown up in Australia and having worked as a secondary teacher prior to living in China, my own pedagogy has been shaped by Australian teacher education and Australian public schooling. Following my return from China, and until now, I have experience teaching Chinese at all levels, including pre-­ K, primary, secondary, and university level. With this background, I find myself in the so-called third place (Kramsch & Zhang, 2018), having the sense of not belonging completely in either context, and yet possessing a unique appreciation of each context from within and without. In other words, given the extended period living and working in China, I have taken a middle ground perspective (Leung et al., 2018), where, without wanting to essentialize the two positions, Chinese and Australian perspectives on interactions and language learning are held in tension. Chen (2002, p.  183) discusses the notion of ‘middle’ in Chinese thought as follows: The term’s (middle ground) philosophical origins are deeply rooted in the “middle way” teachings of such influential philosophers as Confucius and Lao Tzu (the founder of Taoism), where we find its true meaning. In its intended sense, the word “middle” conveys a dynamic concept, an active “harmonious integration” of opposites rather than a reactive compromise between them.

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In this sense, I also find myself pedagogically in a third place, viewing Chinese language teaching as a process of drawing learners into the middle ground where they may begin to not only understand the culture of the other, but also reflectively take on appropriate languages and behaviours, and ‘be’ the other as interactions take place. Neither may cast aside their own or the other’s culture, but they may stand in each other’s shoes, de-centre from their own culture, and perhaps make more culturally informed linguistic choices when communicating with each other. Researchers have often commented on the limited success of Chinese language pedagogy in Australian schools (Harbon & Moloney, 2017; Moloney, 2013; Moloney & Xu, 2015; Orton, 2011, 2016), and indeed in other international contexts where Chinese is being taught as a foreign language (Dervin & Machart, 2017; Jin, 2020; Zheng, 2019). Chinese government authorities and educationalists defend their right to be the leaders of Chinese teaching to the world (Lien et al., 2012), and this is especially evident under the Confucius Institute brand, beginning in Korea in 2004, and spreading to Europe and across the globe over the next decade (Starr, 2009). Now, Confucius Institutes exist in partnership with many universities around the world, with the stated purpose of providing centres of Chinese language and culture learning. My own educational background is essentially constructivist in thinking. I was trained as a secondary teacher in Australia, using pedagogy which strives to be stimulating, learner-centred and relevant to the learner’s interests. These elements are expressed in the Quality Teaching Framework (QTF) (Collins, 2017; Department of Education, 2008), where the pursuit of significance is emphasised as one of three key indicators of quality teaching. Elements of the QTF had conflicted with my experience as a foreign language student in China, where Chinese language pedagogy in 1999–2001 was teacher-centred and required much rote learning and drilling. I experienced some tensions in my acquisition of this new language. On the one hand, I acquired a shift in identity and outlook, which enriched and changed my life. But my study in China also caused me to question my fundamental understanding of the nature of learning, and my personal epistemology inherent in the learner/teacher role. Were my thinking, expectations, and teacher beliefs limited by the limits of my first language, English? And, by corollary, were the thinking, expectations, and teacher beliefs of Chinese teachers limited by the nature and demands of their first language, Chinese?

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A question arose in relation to the perceived efficacy of rote learning, deemed necessary to retain and conquer Chinese characters. There seemed no way around this. Now, as a teacher of Chinese in Australia, I continue to question the extent to which writing skills are emphasised over other learning outcomes in Chinese study. A second and more pervasive question is: How does cultural understanding inform language teaching and learning? Given my close relationships with Chinese teachers in Australian schools, and the nature of these tensions, I was motivated to investigate the beliefs about culture and language teaching in the Australian context.

Contextual Background to the Book: The Status of Chinese as a Foreign Language in Australia Since the 1970s, there have been several initiatives in Australia to support an increasing uptake of Asian languages in schools (Commonwealth Advisory Committee, 1970; Henry, 2016; Slaughter, 2011). A White Paper published by the Gillard government in 2012, ‘Australia in the Asian Century’, promoted the learning of Asian languages as one way to achieve the ‘capabilities to deal confidently with the challenges of the Asian century and to make the most of its extraordinary opportunities’ (Henry, 2016, p. 136). In 2016, the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) published a report explaining the very particular demands of Chinese language study in Australian schools and a way forward to achieve increasing uptake and proficiencies (Orton, 2016). In NSW between 2012 and 2016 the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards (BOSTES) redeveloped its approach to languages education. For the first time it explicitly referred to two learning strands: language awareness and language learning. This appears to be in recognition of the cultural aspects of language structure and use. Other states and territories made similar moves to review and improve language education, for example Australian Capital Territory’s ‘Many Voices’ (2012–2016), Northern Territory’s ‘Changing the conversation’ (2015), Queensland’s expansion of compulsory language education into Years 5–8 (2015), and Victoria’s highly elaborated ‘Languages: Expanding your world’ plan (2013–2025) (Kohler, 2017). South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania remain without a dedicated languages education policy framework and rely on more global curriculum documents to guide their teaching of languages.

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Despite these efforts, it is evident that Chinese language courses in Australian schools have been struggling to attract and retain students, with 95% of Chinese language learners dropping out of study before reaching the end of secondary school, for many years (Orton, 2008, 2016). This is in stark contrast to the feverish uptake in Asian countries (Scrimgeour, 2014) and strategic curriculum programming of daily Mandarin Chinese classes and immersion programmes in the growing number of international schools across Asia (Wang, 2016). In the last decade, the need for innovation in Chinese language education in Australia has been recognised (Dervin et  al., 2020; Harbon & Moloney, 2017; Orton, 2008; Wilson & Scrimgeour, 2009; Moloney & Xu, 2012; Moloney, 2013; Orton, 2016), and yet this has only been marginally achieved. Orton (2016) reported evidence of Chinese programmes closing in schools due to falling levels of motivation, due, she claims, to teachers’ failure to engage learners with relevant pedagogy. This suggests a failure to establish significance in Chinese teaching and learning. In addition, Australians’ negative attitudes to foreign language learning have been frequently chronicled in the literature (Lo Bianco, 1987; Clyne, 2005; Crozet, 2008; Moloney & Xu, 2012; Orton, 2008, 2016). Hence, relevance and significance are key factors in learner engagement and success. Another barrier to Chinese language learning is an inadequate allocation of learning time in the curriculum. In the state of New South Wales (NSW), foreign languages are non-compulsory subjects, with the exception of a compulsory 100 hours of a language other than English in the junior secondary years. To satisfy this requirement students are taught whatever language is currently on the timetable, and this is determined by what language teachers are on the staff. This barrier is heightened by the fact that, for L1 English speakers, Chinese requires a learning period 3.5 times that of some of the European languages to reach the same level of proficiency (Orton, 2016, p. 92). This highlights the need for maximum engagement and efficiency in Chinese as a foreign language teaching and learning. The desire and capacity of the incumbent Chinese teacher community of practice to achieve greater learning outcomes in an increasing number of students now hangs in the balance. Hence, even though political rhetoric exists to support a focus on Asian language development, and Chinese language teacher associations support teacher professional learning and active participation in communities of practice, the evidence of declining

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numbers of senior secondary students matriculating with an Asian language proves the need for research and alternative approaches to the problem. As Australia adopts a national curriculum (Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority, 2016) built upon constructivist educational expectations, the use of authentic localised texts and online resources in Chinese teaching needs to be prioritised (Oubibi et al., 2022; Scrimgeour, 2014). This entails, for instance, purposeful inclusion of Australian content in Chinese teaching materials. It also necessitates inclusion of digital media resources capable of engaging digital native language learners. Modern constructivist pedagogy demands a shift in the way teachers teach, an issue further complicated by the fact that over 90% (Orton, 2008) of Chinese teachers working in NSW schools have been educated in China. Research examining teachers’ resistance to innovation in other areas has underlined the need to address the beliefs which shape and direct the response (Moloney & Xu, 2015). This book takes up this challenge, at a critical moment in the teaching of Chinese, both in Australia and internationally. We know that teacher beliefs shape teacher practice (Ben-Peretz, 2011), and thus student learning. And yet, the beliefs of teachers of Chinese, especially their beliefs about culture and teaching, have received only limited research attention. Understanding the cultural context of language use is recognized today as essential to language learning. Kramsch (2014) and Kramsch and Zhang (2018) have maintained that culture is inseparable from language, and therefore should be purposefully placed in the foreground of foreign language pedagogy. The understanding of what ‘culture’ represents has changed (Dervin, 2011; Dervin et al., 2020). In the current approach to language pedagogy in Australia, which has been influenced by sociocultural theory, the teaching of culture has moved from being an isolated ‘extra’ element of language learning, to being reflective, integrated, and embedded. It has been suggested, however, that current Chinese teaching in Australian schools, influenced by the pedagogy of foreign language education in China, is perpetuating isolated culture learning (Orton, 2011; Moloney & Xu, 2015; Harbon & Moloney, 2017), where culture is often essentialized. It is critical that for an engaging contemporary pedagogy of Chinese as a foreign language to be developed in the Australian context, teacher beliefs about pedagogy in culture must be addressed. Wang et al. (2013) report that the individual teacher’s voice is largely absent in current research on Chinese language teacher education

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programmes in both China and elsewhere. Therefore, it was important for this study to ‘listen’ to some of the voices of those who work as Chinese language teachers in Australian secondary schools. The research reported in this book emulates Wang et al.’s (2013) efforts to empower the role of a sample of Chinese language teachers by including excerpts from their narratives, as well as Kramsch and Zhang’s (2018) multilingual instructor memories and tales of experience. The primary focus of this book is to examine Chinese language teachers’ beliefs about ‘culture’ and how these beliefs impact their pedagogy in Australian secondary schools. In New South Wales (NSW), Chinese is studied as a compulsory 100-hour course in Year 7 or 8 (the first two years of secondary school) (NESA, 2017), as well as elective language courses from Year 9 to 12. In most schools offering Chinese language courses across Australia, the inclination to continue with Chinese in the final two years and sit for the examination for the Higher School Certificate drops away significantly. This phenomenon naturally concerns teachers and education administrators. Several explanations have been offered to explain the dearth of Year 12 non-Chinese background (or second language) learners. Pedagogy that lacks necessary levels of engagement and the purposeful facilitation of broader intercultural competence in language students, coupled with a corpus of textbooks that remain characterised by isolated references to essentialized cultural content, is still prevalent (Harbon & Moloney, 2017; Moloney & Xu, 2015; Orton, 2016; Scrimgeour, 2014). This book hopes to contribute to the emerging broader research effort in language teaching and learning, to explore what intercultural language learning may look like. Liddicoat (2004, p. 20) noted that in the context of language teaching we do not have descriptions of what intercultural competence looks like. The observations made in this book will provide useful data from which to describe and enrich the wider context of Chinese language teaching. The desired outcome, therefore, will be a research-­ based foundation for the development of intercultural pedagogy for Chinese language. This potential development rests upon the capacity of Chinese language teachers to identify and explicitly facilitate in students the ability to make culturally informed linguistic choices when receiving and producing Chinese language. This book seeks to shed light on the beliefs held by teachers of Chinese language in a defined educational context—beliefs in relation to culture as it relates to language, and the teaching of language. I argue this is a

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Elements

necessary first step in describing the interculturality of language teachers, which can then lead to an inquiry about how interculturality impacts language teaching pedagogy, that is, what they do with culture. It would be unwise to assume all language teachers and readers of this book agree on the definition of ‘culture’. Hence, the first question to ask is: What beliefs do teachers of Chinese language in Australian schools hold about culture as it relates to language and the teaching of language? From this starting point the book overlays current notions of interculturality, or increasing intercultural competence, as defined in the literature, and describes Chinese language teacher interculturality. A second question—How can the interculturality of teachers be understood from the way they describe themselves and their beliefs about culture, teaching, language, and values?—seeks to provide a description of Chinese teacher interculturality. From this, the impact of interculturality upon language teacher pedagogy is examined with reference to the QTF. It is within the significance element of the QTF (Fig.  1.1) that aspects of intercultural competence development are captured. Significance in the QTF refers to ‘pedagogy that helps make learning meaningful and important to students. Such pedagogy draws clear connections with students’ prior knowledge and identities, with contexts

Intellectual Quality Deep knowledge Deep Understanding Problematic knowledge High-order thinking

Quality Learning Environment Explicit quality criteria

Metalanguage Substantive communication

Significance

High expectations

Background knowledge Cultural knowledge Knowledge integration

Social support

Inclusivity

Students’ selfregulation Student direction

Connectedness

Engagement

Narrative

The NSW Quality Teaching model has 3 dimensions and 18 elements

Fig. 1.1  Quality Teaching Framework (https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-­ and-­learning/professional-­learning/scan/past-­issues/vol-­36%2D%2D2017/ quality-­teaching-­in-­our-­schools)

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outside of the classroom, and with multiple ways of knowing or cultural perspectives’ (NSW Department of Education and Training, 2003, p. 9). Teachers of Chinese language in NSW secondary schools were asked questions in a survey about culture and language teaching. This group (n=68) are seen to be representative of who teaches Chinese, how Chinese is taught, and what is generally believed about culture-in-language-­ teaching in Australian schools where Chinese language courses are offered. Participants were recruited through the NSW Chinese Language Teachers Association. Of the total number of Chinese language teachers across Australia, most are members of their local association, as evidenced through participation in annual conferences. NSW is the largest state by population and the NSW branch of the Chinese Language Teachers Association accounts for approximately 60% of association membership nationally. Responses to the survey from a broad group representing teachers of Chinese inform the bigger picture of teacher beliefs about culture and language teaching. In addition to the broader survey, four teachers in three schools participated in interviews and classroom observations. The researcher requested and received permission to visit the schools and spent focused time with their Chinese language teachers. Interviews were undertaken in situ with four teachers, and each interview lasted approximately 60–90  minutes. Interviews were semi-structured, and questions were consistent across all interviews to afford comparative analysis. They were also carried out with enough flexibility to allow for worthwhile tangential discussions. In addition to using question-and-answer-style interview techniques, the researcher also generated five scenarios, in the form of stimulus dialogues, and asked for participants’ reactions to these. Dialogues were designed to elicit responses relating to the connections between language and culture. The researcher also spent three lessons with each teacher in their classrooms, while they were teaching, and made field notes relating to teacher pedagogy and references to culture–language links. Table 1.1 details the participants and their birthplace/hometown and their respective schools. Table 1.1  Distribution of participants

School 1 School 2 School 3

Jiang (Henan)

Chen (Taiwan)

X

X

Song (Guangdong)

Fan (Hong Kong)

X X

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Teacher Interviews Face-to-face 60–90-minute interviews of four teachers were chosen as the focal point of data collection. The interviews were semi-structured, in that questions were prepared in advance, yet they were also conversational in nature, allowing for free expression, spontaneous discussion, and tangential inquiry. I allowed for switching between English and Mandarin to ensure maximum comfort and ease of the participants. This allowance was also seen to promote accuracy in responses. I acknowledge myself as a co-­ participant in the inquiry, as I was facilitating, reacting, and responding in discourse with my teacher participants. I also acknowledge my position as a colleague in the wider community of practice of Chinese language teaching and as an executive member of the Chinese Language Teachers Association. Questions prepared for the interviews are presented in Appendix B. An ethnographic approach incorporating data from semi-structured interviews and classroom observations of four teachers provides depth to the study. Purposeful sampling was used to identify four teachers in three schools, enabling a representation of single-sex and co-educational schools, as well as academically selective and comprehensive schools. School #1 was a non-government, independent, co-educational international school with a focus on languages. School #2 was a non-government, independent, boys’ grammar school, and School #3 a non-government, independent, girls’ school. Teacher #1, the most experienced in terms of years taught, migrated to Australia over 25 years ago and has experienced what he terms ‘significant cultural adjustment’ as he learned to follow the cultural norms in Australia, whilst maintaining his own Chineseness. He grew up and was educated in central Mainland China. Teacher #2, a younger female teacher (approximately 35 years old), migrated to Australia more recently from Taiwan. She had approximately five years’ experience teaching Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in Australia. Teacher #3, from southeast China, grew up in what she refers to as a ‘Cantonese cultural and linguistic environment’. In addition to over ten years of CFL teaching experience, she has presented professional development workshops to other teachers, and is generally well respected in the CFL community of practice. Teacher #4, a migrant from Hong Kong, described herself as tri-lingual in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. Arriving in Australia over 20 years ago, and while she was still young, she became relatively immersed in a rural setting and married an Anglo-Australian. This

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experience, she said, has given her unique insights into intercultural development, and has helped her become an excellent language teacher to those students with and without Chinese heritage. This selection of teacher participants provides broad geographic, linguistic, and cultural diversity to the book. It also served to substantiate the depth of diversity that exists between people who call themselves Chinese, as well as to identify what beliefs they hold in common. The origins of ethnography can be traced back to early twentieth-­ century anthropology and the small-scale studies of societies by renowned researchers such as Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, and Boaz. The main attraction was gaining an understanding of the ‘exotic other’ (Hammersley, 2018), usually in exotic locations around the world. The Chicago School of Sociology in the 1920s and 1930s adopted this approach and it became mainstream under the influences of Everett Hughes, Robert Park, and Louis Wirth, and was applied to more localised issues such as homelessness and immigration (Hammersley, 2018, p. 1367). Ethnography combines a foundation of empiricism, as well as naturalism. It requires the collection of data in the native context of those being observed. It does not, however, seek to test a hypothesis, but instead is exploratory in nature. Although ethnography is generally defined by the fieldwork, and hence undirected by previously determined research questions, this chapter evokes ethnography as one of several items in the methodology toolbox. People quoted within these ethnographies are ‘real’ people grappling with the routine, mundane issues that make up a teacher’s day (Woods, 1985, p. 53). It has therefore been essential that this work involves observations and interactions in situ. I acknowledge that there is a certain degree of power and status afforded me as an Anglo-Australian male researcher. Given that much of the dialogue was conducted in English, the researcher held considerable power as a native speaker. The purpose of the observations was to seek evidence of how teachers’ beliefs were manifested in the classroom (their natural setting), and how pedagogy is influenced by beliefs. Adding observational data to the research methodology enabled the generation of both corroborating and contradictory evidence. Overall, this approach aimed to yield a rich seam of ethnographic data characterised by an inquiry into what Chambers (2000) refers to as the place of culture in human affairs. Contemporary ethnographic approaches allow for a focus on ways in which people create culturally meaningful expressions in contexts where culture is consistently under revision. Brewer (2003) emphasised the capturing of social

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meanings through the study of people in naturally occurring settings. Hammersley (2018, pp. 7–8), in taking up the challenge of defining what ethnography is and is not, concludes there are two distinct roads to follow. One he terms ‘thick’, which is a narrowly defined ethnography requiring us to ‘lay down what are appropriate theoretical and value commitments for ethnographic work’, and he warns this choice will lead to more disagreement from those who call themselves ethnographers. The second option, ‘thin’ ethnography, a more all-encompassing approach, treats ethnography ‘simply as a research strategy that can be employed by researchers adopting a wide variety of potentially conflicting commitments’, and in this case ‘ethnographic approach’ is a more suitable term to describe the research methodology. This research took an ethnographic approach to qualitative data collection as it commits to participant observation, which is viewed as the core of ethnography (Hammersley, 2018, p. 8), but it also relies on more formal semi-structured interviews which are somewhat removed from the natural setting of the classroom. In terms of scale, ethnographic research tends to focus on a small number of cases, thus facilitating more depth in analysis. This analysis is then characterised by descriptions, explanations, and theories, and quantitative analysis plays a secondary role. Atkinson (2015) explains that everyday life is skilful, physical, symbolic, enacted locally, and performed; it unfolds over time, it takes place in specific locations, and it is conducted through material artefacts (2015, pp. 16–19). Thus, in ethnography, it is vital that the researcher is in proximity to the ‘performers’. Data collected comes from various sources, including field notes from observations and informal conversations, when I was able to be in proximity with Chinese teachers, and transcripts of interviews that include teacher reflections on stimulus dialogues. As a study that inquired about what teachers of Chinese language understand ‘culture’ to be, and how they use it in their teaching, it is qualitative in nature, because it is concerned with understanding what human beings are doing or saying (Schwandt, 2000). In designing the research process I was mindful that as a language teacher I am also part of the world, or context, of inquiry (Vidich & Lyman, 2000). In their work on finding realities in interviews, Miller et al. (2020) identify insiders and outsiders. To some degree I am an ‘insider’, because as a language teacher practitioner I move within the same world as my research participants (Silverman, 2020, chapter 4, p. 53). This allows for empathy with participants, and more immediate understanding of what is happening, but it also necessitates critical distance. In another sense, I am still an ‘outsider’,

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in that I do not work alongside any of the participants, that is, as a school colleague, and I am not of Chinese heritage. This facilitates a degree of objectivity. This research is significant as Australia maintains its position economically and geopolitically in Asia, as well as historically in the Asian Century (Asia Education Foundation, 2013). Having young Australians interculturally competent in using the Chinese language is of political, economic, and strategic significance to Australia. For Chinese to be upheld as a major foreign language in Australian schools (Henry, 2016), the teaching of Chinese language must be characterised by best practice, which can be measured against the Quality Teaching Framework and new National Curriculum (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2016), and this includes a determined focus on intercultural understanding.

Intercultural Competence This book tables a synthesised definition of intercultural competence based on a review of the literature. Table  1.2 describes eight areas of increasing intercultural competence based on literature spanning the past 30 years. Table 1.2  Eight areas of development in intercultural competence Decentre from one’s own culture to appreciate that of another

Byram (1997a), Dervin and Dirba (2006), Crozet (2012), Jin (2020), Jin and Dervin (2017) See ‘culture’ through the discourse Camilleri (1993), Byram (1997a), Holliday patterns of individuals rather than static (2013), Kramsch (2011), Jin (2014), Kramsch culture and language systems and Zhang (2018) Acknowledge limitations of self to allow Byram (1997a), Byram and Wagner (2018), for agency in others Ma (2014) Collaborate with others in meaning Bird and Osland (2005), Byram and Wagner making (2018) Reflect on one’s own culture and identity Abdallah Pretceille and Prat (2001), Byram to a point where ‘me’ and ‘other’ fade (1997a), Holliday (2013), Jin (2020), into ‘us’ Kramsch and Zhang (2018), Moloney (2008) Reject essentialism Deardoff (2006), Guilherme (2000), Holliday (2013), Kotter (1996) Focus on ‘being’ as well as knowing Hall (2010), Holliday (2013), Jin (2020), Meighan (2021) Allow for self-discovery in self and others Masterson (2018)

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Byram (1997b, p. 56) describes the decentring process as the ability to observe, collect data, and analyse how people of another culture perceive and experience their world. Jin and Dervin (2017, p. 11) talk about this in terms of individuals questioning their views of the ‘other’ and the ‘self’, the wider discursive space and ideologies in their encounters. Holliday’s (2013, p. 56) formation of ‘small cultures’ describes the process in which individuals create culture on a daily basis through engagement with others. Based on this view, no one perpetuates static language or cultural systems, but rather they live out culture that is linked to language as discourse and construct new realities that shape peoples’ opinions (Kramsch & Zhang, 2018). The ability to acknowledge one’s own limitations and step out of one’s comfort zone to examine what might be foreign, Byram and Wagner (2018) suggest, represents a skill associated with intercultural competence. They also argue intercultural competence involves speakers in context creating shared meanings (Byram & Wagner, 2018) or sense making (Bird & Osland, 2005). Intercultural competence has been spoken of as requiring potential assaults on identity (Holliday, 2013), membership of two languages and cultures (Moloney, 2008), and frequent reflections on who you are, who you were, and who you are becoming (Kramsch & Zhang, 2018). Essentialism represents ‘people’s individual behaviour as entirely defined and constrained by the cultures in which they live so that the stereotype becomes the essence of who they are’ (Holliday, 2011, p. 4). The antithesis of this is described above: an acknowledgement of culture as dynamic, shared, and co-constructed through discourse, an increasing willingness to decentre from one’s own culture to understand and give agency to another, and a degree of reflection on self. And it is likely that unless we are bi- or multilingual (Meighan, 2021, p. 79) our ‘self’ will have been less exposed to alternative ways of being, and is thus more likely to accept the cultural status quo imposed upon us by our own language (Goatly, 2018, p.  228). Thus, in addition to new knowledge, intercultural language learning also involves new ways of being. Currently, intercultural competence development is seen as a further step beyond pragmatic language development. Crystal’s (1997) definition of pragmatics bears a resemblance to some of the areas listed in Table  1.2. For instance, ‘the study of language from the point of view of the users’ (Yang, 2018, p. 261) echoes the call to decentre from one’s own culture to appreciate that of another (Byram, 1997a; Crozet, 2012; Dervin & Dirba, 2006; Jin & Dervin, 2017).

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Disparate pedagogies have created ongoing issues between the aspirations for the expansion of Chinese language studies in Australia and the reality of student participation. As noted above, Orton (2008, 2011, 2016) has already pointed to the 96% drop-out rate from Chinese language studies after the compulsory years of languages education, and she points to teacher pedagogy as one cause. Urgent reform is thus needed in Chinese language teaching, one aspect of which addresses current pedagogy and intercultural language learning. A constructivist pedagogy is well established in the Australian schema, and yet it has been suggested that the pedagogies of over 90% of Chinese language teachers in Australian schools may be resistant to this expectation (Moloney & Xu, 2016), given their own personal education backgrounds. Having said this, the Chinese language is unique, and the integrity of its long history of learning and teaching should not be overlooked. A tension exists between what Australian best practice in teaching dictates for Chinese language teachers, and that which has successfully produced over a billion literate users of Chinese in the current era. Grappling with this tension lies at the core of this book. I rely on this synthesis of elements of increasing intercultural competence to interpret the data collected from interviews and surveys returned by teachers. I am also mindful of the ensuing limitations this imposes on the discussion. The final chapter will raise the issue of reliance on largely English-language-origin, ‘Western’ literature to define a concept that has been applied to a Chinese as a second language teaching context in which people of Chinese heritage make up the participants of the research.

Who is Teaching Who What? There was an overall decline of 20% in the number of Year 12 L2 Chinese learners between 2008 and 2015, and this has been attributed to pressure from unfair competition. A report commissioned by the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology Sydney, entitled ‘Building Chinese Language Capacity in Australia’ (Orton, 2016), revealed that ‘…senior classes in some long-running L2 Chinese programs have been decimated; this is largely due to the presence of crushing numbers of home speaker learners being assessed as L2, who fill the high score quotas’ (p. 18). Orton (2016) argues no one truly benefits from this phenomenon because students who speak Chinese at home and who enrol in the lowest-level course to gain the highest possible marks will not develop their limited language skills and or a rich and stable bilingual, bicultural identity (Orton, 2016, p. 18).

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A New Metaphor: Building a House or a Home? Evidence suggests that the CFL teachers are caught pedagogically between a heritage language approach and a foreign languages approach, and that a third intercultural approach has been blurred by teachers’ enduring beliefs about culture. This can be likened to the differences between the concepts of a house (住宅) and a home (家园). Construction of a high-­ quality house requires rigorous adherence to well-drawn plans, the use of quality materials, and skilled craftspeople. The expected result is a building of sound structure and a pleasing and functional aesthetic. The concept of a home, however, requires reference to a strong sense of belonging between individuals and to place (Moore, 2000). With belonging comes a degree of common understanding, agreed values, and agreed identity. As a metaphor for language acquisition, a house represents a well-planned language curriculum that introduces the complexities of a language in logical stages, just as a building is constructed from the ground up. As language construction takes place, the parts of language come together and more holistic proficiency is achieved—language acquisition as house. By contrast, language acquisition as home involves more social and affective identification with the language and its other users (Leeman, 2015; Makoni, 2018; Yang & Tochon, 2022). Chinese language teachers in Australia may see themselves in similar ways to teachers of other community heritage languages. Studies of such teachers (Van Deusen-Scholl, 2003; King, 2000; Ardakani, 2015) show a desire to preserve and protect the integrity and respect of the language and how it should be taught in its original educational and cultural context. In the case where community languages are taught outside regular school hours (e.g. on weekends), this desire to build a home can be freely pursued, as it is not in conflict with mainstream school curricula. In the case of Chinese, however, the language has moved from a status solely as a diaspora community or heritage language, to a new dual status, both as a high-profile ‘foreign language’ for beginners to learn and as a highly valued ‘mother-tongue’ for heritage learners and background speakers to learn, incorporated in the school curriculum, and the latter sets up an expectation of a pedagogy aligned with the rest of the Australian curriculum. Teacher beliefs and interculturality, hence, may be caught, or be in transition, in a negotiation of optimal pedagogy, between the heritage language field and the foreign language field. They are frequently seen to be teaching Chinese as house and home.

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Figure 1.2 illustrates how both interculturality and pedagogy can be in flux for teachers of Chinese. If they teach classes with a mix of second language learners and heritage language learners, teachers are constantly faced with multiple fields of learning. This phenomenon, common in Australian schools that offer Chinese language classes, has created a dualistic environment in which teachers are constantly in transition between a settled identity and a newly evolving one. In reality, teachers feel more comfortable when teaching heritage learners and more challenged when faced with learners from other backgrounds who have no prior experience with Chinese language or culture. This then directly influences pedagogy as they modify their teaching to match their expectations of the learners in the two fields. The dilemma that exists is not merely the difficulty of teaching more than one proficiency level in the same classroom, which is often a voiced concern of language teachers, but more fundamentally about the intercultural posturing of the teacher, and their capacity to effectively bridge the knowledge and skill gaps of their students. Chinese language classrooms in Australian schools are full of people in transition. Each learner is on their own journey towards greater proficiency and most begin from different starting points to the person sitting beside them. And they are being guided by teachers who may be experiencing more complex transitions.

Beliefs about culture (heritage) Interculturality in flux (heritage/foreign)

Pedagogy in flux (heritage language /foreign language)

Fig. 1.2  Interculturality and pedagogy in flux amongst teachers of Chinese in Australian schools

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The vast majority of Chinese language teachers in Australia can be described as having Chinese heritage (Orton, 2016), which contrasts markedly with teachers of other languages, and this book argues that many see themselves as insider protectors and promoters of Chinese language and culture. Hence, their default approach to language teaching is a heritage approach, that is, building homes for their heritage background students, while managing the construction of houses for those outside this cohort. Another complication occurs as teachers interact with heritage learners of widely varying language proficiencies. They feel a responsibility to teach language and culture in a purposeful way to those who ‘need to know’. It is still a challenge, yet a challenge largely accepted by the community of practice. Statistically it is their core business because most Chinese language learners in Australian schools are either heritage or background speakers. Orton (2016) has reported that the pattern of declining enrolments in the senior years, especially for second language learners, clearly indicates a steady shift towards Chinese teaching Chinese to the Chinese. In Year 12 in 2015, it was estimated that a mere 400 of the 4149 Chinese language learners were second language learners (Orton, 2016). There is only a small window of opportunity in the 13-year NSW curriculum to welcome and nurture L2 language learners. Figure 1.3 illustrates the shifts that take place over the 13 years of primary and secondary

FOREIGN LANGUAGE +HERITAGE FOCUS

HERITAGE FOCUS

LOTE YEARS 7-6

YEARS 9-10

HERITAGE FOCUS

ENROLMENTS

HERITAGE FOCUS

PRIMARY YEARSK-6

YEARS 11-12

Fig. 1.3  Shifts in Chinese language learner enrolments in Australian schools (visual representation only)

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education regarding enrolments and curriculum focus of Chinese language learners, and where L2 learners fit in. In the early years pedagogy has a heritage focus (through the government-funded Community Languages Program). It then shifts to a combination of foreign language and heritage language teaching during the compulsory LOTE (Languages Other Than English) years (Year 7 or 8), and then gradually returns to a re-emphasis on heritage and first language teaching, as second language learner enrolments drop away between Years 9 and 12. In Australian Languages other than English (LOTE) education, and especially Chinese language education, there are sub-categories of learners based on whether they claim a heritage background for the language. These students, commonly known as ‘heritage learners’, are ideally enrolled in the ‘Language in Context’ course. The National Education Standards Authority (NESA) defines eligibility criteria in relation to students with a background that might give them advanced knowledge/skills in the target language, thus distinguishing them from other learners. Table 1.3 is an excerpt from the NESA guidelines. The resulting pedagogical landscape sees Chinese language teachers guiding several disparate groups of learners towards significantly different learning outcomes. Figure  1.4 has been provided to illustrate these journeys. Table 1.3  NESA eligibility for Stage 6 (Grades 11&12) language courses Courses

Target candidature

Eligibility criteria

[Language] in Context Where there is a [Language] and Literature course

Students typically have been brought up in a home where the language is used, and they have a connection to that culture. These students have some degree of understanding and knowledge of the language. They have received all or most of their formal education in schools where English (or another language different from the language of the course) is the medium of instruction. Students may have undertaken some study of the language in a community, primary, and/or secondary school in Australia. Students may have had formal education in a school where the language is the medium of instruction up to the age of 10.

Students have had no formal education in a school where the language is the medium of instruction beyond the year in which the student turns 10 years of age (typically Year 4 or 5 of primary education).

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Graduating students

Second language learners Commencing students C

C

L L

Heritage learners

Graduating students

Fig. 1.4  Journeys of second language and heritage Chinese language learners

In Fig.  1.4, as learners approach from the left to commence their Chinese studies, they are routinely separated into heritage and second language learners based upon their language education experience and family background. Heritage learners are offered a programme of study that more purposefully integrates language and culture learning (L and C). We see heritage learners sitting in a ‘field’ in which they can access language and culture learning that incorporates knowledge of visual culture as well as linguistic links with Chinese cultural values (language as home). Second language learners are sitting in another ‘field’ in which language (L) is taught (language as house) to a basic level and the culture learning (c) is largely separate from language and appears as visible representations of customs and traditions such as cuisine, festivals, and the animal zodiac. This illustration also captures the fact that both groups of students may indeed have contact with each other (in the same classroom), yet they are clearly labelled heritage on one side and beginners or continuers on the other. They are most often seen to be either physically separated in the classroom or in separate classes. The choices teachers make in these environments are determined by their beliefs about culture, about teaching and the teaching of language and culture. Their own interculturality determines how they approach both homogeneous and hybridised classes of students. This book suggests that teachers of Chinese in Australian schools may not fit the mould of a Euro-centrically defined interculturality, yet they do remain true to their

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beliefs in the need to protect and promote Chinese language and culture in the Chinese diaspora. Their stated belief in a teacher-centred approach, characterised by teacher explanations of language and culture, is consistent with their pedagogy. Hence, their identities are positively aligned with their practice. Alongside this, they also promote the Chinese language, as well as aspects of visible Chinese culture, to second language learners. In this sphere, teachers face the challenge of making something foreign familiar, and it can be argued that taking this step is indeed an intercultural one. They are building houses for L2 learners—in the form of structurally sound, logically presented, and intellectually challenging language pedagogy. Given the interculturality and identity expressed by Chinese language teachers in this book, two language learning fields are perpetuated. One is the heritage learner field that invites learners into the teacher’s world, and the other is the foreign learner field that instructs learners about the teacher’s world. Figure  1.5 illustrates how cultural practices, cultural values, and cultural identity are presented in each of the two language learning fields. In the foreign learner field, teacher identity and learner identity are at a distance from each other as the teacher projects, ‘We Chinese …’ and learners hear, ‘In China, they …’. Cultural identities are nationalistically, geographically, and linguistically opposed. Teachers routinely present culture as ‘different’ visible cultural practices and learners thus equate Chinese culture with food, festivals, and visible icons such as dumplings, lanterns, chopsticks, and red envelopes. In this sense, second language learners are acquiring new culture-based knowledge. In the heritage learner field, teacher and learner identity are proximate to each other. Even though some heritage learners may be living in between the two worlds, the teacher projects cultural expectations as they include these students in the ‘We Chinese …’ world. There is often an expectation that heritage learners will identify with a ‘hometown’ in China, often the place of birth of their parents or grandparents. In the heritage learner field, culture-based knowledge is taught, but in addition, language founded in cultural values is also included. Heritage learners are expected to learn how to speak like Chinese people. Given this polarised presentation of language and culture teaching, it is no surprise that second language learners are demotivated to continue into the non-mandatory stage of Chinese language learning (Orton, 2016). Chinese language teachers in Australia represent a rich resource for the learning of language and culture, indeed for the development of intercultural language users.

Heritage learner field

Foreign learner field

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Student identity: Foreign language learner “in China they......”

Culture-based knowledge

Teacher identity: “We Chinese.....” “In my home town ....”

Cultural Practices (visible)

Cultural Values (invisible) Culture-based knowledge values based knowledge

Cultural Identity

Cultural Identity

Teacher identity: “we Chinese....” “In my home town....”

Student identity: Heritage language learner “we Chinese....?” “In my hometown....?”

Fig. 1.5  Presentation of cultural practices, cultural values, and cultural identity in two fields of learning

Yet, given the way Chinese teachers identify themselves, the ways they define culture, and the ways in which learners are divided by cultural and linguistic background, this resource is being mis-spent. A focus on family background, which is visible, may create certain expectations of learners in each field. A focus on language as distinct from culture, often presented in Chinese as a foreign language textbooks and in classroom practice, works to lock some learners out of richer learning experiences. Teachers of Chinese language in Australian schools appear to lack the knowledge required to make (their) Chinese language and (their) Chinese culture ‘real’ for all learners. Their own limited intercultural competence limits the development of interculturality in those others that they have a daily influence over in the classroom. Even though they have so much to offer second language learners, they appear to be anchored to a limited perception of culture and a pedagogy that accepts textbook representations of visible culture, and they make limited references to the ‘why’ of visible culture.

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In the next section a selection of available school data is offered to illustrate the anomalies between growth in numbers of Chinese language learners and any aspirational or perceived advancement in CFL education in Australia.

Numbers of Students of Chinese To begin, Table  1.4 reports numbers of Chinese language students in schools across Australia. The data is reported by state/territory and by primary/secondary schooling for 2008 and 2015. There are minor Table 1.4  Number of primary and secondary students of Chinese in each Australian state/territory in 2008 and 2015 State/territory + primary/secondary configurations

Primary Primary 2008 2015

ACT P = K-7 S = 8–12 NSW P = K-6 S = 7–12 NT P = P-6 S = 7–12 QLD P = P-6 S = 7–12 SA P = R-7 S = 8–12 TAS P = P-6 S = 7–12 VIC P = P-6 S = 7–12 WA P = K-7 S = 8–12 Total Source: Orton (2016, p. 44)

Secondary 2008

Secondary 2015

Total 2008

Total 2015

46

1048

579

548

625

1796

17,197

24,340

5614

8766

24,136

33,106

500

471

102

161

602

632

19,327

25,542

2975

9568

9015

34,997

4097

7826

1489

1782

9133

9608

59

1788

469

1713

528

3501

16,848

57,584

16,248

21,451

33,096

79,035

210

7909

108

2294

318

10,203

58,293

126,508

27,584

46,283

90,740 172,878

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differences between the numbers of primary and secondary years in each state/territory. In each state/territory there has been growth in the numbers of Chinese language students. The overall growth for Australia was 48% over the seven-year reporting period. In relation to primary versus secondary growth for all of Australia, numbers grew by 93% in primary schools and 40% in secondary schools. In relation to the two largest educational jurisdictions (New South Wales and Victoria), total numbers grew by 27% and 58% respectively. Other states/territories have a shorter history of Chinese language delivery, with comparatively low numbers in 2008, and so growth rates appear higher for the given period, for example Western Australia, 318 (2008) to 10,203 (2015).

Numbers of Students of Year 12 Chinese Courses Table 1.5 shows the number of students studying Year 12 Chinese in NSW over the same period with data for all years in between. Data is divided by Chinese course, for example Background Speakers (L1), Beginners, Continuers, Extension, and Heritage. It is at this level of the data that we see more clearly who the Chinese learners are. A focus on the higher numbers reveals background speakers (L1) are by far the largest cohort of Chinese language students. Looking again at the two largest jurisdictions, NSW numbers ranged between 655 and 1141 students, and for Victoria the numbers ranged from 1566 to 1879 students. These numbers are in stark contrast with 27 beginners and 102 continuers in NSW in 2015. It is of note that Victoria has long been the most successful state in Table 1.5  Number of students studying Year 12 Chinese in NSW and VIC State

Chinese language course

Number of students 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

NSW Background Speakers (L1) Beginners Continuers Extension Heritage VIC First language Second language Second language advanced Source: Orton (2016, p. 45)

1077 1141 963 756 689 655 679 32 42 27 41 52 54 27 85 120 101 64 67 84 102 31 37 31 13 18 26 24 N/A N/A N/A 90 94 121 127 – 1879 1801 1744 1566 1618 1920 – 952 941 917 970 972 840 – 352 410 440 481 478 514

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promoting and supporting the learning of Chinese for second language learners. This may be linked to their more mature 2013–2025 ‘Languages: Expanding your world’ plan. What is evident from these figures is that in the jurisdictions incorporating Australia’s largest two cities (Sydney and Melbourne), there has been consistently increasing demand for background speakers (L1) courses in secondary schools. This reflects demographic trends of higher concentrations of families claiming Chinese heritage who live in these two cities.

Comparisons between Languages Table 1.6 reports selected data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) showing proportional differences in enrolments between the top three Year 12 language courses (2006–2019). In 2006, 19.8% of all Year 12 language students chose to study Japanese. This was followed closely by Chinese (18.9%) and French (18.2%). These three languages remained in the top three over the reporting period and by 2019 Chinese ranked first at 21.9%. Bearing in mind the data reported in Table 1.5, it appears Chinese has grown in popularity with background speakers and heritage learners, whereas Japanese and French are the two most popular with second language learners. To investigate this further we turn to Table 1.7. It is logical to assume that high numbers of households migrating from Chinese-, Japanese-, and French-speaking countries would suggest a correlation with high numbers electing to continue their L1 language study. This appears only true in the Chinese case. With 55,969 households nominating Japanese as the language spoken at home and 70,872 households speaking French in 2016, there were still equally high proportions of Table 1.6  Proportion of Year 12 tertiary-recognised language enrolments by language, Australia 2006–2019 Language

2006a

2011a

2016a

2019

Japanese French Chinese

19.8 18.2 18.9

19.7 20.1 19.7

20.5 19.9 19.7

20.2 18.1 21.9

Source: ACARA (2020) denotes census year

a

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Table 1.7 Languages spoken at home (by household), Australia, 2011, 2016

Language Japanese French Chinese (Mandarin) Chinese (total)

2011a

2016a

43,691 55,969 57,739 70,872 336,410 596,713 651,327 927,944

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2017) denotes census year

a

students electing to study Japanese, French, and Chinese, while the number of Chinese-speaking households was close to 600,000, and almost one million if all Chinese dialects are counted. This further supports the case of Chinese teaching Chinese to the Chinese, a context in which intercultural challenge and development are less likely. Further investigation is required to confirm a causal relationship between Chinese household numbers and background speakers and heritage Chinese enrolment data. Other data absent from this discussion are proportions of heritage background teachers of French and Japanese currently teaching these languages. This would provide a more direct comparison of who is teaching who what for the three most popular foreign languages in Australian secondary schooling. In the case of whether CFL programmes are succeeding in attracting, retaining, and graduating proficient language users from a foreign background, the devil is in the details. What appears at first glance to be burgeoning growth in the numbers of Chinese language learners is in fact a demographically driven growth in heritage and L1 learners of Chinese from a growing migrant base. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those who are introduced to the Chinese language for the first time in primary school, or indeed at the beginning of secondary school, elect not to continue beyond the compulsory phase.

References Abdallah Pretceille, M., & Prat, F. (2001). La educación intercultural (No. 370.19341 A2). ACARA. (2020). Proportion of Year 12 tertiary-recognised language enrolments by language, Australia 2006–2019. https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/ national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/national-report-on-schooling-inaustralia-data-portal/year-12-subject-enrolments.

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Ardakani, M. M. (2015). A case study of primary school Persian heritage language learners in Australia (Doctoral dissertation, Macquarie University, Faculty of Human Sciences, Department of Education). Asia Education Foundation. (2013). Asia literacy teacher education roundtable. A discussion paper for teacher education: Towards an ‘Asia Capable’ school education workforce. https://www.asiaeducation.edu.au/docs/default-­source/Research-­ reports/asia_literacy_teacher_education_roundtable.pdf?sfvrsn=2 Atkinson, P. A. (2015). For ethnography. Sage: London. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017). 2016 Census: Multicultural, Media Release. https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/lookup/media%20release3 Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2016). Australian curriculum: Chinese. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-­10-­curriculum/ languages/chinese/ Ben-Peretz, M. (2011). Teacher knowledge: What is it? How do we uncover it? What are its implications for schooling? Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(1), 3–9. Bianco, J.  L. (1987). National policy on languages. Australian Government Publishing Service. Bird, A., & Osland, J.  S. (2005). Making sense of intercultural collaboration. International Studies of Management & Organization, 35(4), 115–132. Brewer, J. (2003). Ethnography. In R. L. Miller & J. D. Brewer (Eds.), The AZ of social research: A dictionary of key social science research concepts. Sage. Byram, M. (1997a). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Multilingual Matters. Byram, M. (1997b). ‘Cultural awareness’ as vocabulary learning. Language Learning Journal, 16(1), 51–57. Byram, M., & Wagner, M. (2018). Making a difference: Language teaching for intercultural and international dialogue. Foreign Language Annals, 51(1), 140–151. Camilleri, C. (1993). Les conditions structurelles de l’interculturel. Revue française de pédagogie, 43–50. Chambers, E. (2000). Applied ethnography. Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2, 851–869. Chen, M. J. (2002). Transcending paradox: The Chinese “middle way” perspective. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 19(2), 179–199. Clyne, M.  G. (2005). Australia’s language potential. University of New South Wales Press. Collins, L. (2017). Quality teaching in our schools. Scan, 36(4), 29–33. Commonwealth Advisory Committee. (1970). The teaching of Asian languages and cultures in Australia. Commonwealth of Australia. Crozet, C. (2008). Australia’s linguistic culture and its impact on languages education. Babel, 42(3), 19–24.

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Crozet, C. (2012). The core tenets of education in ancient India, inspirations for modern times. International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning, 7(3), 262–265. Crystal, D. (1997). Language: Medium, barrier, or Trojan horse. In Conference on cultural diplomacy at the crossroads: Cultural relations in Europe and the wider world. Wilton House (Vol. 26). Deardoff, D. K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence among US American teachers: Professional development factors that enhance competence. Intercultural Education, 19(3), 255–268. Department of Education. (2008). Quality teaching to support the NSW professional teaching standards. Dervin, F. (2011). A plea for change in research on intercultural discourses: A ‘liquid’ approach to the study of the acculturation of Chinese students. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 6(1), 37–52. Dervin, F., & Dirba, M. (2006). On liquid interculturality: Finnish and Latvian student teachers’ perceptions of intercultural competence (Suomensoveltavan kielitieteen yhdistyksen julkaisuja no. 64. Jyväskylä. s. 257–271). http://elektra.helsinki.fi/se/a/0781K0318/2006/onliquid.pdf Dervin, F., & Machart, R. (2017). Intercultural communication with China. Springer. Dervin, F., Moloney, R., & Simpson, A. (Eds.). (2020). Intercultural competence in the work of teachers: Confronting ideologies and practices. Routledge. Goatly, A. (2018). Lexicogrammar and ecolinguistics. In A. Fill & H. Penz (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of ecolinguistics (pp. 227–249). Routledge. Guilherme, M. M. D. (2000). Critical cultural awareness: The critical dimension in foreign culture education (Doctoral dissertation). Durham University. Hall, G. (2010). Exploring values in English Language Teaching: Teacher beliefs, reflection and practice. The Teacher Trainer Journal, 24(2), 13–16. Hammersley, M. (2018). What is ethnography? Can it survive? Should it? Ethnography and Education, 13(1), 1–17. Harbon, L., & Moloney, R. (Eds.). (2017). Language teachers’ stories from their professional knowledge landscapes. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Henry, K. (2016). Australia in the Asian century. Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 3(2), 132–139. Holliday, A. R. (2011). Intercultural communication and ideology. Sage. Holliday, A. (2013). Understanding intercultural communication. Routledge. Jin, T. (2014). Getting to know you: The development of intercultural competence as an essential element in learning Mandarin. London Review of Education, 12(1), 20–33. Jin, T. (2020). Interculturality in learning Mandarin Chinese in British universities. Routledge. Jin, T., & Dervin, F. (2017). Identifying and contextualising the key issues. In Interculturality in Chinese language education (pp. 1–22). Palgrave Macmillan.

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King, K. A. (2000). Language ideologies and heritage language education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 3(3), 167–184. Kohler, M. (2017). Review of languages education policies in Australia. Report commissioned by the Multicultural Education and Languages Committee (MELC). Adelaide: Government of South Australia. Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Harvard Business School Press. Kramsch, C. (2011). The symbolic dimensions of the intercultural. Language Teaching, 44(3), 354–367. Kramsch, C. (2014). Language and culture. AILA Review, 27(1), 30–55. Kramsch, C., & Zhang, L. (2018). The multilingual instructor. Oxford University Press. Leeman, J. (2015). Heritage language education and identity in the United States. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 35, 100–119. Leung, A. K. Y., Liou, S., Miron-Spektor, E., Koh, B., Chan, D., Eisenberg, R., & Schneider, I. (2018). Middle ground approach to paradox: Within-and between-culture examination of the creative benefits of paradoxical frames. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 114(3), 443. Liddicoat, A. (2004). Intercultural language teaching: Principles for practice (Doctoral dissertation). New Zealand Association of Language Teachers. Lien, D., Oh, C.  H., & Selmier, W.  T. (2012). Confucius institute effects on China’s trade and FDI: Isn’t it delightful when folks afar study Hanyu? International Review of Economics & Finance, 21(1), 147–155. Ma, W. (2014). East meets West in teacher preparation: Crossing Chinese and American borders. Teacher’s College Press. Makoni, B. (2018). Beyond country of birth: Heritage language learning and the discursive construction of identities of resistance. Heritage Language Journal, 15(1), 71–94. Masterson, M. (2018). Self-discovery through the experiential co-construction of life stories in the foreign language classroom. Journal of Experiential Education, 41(4), 341–355. Meighan, P. J. (2021). Decolonizing English: A proposal for implementing alternative ways of knowing and being in education. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 15(2), 77–83. Miller, J., Glassner, B., Holstein, J. A., Gubrium, J. F., & Wilkinson, S. (2020). Part II interviews and focus groups. Qualitative Research. Moloney, R. (2008). You just want to be like that: Teacher modelling and intercultural competence in young language learners. Babel, 42(3), 11–18. 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., & Xu, H. (2012). We are not teaching Chinese kids in Chinese context, we are teaching Australian kids: Mapping the beliefs of teachers of Chinese

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language in Australian schools. In Proceedings of the Fifth CLS International Conference CLaSIC, Kent Ridge, Singapore. Moloney, R., & Xu, H.  L. (Eds.). (2015). Exploring innovative pedagogy in the teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language (Vol. 15). Springer. Moloney, R., & Xu, H. L. (2016). Taking the initiative to innovate: Pedagogies for Chinese as a foreign language. In Exploring innovative pedagogy in the teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language (pp. 1–17). Springer. Moore, J. (2000). Placing home in context. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 20(3), 207–217. NESA. (2017). Languages in Kindergarten to Year 10. https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-­10/learning-­areas/languages NSW Department of Education and Training. (2003). Quality teaching in NSW schools: Discussion paper, Professional Support and Curriculum Directorate. 1–16. Orton, J. (2008). Chinese language education in Australian schools. Melbourne: University of Melbourne. Orton, J. (2011). Educating Chinese language teachers—Some fundamentals. In Teaching and learning Chinese in global contexts: CFL worldwide (pp. 151–164). Continuum. Orton, J. (2016). Building Chinese language capacity in Australia. The Australia-­ China Relations Institute (ACRI). Oubibi, M., Zhao, W., Wang, Y., Zhou, Y., Jiang, Q., Li, Y., et al. (2022). Advances in research on technological, pedagogical, didactical, and social competencies of preservice TCFL teachers. Sustainability, 14(4), 2045. Schwandt, T. A. (2000). Further diagnostic thoughts on what ails evaluation practice. American Journal of Evaluation, 21(2), 225–229. Scrimgeour, A. (2014). Dealing with ‘Chinese Fever’: The challenge of Chinese teaching in the Australian classroom. In Dynamic ecologies (pp.  151–167). Springer. Silverman, D. (Ed.). (2020). Qualitative research. Sage. Slaughter, Y. (2011). Bringing Asia to the home front: The Australian experience of Asian language education through national policy. In Uniformity and diversity in language policy (pp. 157–174). Multilingual Matters. Starr, D. (2009). Chinese language education in Europe: The Confucius Institutes. European Journal of Education, 44(1), 65–82. Van Deusen-Scholl, N. (2003). Toward a definition of heritage language: Sociopolitical and pedagogical considerations. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(3), 211–230. Vidich, A. J., & Lyman, S. M. (2000). Qualitative methods: Their history in sociology and anthropology. In Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 37–84). Sage.

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Wang, D. (2016). Learning or becoming: Ideology and national identity in textbooks for international learners of Chinese. Cogent Education, 3(1), 1140361. 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), 116–135. Wilson, P., & Scrimgeour, A. (2009). International Curriculum for Chinese Language Education [Review.]. Babel, 43(2), 35–37. Woods, P. (1985). Sociology, ethnography and teacher practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 1(1), 53–62. Yang, L. (2018). Pragmatics learning and teaching in L2 Chinese. In The Routledge handbook of Chinese second language acquisition (pp. 261–278). Routledge. Yang, N., & Tochon, F. V. (2022). Identity formation, reformation, and development of teachers of Chinese in a community-based heritage language school. Teachers and Teaching, 28(1), 78–101. Zheng, B. (2019). Translanguaging in a Chinese immersion classroom: An ecological examination of instructional discourses. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1080/1367005 0.2018.1561642

CHAPTER 2

Intercultural Competence as a Goal of Language Learning: What Are Chinese Teachers Doing with Culture?

Abstract  In intercultural studies it is common to move from an approach that questions ‘what is culture?’ to ‘what do we do with culture’ (Sarangi, Intercultural or not? Beyond celebration of cultural differences in miscommunication analysis. Pragmatics, 4(3), 409–427, 1994). By association, in Chinese language teaching, how culture is understood and used by teachers to explain people’s thoughts and speech acts (Dervin, 2012) is pivotal to the development of intercultural competence in learners. Cultural essentialism, the preclusion of cultural attributes from flowing between societies (Holliday, Understanding intercultural communication. Routledge, 2013) as if cultures are distinct and separate from each other, creates expectations as to behavioural patterns often linked to national culture or nationality. This chapter addresses the nature and extent to which four interviewees and a wider surveyed group of Chinese language teachers in Australia exhibit or lack intercultural competence and how this might influence their approach to language teaching and learning. It describes what they do with culture. Keywords  Essentialism • Intercultural competence • Culture in language teaching • Teacher voices

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Smith, Teacher Voices in Chinese Language Teaching, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89213-5_2

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This chapter discusses an issue that has generated much debate between language teachers and between language teaching researchers for decades, namely, the role of ‘culture’ in language teaching. It draws on primary data from teacher interviews (n=4) and a broader survey of teachers (n=68). Fundamentally, it answers the question, ‘What are Chinese teachers doing with culture?’

The Survey Appendix A contains the survey used to investigate teacher beliefs about the role of culture in language teaching. In the first instance (Question 1 of the survey), teachers were asked to indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement with various statements defining ‘culture’. The polysemic nature of the term ‘culture’ has been the most salient factor in confusion over how to understand and implement intercultural language teaching (Dervin, 2011). Question 2 of the survey asks teachers to indicate their beliefs about language learning. Beliefs about the process of language acquisition is one factor determining expectations teachers hold for their students. These expectations will influence teacher pedagogical choices. Question 3 of the survey asks teachers to indicate their beliefs about the relationship between language and culture. For decades, the literature has affirmed the close connection between language and culture (Kramsch, 2014). Language gives expression to culture, and every utterance may be deemed a cultural act. There is evidence to suggest that, for many language teachers, linguistic knowledge and cultural knowledge are two separate bodies of knowledge, and this is still manifest in contemporary teaching materials and textbooks (Smith, 2014). Question 4 of the survey asks teachers to indicate their beliefs about teaching. What teachers believe about the teaching process will have a direct impact on the many choices they make on a daily basis, both in the classroom and in the staff room, as they plan lessons and develop new teaching materials. Teacher identity is shaped by cultural, historical, and social structures (Lasky, 2005), and the sum of these influences make up each unique individual who steps into the classroom on a daily basis to teach. Question 5  in the survey asked teachers to indicate their beliefs about culture teaching. It has been long understood that language teaching involves the teaching and learning of culture. Moran and Lu (2001) use the metaphor of the elephant and the blind men to describe the complex situation surrounding

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language and culture teaching. Just as the six blind men touch each part of the elephant and guess six different things, expressing an aspect of truth in each guess, culture in language teaching is also described from varying viewpoints, each stating the truth in part, yet never the whole. Question 5 thus focuses on how language teachers perceive culture teaching and the application of cultural knowledge as teachers of Chinese in Australian schools. Question 6 in the survey asked teachers to indicate their beliefs about cultural values. It acknowledges a lot of commentary today about values changing in China (Xu & Hamamura, 2014), with changing socioeconomic status and a burgeoning middle class. In addition it acknowledges the universal demographic referencing system that serves to distinguish what might be referred to as generational difference in Australia. Whereas Australians might use labels such as ‘baby boomers’, ‘Generation X, Generation Y’, and ‘Millennials’, categories which vary in time length, modern-day Chinese refer to decades of difference—他是八 零后 (born in the 1980s), 九零后 (born in the 1990s), 零零后 (born after 2000). This indicates that in addition to the acceleration of economic change, cultural change is also accelerating. A quick search of these phrases in Chinese reveals articles such as‘谈谈九零后的班级管理—做好迎接零零 后的准备’. ‘A discussion on how to manage students born in the 90s— preparing for the 2000s generation’ (Ruan, 2015). Statements making up this survey question are based largely on the researcher’s experience living in China, as well as several prominent Confucian teachings that have endured as ‘Chinese values’. It was expected that some polarisation may take place, in that some of the teacher participants would retain a more traditional position than others. The survey data also provided a comparison with the four interview participants who were asked to reflect on similar themes. Survey Question 1 found that the highest level of agreement (strongly agree + agree) was achieved on item 5, ‘Culture is long-established customs and traditions of a specific group of people. (eg) festivals, marriage customs, funeral customs, eating habits, music and dance traditions’, at 94% agreement. Teachers’ response on this item suggests a fixed notion of Chinese culture continuous over centuries. Following closely behind this was item 4, ‘Culture is all the ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted to the next generation’, at 93% agreement. This response corresponds with a Geertzian (1973) view that culture is a dynamic concept in that its elements are identifiable as creating unique contexts.

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In relation to language learning, teachers surveyed generally agreed that language learning is achievable for most students and that adults learn differently from children. This indicates confidence in the field and an awareness that second language acquisition requires different strategies. A deliberately provocative statement in the survey, ‘some parts of language have no cultural meaning’, generated disparate results with two-thirds of teachers agreeing with the statement. This suggests a significant proportion of teachers may be unconvinced about the integrated nature of language and culture and its potential for informing better teaching practice. This aligns with the eclectic approach (Rivers, 2018; Morain, 1983) to language and culture teaching involving random references to culture when convenient. The integrated approach to culture learning occurs when culture is explicitly incorporated into the curriculum (Stern & Allen, 1992), which aligns more closely with the one-third who hold the view that all language has cultural meaning. Further to this, teachers of Chinese agree that language carries culture and that learning a new language involves learning a new culture. When asked whether some languages have more culture than others, over 70% agreed, and when a focus was placed on Mandarin vs English, over half of those surveyed agreed Mandarin has more culture. This is interesting because the common tongue, 普通话 pǔtōnghuà, as an ‘artificially constructed hybrid form, or a linguistic patchwork of compromises based upon expediency, history and politics’ (Moser, 2016, p. 27), cannot ever hope to exclusively represent Chinese culture. In fact, one of the teachers interviewed clearly indicated that it is when she speaks Cantonese with her friends that her true culture is being expressed, even though her professional identity is ‘Mandarin teacher’. Reflection on the role of teaching and teacher identity also informs this discussion because when teachers make statements about themselves and their roles, they are expressing personal beliefs that can reveal degrees of intercultural competence. For instance, strong overall agreement that the teacher is the ‘China expert’ in the classroom and/or that the textbook is a valuable resource would work against the establishment of teacher-­ student co-construction of knowledge and collaboration in meaning making, which are characteristics of increasing intercultural competence. Much has been written about the ‘necessary’ shift from teacher-­centredness to student-centredness when a Chinese teacher, who has been educated in China, steps into the constructivist Australian classroom to teach (Orton, 2008, 2016; Moloney, 2013; Wang et al., 2013; Moloney & Xu, 2015; Moloney & Wang, 2016; Singh et al., 2014). Yet, this question may still

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be problematic for teachers, given their backgrounds in teacher-centred classrooms when they were students in China. A study looking at student views of teacher-centredness and student-centredness reveals both can exist together (Elen et al., 2007). Findings from Elen et al. (2007) suggest that in the minds of students, the two methods may coexist independent of each other. In the light of this, therefore, a finding that 66% of teachers believe they are the ‘China experts’ in their classrooms necessitates a more cautious interpretation of the data. The next section in the survey, beliefs about culture teaching, hones in on what Chinese language teachers believe about the possibility of intercultural language teaching. Listed below are the statements put to participants in Question 5 of the survey. They were asked to what extent they agree or disagree. 1. Chinese culture is difficult to define for my students. 2. I allow my students to discover what Chinese culture is as they learn the language. 3. Chinese culture should be explained by the teacher. 4. All Chinese language learning textbooks should have sections about Chinese culture. 5. Learning about culture takes up too much time in the curriculum. 6. Chinese culture is constantly changing. 7. Native speakers of Mandarin have an advantage when teaching because they know the culture. 8. Visiting China is the best way to learn about Chinese culture. 9. It is difficult for non-Chinese background students to understand Chinese culture. 10. It is difficult for Chinese heritage students to understand Chinese culture. Six of the statements attracted high levels of agreement—namely, Statements 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8. Over 90% of teachers indicated they allow their students to discover what Chinese culture is as they learn the language. This suggests a constructivist approach to culture teaching. However, in the next statement a contradiction is revealed in that over almost 70% of respondents agreed that Chinese culture should be explained by the teacher. Whether or not these two beliefs are mutually exclusive, or whether they can exist side-by-side, is untested, yet these results point to a possible degree of duplicity in the minds of respondents. There was also

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strong support (over 80%) for the necessity for all Chinese language textbooks to have sections about Chinese culture, and this also points away from a constructivist pedagogy and towards one which relies on fixed content sources, such as textbooks. Statement 7, ‘native speakers of Mandarin have an advantage when teaching because they know the culture’, was also well supported, as two-thirds of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed. Statement 6, ‘Chinese culture is constantly changing’, also drew a high level of agreement, and this raises further questions as to what respondents really believe about the teaching of culture. If, on the one hand, they support the use of textbooks and culture explanations from teachers who have, on the most part, been away from Mainland China for many years, and on the other, they acknowledge the changing nature of Chinese culture, then there is an impasse in relation to who is authorised to teach culture and how it is learned. Statement 8, ‘Visiting China is the best way to learn about Chinese culture’, supported by over 78% of respondents, reveals yet another factor complicating this issue. Cultural immersion is attractive in many ways, yet out of reach for most Chinese teachers because of the costs and complexities involved in international travel with students. Generally, cultural immersion by visiting Mainland China is only pursued by elite private schools and some government schools in high socioeconomic areas. The other alternative, attempted by some teachers in the larger cities around Australia, is day trips to Chinatown or associated cultural sites, such as the Chinese gardens in Darling Harbour, Sydney, or perhaps an Asian art exhibition at a large gallery. Here we see a default towards visible culture where products and relics are viewed and appreciated. This lies in stark contrast to those students who experience homestays in China and need to deal with intercultural communication challenges on a daily basis for an intense period of time. It appears from these results that teachers of Chinese in Australian schools are confused about (a) what view of ‘culture’ should be taken, (b) what elements of Chinese culture should be presented or taught to students, and (c) how they are to be presented. There were two statements that showed almost equal splits between respondents. Statement 1, ‘Chinese culture is difficult to define for my students’, attracted close to a 50–50 response. About 53% disagreed it is difficult and 47% agreed. This result is further elaborated upon below as Statements 9 and 10 focused on who the students are. Statement 9, ‘It is difficult for non-Chinese background students to understand Chinese culture’, showed 44% of respondents believe that if their learners originate

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from backgrounds other than China or a Chinese family, it will be harder for them to comprehend Chinese culture. This may have direct implications for the expectations teachers have of their students, and the subsequent pedagogic choices made by each teacher with this belief. Statement 10, ‘It is difficult for Chinese heritage students to understand Chinese culture’, by contrast, confirms a difference in expectations when the subjects are Chinese heritage learners. Less than 30% of all respondents believed it is difficult for these students to understand Chinese culture. Finally, Statement 5, ‘Learning about culture takes up too much time in the curriculum’, also attracted an overall negative response. Over 70% of respondents believed culture learning has a place in the curriculum, in whatever way they currently view ‘culture learning’. This represents an acknowledgement of the importance of culture in language learning, but it says nothing about the development of intercultural competences. There was some evidence of intercultural understanding in that teachers acknowledged that Chinese culture is not fixed or static, but changing. This implies they may conceive ‘culture’ as inclusive of changing lifestyles, pop culture, and generational changes. There was, however, a contradiction between responses to Statements 2 and 3. Whereas responses to Statement 3 align with feelings of teacher dominance expressed in beliefs about teaching, teachers’ positive responses to the word ‘discover’ in Statement 2 affirmed positive value afforded to a constructivist pedagogy. The final section of the survey revealed some interesting shifts in values. It was expected that respondents would strongly agree that respecting older people and visiting elderly relatives is important, and they did. It was, however, unexpected that responses would be split on the need to reject compliments and that family is more important than friends. This data confirms a shift in values within China, in the Chinese diaspora, and in Australian society, as discussed by various scholars (Faure & Fang, 2008; Gray et al., 2015; Kulich & Zhang, 2010).

Culture in Language Pedagogy Attempts to identify culture in the language classroom can lead in two directions, one that transfers knowledge of visible cultural icons such as cuisines, clothing, and dance styles, or one that seeks to explain why people communicate the way they do. The latter builds significance into the teaching and learning experience because it builds intercultural competence (Deardorff, 2011). Early attempts to describe intercultural

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competence were seen in the 1970s when Triandis wrote about effective intercultural behaviour as an ability to influence the behaviour of a culturally different other by understanding the causes of their behaviour and rewarding them (in Dinges, 1983, p. 179). Adler (1975) contributes to this with his conceptualisation of the ‘multicultural man’. He idealised the ultimate intercultural human as one who maintains no clear boundaries between himself and other personal and cultural contexts, and his values, attitudes, and beliefs are constantly being reformed (Dinges, 1983, p. 180). Kramsch (1993, p.  47) argued that, ‘culture is created and enacted through the dialogue between students and between teachers and students. Through this dialogue, participants not only replicate a given context of culture, but, because it takes place in a foreign language, it also has the potential of shaping a new culture’. Her criticism of many language teachers was that there was an implicit and pervasive resistance to go beyond linguistic training and anecdotal transmission of cultural facts. In English language teaching around the world in the 1990s, national culture was still seen as significant and students of English as a foreign language were explicitly taught the cultural content associated with English-­ speaking countries. Language as discourse then challenged this approach to language teaching. It redefined the act of teaching and the role of teachers. It also confronted the learner with questions about what he or she is doing, and can do, when ‘learning’ a foreign language. Crawford-Lange and Lange (1984), Kramsch (1993), and Byram (1989) agree with Paige et al.’s (2000) definition of culture learning in that it depends upon three necessary processes: (a) the students’ examination of their own culture, (b) understanding the relationship between culture and language, and (c) learning how to analyse and compare cultures. Meta-awareness and cross-cultural comparison lie at the heart of such a culture pedagogy (Paige et  al., 2000). In this however, there is a clear omission of the teacher and his/her own beliefs about culture, as well as the teacher’s status or legitimacy as a language instructor. Many researchers (Calafato, 2019; Leonard, 2019; Lee & Kim, 2021; Zhang & Zhang, 2018) have argued the debate, for instance, of the native-speaker-teacher, who may be an expert language user, versus the L2 language teacher, who may have more empathy with learners about the process of second language/culture acquisition. Kramsch and Zhang (2018) reject this binary view of language teachers and promote the idea of the multilingual instructor. Initially, they expose

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the fallacy of the native-speaker-teacher in English language teaching by reminding us that in the eyes of applied linguistics researchers, English now belongs to everyone and that there should be no privileging of the English native speaker (Kramsch & Zhang, 2018, p. 18). They then build an argument for shifting the discourse of foreign language teachers from native/non-native and multicultural/intercultural to multilingual instructors. Under this way of thinking language becomes a resource rather than a cultural heritage item. This is an important distinction when it comes to investigating Chinese teacher beliefs about the status of the Chinese language. Before ‘listening’ directly to the voices of Chinese teachers, I wish to turn attention to some Chinese language research literature on the topic of foreign language learning. Given this book reflects on the beliefs and practices of CFL teachers in Australian classrooms, most of whom claim Chinese heritage, it essentially represents an intercultural initiative. I therefore deem it important to consider research from Chinese perspectives. Following, I include some Chinese research literature to broaden and enrich the discussion. We know that many teachers of Chinese language in Australia are China-educated (Orton, 2008) and, like all teachers, are greatly influenced by their own early education (Richards et al., 2001). The pervading view of culture teaching in China is framed in terms of exchange, cooperation, and mutual understanding. Ruan (2015), in a paper entitled, ‘On Culture Diversity in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language’, talks in these terms as if promoting mutual respect and recognition. 。。。促进不同文化之间的 交流与合作,实现不同民族之间的相互理解、 相互 尊重和相互认同. (2015, p. 82) [translation: promote exchanges between different cultures, and mutual understanding among peoples, mutual respect and mutual recognition.]

The aim, apart from teaching foreigners to speak and write Chinese, is to guide them to a more profound understanding of Chinese culture. They will do this, Ruan (2015) says, by learning to respect differences, appreciate pluralism, and develop tolerance. This will promote success in the new era of globalisation:

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。。。主动地引导他们更多了解 中华文明的博大精深,同时鼓励他们开展 相互之间的文化交流与沟通,使外国学生能通过国际汉 语教学这样一个多 元文化的互动平台,真正学会 尊重差异、欣赏和包容多元文化,成为能够主 动适 应、自觉引导全球化时代人类生活的佼佼者. (p. 82) [translation: actively guide them to learn more about the profound Chinese civilisation while encouraging them to carry out cultural exchanges and communication between each other, so that foreign students through international Chinese teaching as an interactive platform of multiculturalism can truly learn to respect differences and appreciate and tolerate cultural pluralism, and become able to take the initiative to adapt to, and consciously lead in the era of globalisation.)

This suggests a monolithic ‘difference-focused’ cultural orientation, from which many of Australia’s Chinese language teachers originate. Further, when talking about the origins of culture, Ruan (2015) speaks of the cultural tradition of a nation being influenced by other national cultural traditions as a result of historical regional contact. In his writings he cites Japan’s influence over China and Europe’s influence in North America. 因而要把握一个民族的文化传统,就必须了 解该民族文化传统生成的文化 背景. (p. 83) [translation: thus, to grasp the cultural tradition of a nation, we must understand the generation of cultural backgrounds by national cultural traditions.]

This seems to be at odds with the notion of ‘liquid interculturality’ posed by Dervin and Dirba (2006) and suggests an approach akin to the ‘respected Other’, which focuses on otherness rather than togetherness in interactions. It is acknowledged (Zhang et al., 2009) that teachers and learners all come with a bias set by their own cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and this creates a challenge for teachers of Chinese as a foreign language. 某些情况下,当教师试图去解释汉语特殊性时,海外学 生因为其母语文化自 我中心论和思维定势,会自然地进行某种文化过滤,而构成理解障碍—这是 汉语教学在跨文化传播中的真正困难. (2009, p. 112)

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[translation: In some cases, when the teacher tries to explain the particularity of Chinese to overseas students, because of their native cultural self-­ centred mindset, there will naturally be some kind of cultural filter, resulting in an obstacle to understanding—this is the real difficulty in Chinese language teaching in an effort to develop cross-cultural communication.]

The concept of a cultural filter is understood negatively as a significant barrier to language learning, both for the Chinese teacher and for the learner. This focus on problems in the learner is contrary to the constructivist approach in which teachers in the West accept the challenge to facilitate language-based interaction in students. The core idea of ‘intercultural’ is to critically examine our ‘barriers’ or cultural biases and make them visible. This may be challenging for China-educated Chinese teachers. More recently, a debate long contested in fields such as EFL has become common in Chinese. Whether the Chinese language should be taught in Chinese, or with judicious use of English as a mediation tool (Wang, 2013), is still a topic of conjecture. This may well have implications for the teaching of culture in Chinese classes. Wang’s suggestion that teachers of Chinese need to become bilingual in English and Chinese to meet the needs of students in increasingly globalised contexts also hints at a need for intercultural competence among Chinese teachers. Code-switching/ translanguaging (Wang, 2018) is still, however, a sensitive issue in China, and many older teachers are protective of their stance against being ‘假洋 鬼子’ (jiǎ yángguı ̌zi), or Chinese who use both Mandarin and English in the same sentence and appear as fake foreigners. Hanban (Office of Chinese Language Council International), representing the Chinese government as caretaker and promoter of Chinese language around the world, recently reviewed its policy relating to the competency expected of its Chinese teachers. 新《标准》中除了进一 步细化对汉语教学和中华文化传播能力的要求以 外,还强调了跨文化交际能力,具体是指“了解世 界主要文化;尊重不同文化, 具有多元文化意识; 能自觉比较中外文化的主要异同,并应用于教学实 践; 了解跨文化交际的基本原则和策略;掌握跨文 化交际技巧,能有效解决跨文 化交际中遇到的问 题;能使用赴任国语言或英语进行交际和教学. (Tang, 2015, p. 96) [translation: the new ‘standard’, in addition to the further refinement of the ability to carry out Chinese language teaching and the capacity for Chinese cultural transmission, is to further emphasise cross-cultural communication

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ability, specifically referring to ‘understanding the major world culture; respecting different cultures, multicultural awareness; consciously comparing similarities and differences between Chinese and foreign cultures, and applying this to teaching practice; to understand the basic principles of, and strategies for, cross-cultural communication; and mastering cross-cultural communication skills; the ability to effectively address cross-cultural communication problems encountered and the ability to use any language or English for communication and teaching.’]

Hence, there appears to be recognition at the ministry level in China that teachers’ knowledge and skills need to be enhanced for more successful Chinese teaching. In addition, there are references to concepts such as intercultural sensitivity in teaching, which indicates Chinese scholars are attempting to address links between self-awareness and teaching success. Peng (2007) states: 跨文化敏感度的高低直接影响着跨文化交际 能力的高低 [translation: ‘Cross-cultural Sensitivity directly affects the level of cross-­ cultural communicative competence’.]

This brief review indicates there is a prevailing assumption of a unified or monolithic China, as portrayed in the media and other literature. However, participants in Jin’s (2014) study of Chinese students in the UK stated emphatically that the word ‘Chinese’ can be used in many ways and for particular purposes. For instance, one student asserted, ‘I think the word ‘Chinese’ means absolutely nothing. Coz China is such a huge place. It’s like saying ‘western people’. I find that word completely useless. You need to be more specific’ (2014, p. 29). Another student argued, ‘I think the idea of a unified China exists in the media and exists in books. But I don’t think it exists in real life’ (2014, p. 29). These are not necessarily political statements, but commentary on culture diversity in China, and that real differences exist at a level smaller than that of nation or province—indeed at district and village levels. From this, we can only conclude that China is ‘made up of cultures’ with their variant values, customs, languages, cuisines, and so on. Implications, then, for the teaching of Chinese are thus more complex than currently thought. Indeed, Jin (2017) argues strongly for avoiding the focus on differences between ‘cultures’ in Chinese language learning. She cites Quist (2013) and Risager

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(2007) as proponents of a transnational or intercultural teaching of Chinese, treating it for the first time as a world language. In addition, from Jin’s (2017) perspective, the word ‘culture’ has become more and more polysemic and elastic. This unreliability of meaning has meant that current researchers are now positioning their studies in the everyday lives of individuals, and they are studying peoples’ intercultural encounters. In line with this, Moloney and Xu (2018) found that effective Chinese pedagogy is best aligned with local educational models and standards, as well as local students’ needs. This is why we should listen to the voices of individual teachers.

Teacher Voices Wang (2013) reported that the individual teacher’s voice is largely absent in current research on Chinese language teacher education programmes in both China and elsewhere. Therefore, it is important for us to ‘listen’ to some of the voices of those who work as Chinese language teachers. The four teachers who were interviewed for this book (Teachers ‘Jiang’, ‘Chen’, ‘Song’, and ‘Fan’) participated in semi-structured interviews that took place within their school environments. They were asked about culture and how it informs language teaching and learning (see Appendix B for interview questions). In their interviews each teacher echoed aspects of visible culture (Katan, 2018). They did this by attributing culture to ‘common language’, ‘superficial things like the way people dress, traditional festivals’, ‘living together for a really long time’, ‘food, clothing, celebration’, and ‘living style’. Yet, two of the four interviewed also referred to aspects of deep culture as ‘what people believe’, ‘mentally thinking’ (how they think), ‘people-to-people relationships … how to value some aspects in life and society’. Commonly held values cited here were humility, moderation, respect, and a hard work ethic. It may not be the case that these understandings of deep culture exist only in the minds of a minority of teachers of Chinese, but it is common for experiences of deep culture to be absent from the Chinese language classroom. Many teachers are still content to teach aspects of visible culture that have been ratified as teaching points in state curricula and textbooks, as well as enshrined in the discourses of their own communities of practice. It is common for students to learn about the Spring Festival, and particularly what people eat, what people say to each other, and what gifts

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might be exchanged. Conveniently, there is a significant Chinese cultural festival in Terms 1, 2, and 3 every year. For example, in Term 1 there is Spring Festival, the first day of the lunar new year, when people gather for a family reunion, eat dumplings, wear red, give red envelopes containing cash to younger family members, let off fireworks, and watch the New Year Gala TV programme together. In Term 2, on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, Chinese people celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, which includes watching or participating in dragon boat races and eating zongzi (sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves). In Term 3, on the fifth day of the eighth month, Chinese people celebrate the mid-Autumn Festival, which involves eating moon cakes, having a family meal together, and listening to the story of Chang E.  This schedule of festivals allows teachers to plan hands-on activities to enthuse students, give them a break from reading and writing practice, and enhance their appreciation of Chinese culture. This convenience in the calendar is one of the reasons why manifestations of visible culture dominate the landscape of Chinese language teaching. Evidence from teacher interviews reveals that intercultural understanding, as promoted by the Australian curriculum and Chinese language syllabus, seems to be limited to a presentation of foreign practices and cultural icons. When asked about what aspects of Chinese culture students need to learn in their first two years of study, Teacher Chen listed examples of visible culture such as festivals and dumplings. Chen: “I think the Chinese festival, it will be important for them to learn. Like Chinese New Years. I think a lot of my students like dumplings”.

When asked about her awareness of intercultural understanding in the Australian curriculum, she admitted she was unaware but offered a guess that it might be about addressing local Chinese people politely. Chen: “The interculture? I haven’t …. I think it’s important for them to learn the culture, definitely. To understand, not only language, but also understand the culture. because when they go to China, they need to know when they address people. And the way to talk, you know not offend. Different culture it’s very important”.

Teacher Jiang was also unaware of the Australian curriculum ‘intercultural understanding’ general capability.

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Jiang: “The intercultural, I guess they talk about background speaker syllabus have it, Heritage syllabus have it, and when we teach them, you encourage them to understand the local culture. And for the student here, the Australian people, the student, you need them to know more, about the …. It’s a foreign language, you need to know that country’s culture at least. So this why they automatically become international”.

Teacher Fan communicated she experiences difficulty in this area of intercultural teaching and limited her explanation to comparison of cultures. Fan: “Intercultural, that part is hard to teach. It’s hard to build into a unit of work … Heritage (learners) particularly, they need to know a bit of that. We actually have an issue to compare in Stage 6 (Grades 11–12). They learned it already in Stage 5 (Grades 9–10)—to compare cultures”.

This comparison of cultures, which often merely juxtaposes two essentialist descriptions of ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ cultures or ‘Australian’ and ‘Chinese’ cultures, falls short of ‘intercultural understanding’, as expressed in the Australian curriculum and contemporary literature on intercultural language teaching. Teacher Song was more fully aware of the syllabus requirements to develop intercultural understanding in her students. She jokingly made reference to the administrative requirement to quote such references in her written teaching programmes, but then was able to elaborate on the importance of such understandings. Song: “The two main points are moving between cultures, and the next one is making linguistic connections. I would say they are both very important. Personally I would making linguistic connections is not easy outcomes to teach, but it’s a very important one, because that will really help them to continue their learning in the future. So simple things, how I point out that’s the radical, the 部首, as long as they understanding the meaning of the部首, then that really helps them to learn new hanzi in the future. Now, all of my students easy to point out, when I show them 游泳, they remember that very well. 因为都是有水字旁. 三点水 (because they all have the water radical) 都有三点水-很容易记 (because they all have the water radical, they’re easy to remember).”

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Here Teacher Song correctly identifies ‘moving between cultures’ and ‘making linguistic connections’ from the syllabus and provides a concrete example of how she develops it in students. Consistent with her heightened awareness of intercultural understanding, Teacher Song avoided prioritising visible culture as essential learning in the beginning years of Chinese study. Song: “Depends on the level of the students, how fast they progress. They should know something about Chinese family relationship. Because that’s something quite profound in Chinese culture …. Family relationships. And the other one is how you should address someone. Say the way you address older people or teachers, or somebody to show respect. The way to address them in Chinese culture is very different from what we do in English culture”.

This directly reflects her statements above about the facilitation of moving between cultures and making linguistic connections. The over-promotion of visible culture is further facilitated in classrooms by the nature and design of teaching materials currently used in schools. Textbooks for learning Chinese almost universally contain ‘culture spots’ (Smith, 2014), which are chapter sections highlighting culture in metaphors such as festivals, food customs, zodiac systems, and other such iconography. Even when teachers purposefully include other teaching resources, such as ICT-based materials, these representations of culture remain the dominant index of how ‘culture’ is purposefully integrated into Chinese language teaching programmes. Given how prescriptive textbooks can be in mirroring the syllabus, and teachers of Chinese report a confidence in ‘following the book’, then culture as festival, as custom, and as icon, pervades the culture learning space. Hence, after Wenger (1998), culture has been reified as items of knowledge to be learned, rather than as experiences from which participation can lead to value development. Culture learning is not only narrowly defined by teachers, but opportunities for the teachers’ own personal cultural knowledge to impact students’ language learning are tacitly avoided. Whereas 85% of teachers surveyed agreed that values common in China should be taught to students learning Chinese, this is usually manifested in the classroom as an enacted heightened respect for the teacher. So, even though many opportunities exist for linguistic development linked to intercultural understandings, the four teachers admitted that the most that is often achieved is a Chinese greeting at the beginning of each lesson followed by a similar

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farewell at the end. Teachers Song and Fan reported that students do not use Mandarin phrases to show intercultural understanding because, ‘I didn’t teach them that’ or that ‘It would appear ridiculous’. In these two statements rest two significant barriers to intercultural development in students of Chinese language. ‘I didn’t teach them that’ assumes firstly that it is the teacher’s role to instruct culture and second that students perform language utterances as linguistic mouthpieces alone. That is, they do not need to appreciate nor internalise the ‘why’ of language. ‘It would appear ridiculous’ is both essentialist and prohibitive in nature. It is essentialist because it asserts that only people with ‘Chinese faces’ should utter certain phrases in Mandarin and prohibitive because it defines the teacher as the gatekeeper of the language. Teacher Fan argued that saying ‘哪里’ (where?), in response to a compliment (i.e. declining the compliment) in Mandarin, is ridiculous for an Anglo-Saxon background learner of Mandarin. Instead, she reported encouraging students to say ‘谢谢’ (thank you) because it is a more appropriately Western cultural response (i.e. accepting the compliment). Fan appeared to be reflecting on her own experience as a migrant to Australia, as she recalled trying to ‘sound Australian’ by using phrases such as ‘fair dinkum mate’ and remembers being laughed at. This pedagogic choice may work to hinder students from decentring themselves from their own politeness norms to appreciate how others give and receive compliments in Chinese. It removes the opportunity for learners to participate in mutual understanding and living in the world (Wenger, 1998) of first language (L1) Chinese speakers.

On Being a ‘Native Speaker’ Whether L1 Chinese teachers are in a different position to teachers who have learned Chinese as a second language when teaching culture was another idea put to survey respondents. When asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed with, ‘Native Mandarin speakers have an advantage when teaching because they already know the culture’, 69% agreed. Agreement with this statement may be an indicator of essentialism, wherein Chinese teachers of Chinese (us) are better placed to teach the language and its culture than second language speakers (them). Teacher Song indicated that being a native speaker of Chinese is a huge advantage when it comes to teaching the language in Australia. When asked to reflect upon a title commonly used in Mandarin today, Teacher Fan stated emphatically that ‘only native speakers know how to use ‘师傅’ (shı ̄fù)’.

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She also expressed great confidence in her ability to explain Chinese culture to her students, and she attributed this directly to her Chinese heritage and her competency in English. Interestingly, later in the interview Teacher Fan admitted new slang has appeared since she left China, and this has led to the employment of a younger language teaching assistant, who is called upon to explain new slang such as ‘吐槽’ (tǔcáo). For Teacher Jiang, ‘native Chinese’, ‘correct Chinese’, and ‘authentic Chinese’ were all synonymous with each other.

Caught Between Two Worlds It is evident from those surveyed and interviewed, who almost entirely originate from mainland China, that teachers are caught between two worlds: one in which they identify as teachers of heritage learners serving a large Australian Chinese diaspora, and the other in which they teach Chinese as a foreign language to second language learners. It is my assertion that they teach in different ways and have different expectations of the two groups. Differentiation, an established pedagogical tool, aims at increasing inclusion of diverse learners. It is an equitable response to an awareness of diverse learning needs in Australian classrooms and seeks to bridge gaps in access to quality teaching and learning experiences. It could be argued that Chinese language pedagogy that is diversified for heritage and ‘local’ learners is a form of differentiation. However, given the perpetuation of a heritage-local binary where heritage learners are expected and privileged to learn more, there is no foreseeable way that Chinese as a foreign language programme will grow and flourish in Australian schools. In short, what can be inferred about the intercultural competence of CFL teachers, using criteria drawn from the synthesis of intercultural competences (see Table 1.1 in Chap. 1), is that they lack a capacity to decentre themselves from their own culture, identifying closely with the Chinese diaspora, and they are likely to feel more comfortable serving this group’s language and culture needs. They lean towards viewing culture as a static representation of a people group, rather than through individual discourses (such as their own and those of their colleagues). They also appear to support rather than reject essentialism, as they admit to teaching Chinese language and culture differently to the two groups of learners. The implications of this are that learning for second language learners may be limited to some basic expectations of linguistic knowledge and an appreciation of visible culture. Teachers of Chinese in Australian schools

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stand between two essentialised groups of learners. In many classrooms they pivot from one group to the other as they teach.

A Way to Conceptualise Relationships Between Self, Culture, and Identity Identity of teachers may be considered, through a certain lens, to be culturally determined and limited in intercultural reflexivity. Identity, as reflected in a teacher’s interculturality, limits or expands the capacity of the individual self to adjust to new teaching contexts. The ‘self’ (of an individual Chinese teacher) may be unable to navigate through relatively fixed ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ filters to connect effectively with others, such as Australian school students or staff, or indeed contextually local teaching and learning materials. This is significant because, as sociocultural theory argues, second language learning best takes place in the context of social language interactions, and Fitzgerald et al. (1999) equate the interaction itself with learning. I now introduce Figs.  2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 as conceptualisations of how intercultural competence in Chinese teachers determines the nature of interactions they seek and experience with each other and with their students. Even though this chapter is not about teacher identity per se, it should be acknowledged that self is an important starting point to the way in which individual teachers project themselves, what they believe, and how they relate to others. It is also acknowledged that the way teachers define culture somewhat defines how they view themselves and how they are viewed by others. So as one ‘self’ meets another, the filters of culture and identity influence what happens. The degree to which two individuals can immediately understand one another hinges on many factors. Figure 2.1 illustrates the potential failure of two individuals attempting an interaction, shown by a misalignment of culture and identity. The arrows

Fig. 2.1  Misalignment of identity and cultural layers

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Fig. 2.2  Alignment of identity and cultural layers

Fig. 2.3  Awareness and adjustment of self, identity, and culture

represent pathways the self takes through the filters of culture and identity as it attempts to make meaningful contact with other ‘selves’. In the model of misalignment, shown in Fig. 2.1, the self is projected through an identity which is culturally determined and non-reflexive. When others try to understand this self, the pathway to understanding is complicated or blocked by a relatively fixed identity and an opaque cultural lens. Communication can be achieved, but the process is fraught with confusion, misunderstandings, and miscommunications. This model shows how layers are misaligned and thus do not allow for clear communication, understanding, or appreciation between interlocutors. In the model of alignment (Fig.  2.2), however, after intercultural reflection, the self is more open to the identities and cultures of people nearby. An adjustment or a transition can take place, and the self can now be more directly projected through its identity and culture, and when others try to understand this self, the pathway to understanding is less obscured by essentialist thinking and othering. Communication can be better achieved, and the process is less prone to miscommunications. In addition, the different ‘selves’ can approach each other and begin to create an ‘us’ (Byram, 1997; Holliday, 2013; Abdallah Pretceille & Prat, 2001; Moloney, 2008). Figure 2.3 shows how layers are realigned to allow for communication and understanding, illustrating how decentring can take place. Intercultural

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reflection brings into focus an ‘us’ rather than ‘an other’. Each capital ‘S’ in Fig. 2.2 has become a small ‘s’ representing the intercultural self, who is able to appreciate another intercultural self in the context of ‘us’. Following heightened awareness, intercultural reflection allows for the adjustment and evolution of the self. Sachs (2005) argues that a teacher’s identity is not something that is fixed or imposed; rather, it is negotiated and transitioned through experience. Teachers of Chinese language can share and shift as they participate actively in a community of practice (Wenger, 1998). They share ideas about teaching talented students or the teaching of writing skills, for instance. They then shift their pedagogy as they learn from each other better ways to teach. Figure 2.4 illustrates this process. The top of the diagram shows two teachers and their individual pedagogical positioning prior to any participation together (1). This is their own teaching style, in general, and it is manifested in specific decision making in each lesson. In the middle of the diagram (2), the teachers meet at a conference or a workshop, or they communicate in the online Chinese teacher’s network on We Chat. This leads to a professional conversation in which they share with each other aspects of their individual teaching contexts. Following this discussion, we can see a shift has taken place (bottom part of the

Fig. 2.4  Sharing and shifting as a result of communities of practice participation

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diagram) in their individual pedagogy (3). When this takes place, teachers are truly participating in a Wengerian Community of Practice. They actively participate with each other and negotiate meaning together, which leads to new ways of teaching, new ways of viewing students, and ultimately a shifting teacher identity. This is indeed occurring for some teachers of Chinese in Australia, as they attend conferences and workshops, correspond via We Chat, and influence each other as a result. Poulos et al. (2014) argue, this can lead to improved job satisfaction, and ultimately, student achievement, and gains in professional development may also be achieved when collaboration is purposeful (Ning et al., 2015). By contrast, this type of participation may also serve to perpetuate traditional beliefs and their subsequent pedagogies. If, for instance, the origin of a teacher’s pedagogy (the way they were taught) is characterised by settled meanings, categories, and frames of reference, rather than meaning being in flux and open-ended, and their community of practice is narrow in focus, as is the case for the Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA), the potential for perpetuating culturally irrelevant pedagogies (Paris, 2012) is significant. Yet, even in this case, if the vision of the community is to achieve best practice, then progress will be made, and the sharing may lead to individual and communal transitions in the right direction. Bauman’s (2013) concept of ‘liquid modernity’ sees anomalies, rather than exceptions, as the norm, and so transitions should be expected, embraced, and celebrated in community. The Modern Language Teachers Association of Australia (MLTA), in which multiple foreign languages are represented by teacher practitioners in one association, stands in stark contrast to the monolingual CLTA. In the MLTA, Bauman’s (2013) anomalies regularly occur, and teachers are constantly challenged in their beliefs about culture and language pedagogy. Interestingly, there are few CFL teachers who have deliberately chosen MLTA membership over that of their CFL colleagues in the CLTA.

Are Previous Culture Teaching Models Being Perpetuated? Previous ways of viewing culture are still perpetuated in Chinese language classrooms in Australia. The ‘跨文化’ (kuà wénhuà—cross-cultural comparison) approach is still the default perspective for many teachers, and so it is rare to witness teachers regularly seeking similarities between Chinese

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and Australian cultures. Two statements in the online survey were designed to demonstrate baseline beliefs about similarities and differences between people. When confronted with the statement, ‘Chinese people are different from each other’, 75% of survey respondents agreed. Likewise, for the statement, ‘Australian people are different from each other’, 76% agreed. This shows that respondents see and comprehend degrees of difference departing from obvious common ethnic or national identities. Despite this, 55% of survey respondents agreed that people from Asian backgrounds learn Mandarin faster than others. This belief is essentialist in nature because despite admitting Chinese people, and by inference a wider spectrum of people from Asian backgrounds, are different from each other, being Asian predisposes a learner to learn Mandarin faster. Likewise, when asked to compare how difficult it is for non-Chinese background students and Chinese heritage students to learn Chinese culture, 55% believed it was difficult for Chinese heritage students, but over 70% believed non-Chinese students have difficulty. Here teachers appear to believe that when the Chinese teach Chinese culture to the Chinese, better language and culture learning outcomes can be achieved. This has implications for teacher expectation and approaches to teaching with these two groups of students. Concerning the cultural elements of language classrooms, it appears that teachers believe heritage learners need to know more and need to know more deeply (attitudes, values, etc). Non-Chinese background students on the other hand only need to know what the culture looks like (visible culture), and maybe why Chinese say and do the things they do, but without any expectation that they will follow the example given. So, there is a disconnect between language and culture for second language learners. Orton (2016) suggests this is one of the reasons why elective (non-­compulsory) Chinese language classes in Australia are more and more dominated by Chinese heritage students. Evidence from interviews revealed more in terms of a latency of essentialist beliefs. There is limited ability in decentring in the discourses of the four teachers. The four participants were asked whether or not they use the phrase, ‘我们中国人…’ (wǒmen zhōngguó rén—We Chinese people …). This phrase communicates that there is a specific closed community of Chinese people, to whom the speaker belongs, who share a similar language, similar behaviours, and a similar cultural heritage. Given the way participant teachers talked about Chinese people it is clear that even though diversity has been acknowledged across the world of Chinese

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speakers, at the same time a community defined by language use and cultural heritage has been unmistakably identified. Teacher Fan was less likely to essentialise in her comments about what people say or do in China. She sees herself as ‘not a typical Chinese’, and her choice of words was different enough from others to show some caution against essentialism. For example, ‘… is more commonly used in China’, ‘different parts of China will eat different types of food’, ‘who’s speaking Chinese in the world’. These comments represent an attempt to focus on the learning of language whilst acknowledging differences across place and space. Having said this, there were still instances of essentialist language in Fan’s other remarks. Clearly, the Chinese language is still viewed as a cultural heritage item, not merely as a resource potentially significant to all. Teachers have different beliefs about the way to teach second language learners and heritage learners. Teachers Song and Fan both justified limiting instruction of culture-based language to second language learners, and this contrasted with the more comprehensive approach they take with heritage learners. This tendency towards essentialising learner cohorts is seen as a significant barrier to the achievement of consistent growth in the numbers of second language learners of Chinese in Australian schools. If teachers were not forced to teach both heritage learners and second language learners in the same classroom, and with the belief that second language learners are becoming different people (Crozet, 2008, 2012) through the process of learning Chinese, teachers may be more open to embracing higher expectations of second language learners. Similar observations have been made by other studies in Australia (Orton, 2008, 2016; Moloney & Xu, 2015; Moloney, 2013; Scarino et al., 2011). Despite this, there was evidence of developing intercultural awareness and diversified pedagogies in those interviewed. Teacher Song reflected on her own limited understanding and posed a scenario in which the teacher and the students co-construct new knowledge about Chinese culture: Song: “Even as a Chinese, I wouldn’t say I fully understand Chinese culture. So I would say it’s more important for teachers to lead the discussion, to ask the questions for the students to think critically. In order for them to think critically, it’s how they always have the examples, the scenarios. I will tell them the fact, I will tell them that’s what Chinese people say in this scenario, and then for the students to work out, to analyse why they do this. Or how they should say, or behave, in a similar scenario”.

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Teacher Fan incorporates TV dramas into her teaching to keep up to date with changes in spoken language, but this is limited to heritage students because she believes ‘they need to be immersed in the culture’. However, she also creates in-context learning opportunities for all students by combining vocabulary learning with excursions to experience visible culture (Chinatown restaurant visits). In this way, linguistic connections are made with lived culture. At school she has encouraged and witnessed intercultural interactions between students of different backgrounds, and she reported a significant result in relation to learning outcomes. Fan: “after I taught the moon festival, and one of my Australian students, my second language students, saw some other students eating mooncakes in the school. And they wanted to know about it. And the Chinese girl told them—even the Chinese girl could be heritage student, might not even know mooncakes background and history, but she could share what she did at home with the family, and this girl, they became friends and they started to talk each other’s language a bit more because the Aussie girl is trying to learn Chinese and the other girl probably from a heritage family or background family doesn’t know English good enough, so they became, in fact these two girls became best friends since Year 8, up to Year 12, and the Aussie girl came 2nd in the state in Chinese because her best friend is this Chinese girl who kept practising with her.”

Teacher Jiang, although very much tied to ‘teaching the book’, does infuse cultural understanding into the teaching of writing. In fact he channels student curiosity about Chinese characters into micro-lessons that help students appreciate links between language and culture throughout Chinese history. Jiang: “Then in the Book #1—I like the Chinese Made Easy. I like the first part—they teach radicals…..They finish Book #1 they almost know 60 radicals. Because each lesson—9, six lessons ….” Jiang: “Such as when they say, 繁体字的繁 (‘complicated’ from ‘complicated characters’) always very hard. Itself is 繁—complicated. But the students can divide it. Make it so easy! They remember, 每天的’每’ (‘every’ from ‘every day’), they all learn the parts, then they just culminate. Because it’s related. They found 繁—oh, it’s complicated. If they find it, they suddenly feel interested to pick it up”.

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A contradiction exists between what Chinese teachers believe and what they do. This is not surprising because in any teaching context there will be some degree of distance between stated beliefs and actual practice (Farrell & Ives, 2015). The significance of this distance between stated beliefs and self-reported practice and actual practice is that: 1. Chinese language teacher pedagogy is still more teacher-centred and textbook driven than teachers believe. 2. There is a perpetuation of previous culture teaching models that are incongruent with current Australian language teacher pedagogy, even though more locally relevant practice is emerging (Moloney & Xu, 2018). In short, what Chinese teachers do with culture depends on what they believe about culture and how it relates to language use for various groups of learners. Evidence suggests there is a resilient belief that Chinese language is a cultural heritage item rather than a resource for all to use and appreciate. In this sense, teachers of Chinese certainly serve the Chinese diaspora well. They not only build a language structure for students to use (the house) but also develop deep cultural understanding and identity (the home), which serves to develop belonging. When teaching non-Chinese background learners, a shift in focus occurs that largely ignores the home and builds a simple yet robust house.

References Abdallah Pretceille, M., & Prat, F. (2001). La educación intercultural (No. 370.19341 A2). Adler, P.  S. (1975). The transitional experience: An alternative view of culture shock. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15, 13–23. Bauman, Z. (2013). Liquid modernity. John Wiley & Sons. Byram, M. (1989). Cultural studies in foreign language education (Vol. 46). Multilingual Matters. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Multilingual Matters. Calafato, R. (2019). The non-native speaker teacher as proficient multilingual: A critical review of research from 2009–2018. Lingua, 227, 102700. Crozet, C. (2008). Australia’s linguistic culture and its impact on languages education. Babel, 42(3), 19–25.

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Crozet, C. (2012). The core tenets of education in ancient India, inspirations for modern times. International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning, 7(3), 262–265. Crawford-Lange, L.  M., & Lange, D.  L. (1984). Doing the unthinkable in the second-language classroom: A process for the integration of language and culture. Deardorff, D. K. (2011). Assessing intercultural competence. New directions for institutional research (149), p. 65. Dervin, F. (2011). A plea for change in research on intercultural discourses: A ‘liquid’ approach to the study of the acculturation of Chinese students. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 6(1), 37–52. Dervin, F., & Dirba, M. (2006). On liquid interculturality: Finnish and Latvian student teachers’ perceptions of intercultural competence (Suomensoveltavan kielitieteen yhdistyksen julkaisuja no. 64. Jyväskylä. s. 257–271). http://elektra.helsinki.fi/se/a/0781K0318/2006/onliquid.pdf Dinges, N. (1983). Intercultural competence. In Handbook of intercultural training: Issues in theory and design (Vol. 1, pp.  176–202). Dinges publisher: Pergamon Press. Elen, J., Clarebout, G., Léonard, R., & Lowyck, J. (2007). Student-centred and teacher-centred learning environments: What students think. Teaching in Higher Education, 12(1), 105–117. Farrell, T. S., & Ives, J. (2015). Exploring teacher beliefs and classroom practices through reflective practice: A case study. Language Teaching Research, 19(5), 594–610. Faure, G. O., & Fang, T. (2008). Changing Chinese values: Keeping up with paradoxes. International business review, 17(2), 194–207. Fitzgerald, H., Bianco, L., Liddicoat, A. J., & Crozet, C. (1999). What culture do we teach. In Striving for the third place: Intercultural competence through language education (p. 127). Language Australia. Geertz, C. (1973). Deep play. Gray, V., Fam, K. S., Che, Y., & Singh, G. (2015). Chinese cultural values and personal referral sources in international education choice. Journal of Promotion Management, 21(6), 817–834. Holliday, A. (2013). Understanding intercultural communication. Routledge. Jin, T. (2014). Getting to know you: The development of intercultural competence as an essential element in learning Mandarin. London Review of Education, 12(1), 20–33. Jin, T. (2017). Moving beyond ‘intercultural competence’: Interculturality in the learning of Mandarin in UK universities. Language and Intercultural Communication, 17(3), 306–322. Katan, D. (2018). Defining culture, defining translation. In The Routledge handbook of translation and culture (pp. 17–47). Routledge. Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford University Press.

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Kramsch, C. (2014). Language and culture. AILA Review, 27(1), 30–55. Kramsch, C., & Zhang, L. (2018). The multilingual instructor. Oxford University Press. Kulich, S. J., & Zhang, R. (2010). The multiple frames of’Chinese’values: From tradition to modernity and beyond. Lee, M. W., & Kim, S. Y. (2021). “I may sound like a native speaker… but I’m not”: Identities of Korean English teachers with border-crossing experience. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 49(2), 216–229. Leonard, J. (2019). Beyond ‘(non) native-speakerism’: Being or becoming a native-speaker teacher of English. Applied Linguistics Review, 10(4), 677–703. Moloney, R. (2008). You just want to be like that: Teacher modelling and intercultural competence in young language learners. Babel, 42(3), 11–18. 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), 1–15. Moloney, R., & Xu, H.  L. (Eds.). (2015). Exploring innovative pedagogy in the teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language (Vol. 15). Springer. Moloney, R., & Xu, H. L. (2018). Teaching and learning Chinese in schools: Case studies in quality language education. Springer. Morain, G. (1983). Commitment to the teaching of foreign cultures. The Modern Language Journal, 67(4), 403–412. Moran, P.  R., & Lu, Z. (2001). Teaching culture: Perspectives in practice. Heinle & Heinle. Moser, D. (2016). A billion voices: China’s search for a common language. Penguin Random House Australia. Ning, H. K., Lee, D., & Lee, W. O. (2015). Relationships between teacher value orientations, collegiality, and collaboration in school professional learning communities. Social Psychology of Education, 18(2), 337–354. Orton, J. (2008). Chinese language education in Australian schools. University of Melbourne, Melbourne. Orton, J. (2016). Building Chinese language capacity in Australia. The Australia-­ China Relations Institute (ACRI). Paige, R. M., Jorstad, H., Siaya, L., Klein, F., & Colby, J. (2000). Culture learning in language education: A review of the literature. ERIC. Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97. 彭世勇: 《英语本科生跨文化敏感多层面间关系数对比》, 《西安外国语大学学 报》, 2007年第1期. Peng, S. (2007). Comparison of cross-cultural sensitivity and multi-level relations among English undergraduates. Journal of Xi’an International Studies University, Issue 1.

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Poulos, J., Culberston, N., Piazza, P., & D’Entremont, C. (2014). Making space: The value of teacher collaboration. The Education Digest, 80(2), 28. Quist, G. (2013). Reading with my eyes open: Embracing the critical and the personal in language pedagogy. Ubiquity Press. Richards, J.  C., Gallo, P.  B., & Renandya, W.  A. (2001). Exploring teachers’ beliefs and the processes of change. PAC Journal, 1, 41–58. Risager, K. (2007). Language and culture pedagogy: From a national to a transnational paradigm. Multilingual Matters. Rivers, W. M. (2018). Teaching foreign language skills. University of Chicago Press. 阮建. (2015). 谈谈九零后的班级管理—做好迎接零零后的准备. 青年时代, (21), 161–. (Author: Ruan Jian) (Translation: A discussion about the management of students born in the 1990s—Preparing to meet those born after 2000. Youth, 21, 161–163. Sachs, J. (2005). Teacher education and the development of professional identity: Learning to be a teacher. In Connecting policy and practice: Challenges for teaching and learning in schools and universities (pp. 5–21). Routledge and Taylor & Francis Group. Scarino, A., Elder, C., Iwashita, N., Kim, S. H. O., Kohler, M., & Scrimgeour, A. (2011). Student achievement in Asian languages education (Doctoral dissertation). Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Singh, M., Han, J., & Ballantyne, C. (2014). Making Chinese learnable: Research oriented school engaged teacher-researcher education. Research project report on the New South Wales—Ningbo—Western Sydney Partnership. https:// www.westernsydney.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/555728/4._ Singh_and_Han_-_Making_Chinese_Learnable_Report.pdf Smith, S. A. (2014). The relationship between teacher perceptions of textbooks and their teaching practice: Chinese as a foreign language teaching in the NSW context (Unpublished Master of Research Thesis). http://hdl.handle. net/1959.14/1069828 Stern, H. H., & Allen, J. P. B. (1992). Issues and options in language teaching. Oxford University Press, USA. 唐琛.汉语国际教育专业跨文化敏感度与效能感调查研究—以西安建筑科技大学 汉语国际教育本科专业为例[J].西安建筑科技大学学报(社会科学版), 2015, 34(1), 96–100. Tang, S. (2015). Research on cross-cultural sensitivity and efficacy of Chinese international education major—Taking the undergraduate major of Chinese International Education of Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology as an example [J]. Journal of Xi’an University of Architecture & Technology (Social Science Edition), 34(1), 96–100. Wang, D. (2013). The use of English as a lingua franca in teaching Chinese as a foreign language: A case study of native Chinese teachers in Beijing. In Language alternation, language choice and language encounter in international tertiary education (pp. 161–177). Springer, Dordrecht.

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Wang, D. (2018). Multilingualism and translanguaging in Chinese language classrooms. Springer. 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), 116–135. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning as a social system. Systems Thinker, 9(5), 2–3. Zhang, C., & Zhang, Y. (2018). Language teacher identity construction: Insights from non-native Chinese-speaking teachers in a Danish higher educational context. Global Chinese, 4(2), 271–291. 张园,张延成,阮桂君,欧阳晓芳.跨文化语境中的海外汉语拼音教学—美国孔子学 院汉语教学与推广研究之二[J].长江学术, 2009(2): 112–117. Zhang, Y., Zhang, Y., Ruan, G., & Ouyang, X. (2009). Teaching Chinese phonetic alphabet in cross-cultural contexts—The second study of Chinese teaching and promotion in Confucius Institutes in the United States.

CHAPTER 3

A Way to Discover Culture in Language

Abstract  In this chapter, the author reports on the results of a novel method of data collection within a broader ethnography. It is a form of stimulus-andresponse used to elicit focused reflection. The stimulus is a set of five written dialogues that contain references to comparative cultural utterances. The responses are given verbally by four Chinese language teachers who were asked to reflect on authenticity and culture. It followed on from the semistructured interviews and so represents part 2 of the interview process. Participants gave a diverse range of responses, including both corroborations and contradictions of each other. Themes emerging from these reflections centred around (a) what ways of speaking are correct or not, (b) what ways of speaking are attributed to Chinese speakers or not, (c) what ways of speaking directly reflect Chinese culture, and (d) why language is used in these ways. Keywords  Stimulus dialogues • Culturally informed linguistic choices • Eating greeting • Chinese compliments • Honorific language • Chinese politeness • Culture in language This chapter gives voice to CFL teachers in Australian schools by stimulating some reflections on culture in language and eliciting verbal responses to model dialogues. A set of five stimulus dialogues (SDs) were created to

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Smith, Teacher Voices in Chinese Language Teaching, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89213-5_3

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facilitate conversations. These dialogues were designed specifically for the purpose of generating reactions and comments of a linguistic and cultural nature. The aim was to stimulate reflection about the links between language and culture. I begin by offering a rationale for each stimulus dialogue. This is followed by a discussion of what teachers said as they reflected on each dialogue. The stimulus dialogues address the following areas/functions of language. • Responding to compliments in Chinese • Asking for directions from a stranger in Chinese • Being called a ‘foreigner’ • The use of titles when greeting others • The eating greeting I selected these topics and created the dialogues based on (a) Personal experiences whilst living and learning Chinese in China over a nine-year period (b) Several years of teaching Chinese in various Australian educa tional contexts (c) Reflections from a broader perspective as an executive committee member of the Chinese Language Teachers Association of NSW over a four-year period SD1: Responding to compliments in Chinese SD1(a) SD1(b)

A: 你说中文说的 很好! B: 谢谢! A: 你说中文说得 很好! B: 哪里哪里? 马马虎虎!

A: You speak Chinese very well! B: Thanks! A: You speak Chinese very well! B: Not really. Just at a basic level!

Stimulus dialogue 1: Responding to compliments in Chinese Chen (1993) cited in Spencer-Oatey (2000), and Chen and Yang (2010), studied compliment responses in a central Chinese city, with similar participants. Whereas Chen (1993) found that compliment responses were more often characterised by rejection, supported by Ye’s (1995) study that sees denial as the routinised response, 16 years later Chen and Yang (2010) found that subjects were just as likely to accept compliments as were speakers of Western languages such as German and English. A summary of four studies in the 1990s (Table 3.1) shows that rejection of

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Table 3.1  Frequencies of selected types of compliment responses in Chinese Compliment-response studies Chen (1993) PRC students in China Ye (1995) PRC students in China Yuan (1996) PRC students in China (cited in Spencer-Oatey, 2000) Loh (1993) HK students in Britain

Acceptance (%)

Rejection (%)

1.03 20.20 59.82

50.70 7.80 27.68

41.00

22.00

Taken from Spencer-Oatey (2000, p. 101)

compliments varied across studies of Chinese student participants, and yet nearly all such studies have found that rejections are more common in Chinese (Spencer-Oatey, 2000). Several authors (Gu, 1990; Chen, 1993) have emphasised the importance of modesty in Chinese, linking it to the Confucian virtue of politeness (Spencer-Oatey, 2000), and to Leech’s (1983) ‘Modesty Maxim’, which promotes minimum praise or maximum dispraise of self. Xu et al. (2014) highlight the pervasiveness of Chinese parents training their children in modesty, which is seen to be closely connected to the rejection of compliments. This training also aims at ensuring children fit, rather than stand out, amongst their peers (Cai et al., 2011). Leech (1983) offers the ‘Agreement Maxim’, which aims to minimise disagreement between self and others. Further to this, Cheng (2011) showed that Chinese L2 speakers of English were culturally bound to struggle with accepting compliments in English. It may also be important to consider Shi et al.’s (2021, p.  156) discussion on emic and etic approaches to defining modesty. Whether elements of modesty can be pan-culturally defined or that it needs to be defined as culture-bound is relevant, especially in the field of language teaching where cultures are constantly being compared. Zhou (2022) also investigates modesty from the perspective of self-denigration and finds it is received differently according to perceived levels of sincerity. SD1, therefore, tests the hypothesis with CFL teachers that rejecting compliments is more culturally appropriate for Chinese speakers. SD2: Asking for directions from a stranger in Chinese SD1(a)

Person on the street: 火车站在哪儿? Taxi driver: 前方200米

Person on the street: Where’s the train station? Taxi driver: 200m ahead. (continued)

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(continued) SD1(b)

Person on the street: 师傅请问一下火车站在哪儿? Taxi driver: 火车站是在前方200米 Person on the street: 谢谢师傅!

Person on the street: Sir, may I ask you something? Where’s the train station? Taxi driver: The train station is 200m ahead. Person on the street: Thank you, sir!

(In)directness in linguistic pragmatics is a well-researched field, and yet there are generalised binary beliefs about Eastern and Western cultures in this respect. Bond, Zegarac, and Spencer-Oatey (2000) raise questions over stereotypes about Chinese directness, given in  their research Australians used more indirect speech than Chinese in the context of disagreements at work. They suggest that Asian-style directness does exist, yet it may be difficult to recognise for westerners. Miller and Samp (2007) argue that whatever the cultural background or communication style, interlocutors in intercultural exchanges do have ways to make their opinions and ideas known. In the present study, I asked teachers to reflect and comment on two staged dialogues between a stranger and a taxi driver in China, in which the stranger asks for directions to the train station. One version of the dialogue is direct and efficient in its language, and the other is deliberately polite and wordy using polite terms of reference such as ‘sir’ and ‘please’. Chinese politeness is also a well-researched field from linguistic and cultural perspectives. In short, what can be described as normative politeness is not always adhered to, especially when interactants are related by power or solidarity (Pan & Kadar, 2011). To illustrate, if a powerful person acts in a way that is atypical to normative politeness, they may not necessarily be judged as impolite. SD2 is not so much aiming to distinguish forms of politeness or degrees of directness, as discussed by Mills and Grainger (2016), but to elicit commentary from CFL teachers that might indicate how they perceive this aspect of language use and its connection to culture. SD3: Being called a ‘foreigner’ Person on the street in China: 老外! Foreign student: 他为什么叫我“老外”?

Person on the street in China: Foreigner! Foreign student: Why did he call me ‘foreigner’?

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Foreignness is not only limited to large differences between cultures, such as the east/west divide. However, political and social ideologies can be seen to emphasise difference when domestic unity is a priority, because it also strengthens sameness. Parepa (2017) writes about China’s post-1989 strategic narrative of national rejuvenation in which concordance is a key goal. Linked to this today is the propensity for Chinese media and indeed Chinese people to use the phrase ‘we Chinese’ (我们中国人) as a unifying tool. Dubbed the ‘We Chinese Syndrome’ (Boyce, 2020), language is used powerfully and relentlessly to unify the Chinese people, even if they live outside China. Beginning with the concept of ‘self’, Gudykunst et  al. (1996) argue that an individual in the Western world can be defined as an independent entity with free will, emotions, and personality. Chinese, by contrast, are defined by those around them (Confucianism) and even by their connections to nature (Daoism), wherein the true self is devoid of individuality (Wu, 2002). This is what Gao (1998) refers to as the ‘other-oriented self’. Hofstede (1980) talks in terms of collectivism and the importance of fitting in with the in-group when describing Chinese culture. He asserts there is a focus on a ‘we’ identity. Lin (2020) argues that the use of the label ‘lao wai’ represents an unnoticed discourse of othering, and Mao (2015) found it is more likely to be directed towards Western white people—not all foreigners. Considering this, I asked teachers to reflect on a scenario in which a non-Chinese person is called ‘foreigner’ in the street and stops to ponder why. The aim was to elicit reflection and comment on the possible cultural or linguistic reasons for this utterance. SD4: The use of titles when greeting others SD1(a)

SD1(b)

Students: 王校长您好! School Principal: 同学们好! Students: 小姐你好! School Principal: 小朋们友好!

Students: Hello Principal Wang! School Principal: Hello students. Students: Hi Miss! School Principal: Hello children!

Gu (1990) writes that terms of specific address serve to establish or maintain social bonds whilst strengthening and controlling social distance.

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Hofstede (2007) argues that there is a large power distance situation in China, and therefore speakers consciously choose different and sometimes complicated address terms, based on local norms of communication, to influence relationships. When students in China use the term 老师 (lǎoshı ̄) to address teachers, for instance, they are not only using an occupational title, but also an honorific title (Hu et al., 2021). Qin’s (2008, p. 419) research indicates this is most commonly seen when a subordinate addresses a superordinate. So, any differences in the way a person addresses another is indicative of different power relationships. It appears that these conventions are culturally bound and can lead to confusion when carried into a new context. Hu, Qin, and Qi (2021) align themselves with other Chinese researchers (Gu, 1990; Lin, 2013; Tang and Liu, 2004; Wang & Taylor, 2019) in their assertion that if a Chinese student in an English-­ speaking context employs this strategy and says, ‘Good morning Teacher!’ in English, it represents a case of pragmatic failure. From this vantage point, I provided two stimulus dialogues to test CFL teacher reactions to differing versions of a principal-to-student greeting. In the first greeting, students use the title ‘Principal’ with the surname ‘Wang’, and Principal Wang replies with, ‘Hello students’. The second reflects a common greeting scenario in Australian schools where students might call a female principal ‘Miss’ without any surname, and the principal replies with ‘Hello children’. SD5: The eating greeting SD1(a)

SD1(b)

Neighbour#1: 你吃了吗? Neighbour#2: 吃过了! Neighbour#1: 你好! Neighbour#2: 你好!

Neighbour#1: Have you eaten? Neighbour#2: I’ve eaten. Neighbour#1: Hi! Neighbour#2: Hi!

Fong, DeWitt, and Leng (2018) indicate that greetings such as ‘hello’, although common in English between strangers and friends alike, are limited in use to strangers or more distant acquaintances in Chinese. For family members or close neighbours, expressions such as ‘去哪儿呀?’ (Where are you going?) ‘吃饭了吗?’ (Have you eaten?), or ‘上班去了吗?’

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(Are you going to work?) are more commonly used, and that these demonstrate care and concern (Liu, 2016). Li (2009) found that asking if someone has eaten is both appropriate and friendly in Chinese culture. Based on this, I asked CFL teachers to reflect on the differences between a greeting with ‘Hello’ and ‘Have you eaten?’ Logically, if the latter is appropriate and friendly, then it should possibly be included in second language teaching.

Teacher Voices For each case above teachers were asked to read the stimulus dialogue and make comments on culture and language. The following guiding questions were used to stimulate a discussion between the teacher and myself. 1. What are the differences between the shaded and unshaded dialogues? 2. What is the purpose of the language in each dialogue? 3. How does each dialogue reflect culture?

SD1: Responding to Compliments in Chinese Almost immediately after scanning the shaded and unshaded sections in SD1, Jiang made a connection between language, humility, and Chinese culture. In reference to the unshaded section (SD1(b)) he said: Jiang: “You can say this is Chinese background. This is Chinese culture….. because it’s humble….the culture, when you behave, you talk”. (Jiang identified humility reflected in this response and immediately attributed the speech act to Chinese culture).

When probed as to why people might use the word, ‘哪里’ (nǎlı ̌), Jiang responded by explaining it fulfils the function of rejecting a compliment. ‘ 哪里’ literally means ‘where?’, yet in this context it performs a rhetorical question in Mandarin—‘where do you find something good?’ So, in response to the compliment, the interlocutor responds by questioning the existence of any praiseworthy quality in their Chinese-speaking ability. Again, with ‘马马虎虎’ (mǎmǎhǔhǔ), a linguistic technique is used to raise doubt as to the validity of the compliment. Jiang explains:

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Jiang: “You say it’s a horse (马马)( mǎmǎ) or is it a tiger (虎虎) (hǔhǔ)? Not sure! Not so accurate. So, I’m humble, my Chinese is just so-so”.

The casting of doubt here fulfils the function of rejecting the compliment. This is consistent with earlier findings from Chen (1993) and Ye (1995). Jiang’s reflection suggests a degree of essentialism as his quickness to attribute humility to ‘Chinese background’ perhaps negates the possibility that humility exists in the same form in other languages or the speech acts of non-Chinese people. He has not paused or reflected, nor has he attempted to decentre himself from his own culture to entertain the possibility that others speak this way and for this purpose. His emphatic announcement that ‘this is Chinese background’ also reveals a propensity to view culture and language systems as static. Without being prompted, Chen immediately determined one of the dialogues must be Chinese and the other must be Australian—‘the second one will be Chinese’. This is in fact an accurate first impression of the second response, given the use of idiom ‘马马虎虎’ (horse, horse, tiger, tiger), as well as a rejection of the compliment ‘哪里哪里’ (where, where). Chen may have also noticed the corresponding acceptance of the compliment ‘谢谢’(thank you) in the first exchange, which deliberately presents a contrast. Her explanation as to why she designated the second dialogue to Chinese was couched in terms of ‘culture’, and particularly, ‘that you don’t show off’ (Gu, 1990; Chen, 1993). Her mother taught her to be humble often quoting the idiom, ‘树大招风’ (a tall tree attracts the most wind), meaning that a lot of trouble will come if you are proud or show your power. Her mother’s counsel was to down-play your abilities or attributes by saying you are just okay, nothing special. Chen added, ‘this is very humble, this is culture’. She further explained it is never acceptable to say you are good at something and that reducing yourself is a way to show modesty. Modesty, she explained, is traditionally virtuous. Chen added it is still a virtue, evidenced in her Year 11 students who often give a mixed response to having their writing praised, such as, ‘没有没有, 谢谢老师’ (it’s not, it’s not, (but) thanks teacher). This is a very interesting phenomenon showing intercultural awareness or perhaps intercultural confusion. First, the students follow the Chinese patterned response in rejecting the compliment, but quickly thank the teacher for the compliment. This is an

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example of transitional interculturality (Jackson, 2018; Schartner, 2019; Wang, 2018). Rather than immediately identifying the origin of each dialogue, Song first focused on language function. She labelled the SD1(a) as ‘acceptance’ and the SD1(b) as ‘rejection’ of the compliment. Song also affirmed her authority to make such a judgement by adding, ‘actually I did a thesis on this topic’. To clarify, she distinguished between the contexts of various compliments. In the case of being complimented on Chinese language ability, Song believes it may be appropriate to accept a compliment, yet if praised on your appearance or how you dress, it is more appropriate to reject it. Likewise, she added, if your own child is praised for being a good student, the appropriate response is, ‘Ah? No. She/he is actually quite a poor student’. This reply reflects humility as a Chinese parent (Xu et al., 2014). Song asserted that humility is an example of ‘traditional Chinese culture’ and that humility requires self-deprecation. In addition, she suggested the younger generations are less likely to follow this patterned response. Song: “However, when I did the research, I found out that younger generations, even from my generation or younger, we tend to reply with acceptance more and more. If you ask someone under 30 or 40, give them a compliment, maybe half of the time or even more than half, they will say “谢谢” (thank you)”.

This echoes Chen and Yang’s (2010) findings which revealed an increasing likelihood of compliment acceptance over time. This comment indicated that Song has an awareness of the dynamic nature of culture. She initially attributed the change to an influence from ‘western languages’, yet within this comment she also revealed an interesting belief. In stating that, ‘and that’s what happens in English culture, in western languages ….. there’s sort of a transfer from language into culture’, Song has suggested that, in contrast to Chinese culture, it is non-­ Chinese cultures and languages that routinely change, and therefore only after contact with ‘the west’ and its language (English) has Chinese traditional culture been catalysed to change. Accordingly, even though she admitted culture is dynamic, she inferred it was an outside influence that brought change. Hence her final comment:

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Song: “So for people who never learn English, say my parents’ generation, they tend to reject the compliment much more than people who are bilingual”.

Westernisation is one factor (Xu et  al., 2014), however, the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), one-child policy (1978–2015), and rapid urbanisation have been attributed to reasons for changing levels of warmth in parenting (Wang & Chang, 2010). Fan’s immediate reaction to SD1 was to identify the SD1(b) as an example from the ‘older Chinese textbook’, and she asserted that the function of this language is to express humility. Following this comment, Fan stated that she ‘teaches them not to do this, because it is very odd’. Such a comment provides an insight into Fan’s beliefs about how her students should or should not speak, regardless of how Chinese people use the language. To illustrate her point, she gave an example of her students visiting Tianjin on exchange. Fan: “My students said that in their exchange school in Nankai (Tianjin City) in China, when they said, “哪里哪里” (naľ ı ̌ naľ ı ̌—where where) when people praised their Chinese, people just looked at them and said, “Nobody says that anymore” ”.

Following this comment, Fan did acknowledge that Chinese people probably will be more humble in responses and avoid saying ‘谢谢’ (xièxiè—thank you) when others praise them. This is consistent with other CFL teachers’ reflections and earlier research (Gu, 1990; Chen, 1993). Fan, however, takes a deliberate stance against what she sees as inappropriate humility by teaching her students to be happy when people praise them, and this includes accepting compliments. By inference, she would say the Chinese L2 speakers of English in Cheng’s (2011) study should continue to reject compliments in an English-speaking context even though native English speakers are trained not to. Basically, Fan’s goal for her students is to, • Stay true to their own culture • Not to sound like an elderly Chinese person Fan: “Say “谢谢” (xièxiè—thank you) if it is true! We can say the bottom stimulus (SD1(b)) is the older typical way of Chinese people being humble”.

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Fan also stated that some Chinese language, as presented in textbooks, was ‘totally impossible to use’, referring to ‘哪里哪里’ (na ̌lı ̌ nǎlı ̌—where where) because her students were teased on exchange in China, and the strength of this belief adds to the case for Fan placing limits on intercultural language learning. In Chinese, there are in fact several closely related phrases that are still used in the context of compliment rejection, and these are not difficult to learn. For example, ‘哪里哪里’ (na ̌lı ̌ nǎlı ̌) can be substituted with ‘哪有’ (nǎ yǒu—where?), which is a common-use phrase.

Summary The teaching of responses to compliments in Chinese is significant because it is common for Chinese people to express appreciation when foreigners make an effort to learn Chinese. The use of staged textbook responses such as ‘哪里哪里’ (nǎlı ̌ na ̌lı ̌) 马马虎虎 (mǎmǎhǔhǔ) and ‘thank you’ are both relatively inauthentic. When learners are equipped to respond with contemporary spoken language, the language exchange will be enriched for all. This reflects the difference between ‘house’ and ‘home’ Chinese. SD2: Asking for Directions from a Stranger in Chinese The second dialogue combines the functions of asking for directions, use of politeness, and how to address others using titles. Jiang made an immediate judgement as to which dialogue he thought was ‘current Chinese’ and which was ‘western culture’. Even though he focused on the Chinese language version of the dialogue, he concluded that the unshaded dialogue (SD2(b)) was ‘more like a western student learning a little bit of Chinese, …. they learn Chinese (but) it’s not very spoken’. The indication here is that what ‘Western’ students learn in Chinese classes is from a textbook and not representative of what people in China say in daily life on the street. Jiang: “… and not exactly what local people say, it’s so polite! That’s western culture! All the words are ‘thank you’, ‘may I’, ‘sir’…. much more than Chinese…. Like here, (pointing to the shaded dialogue), ‘火车站在哪里?前方 两百米 ’ (Where’s the train station? 200 metres ahead)—it’s a (Chinese) native speaker. Very clear, very direct … no rubbish words!”

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Jiang’s assessment of this scenario is that for the language to be ‘native’ Chinese, and thus be authentic, it must be (a) direct and efficient with no words added for politeness and (b) what people in China commonly say. He was aware that the alternative presented to him (SD2(b)) was rendered accurately in Chinese and the meaning was fully comprehensible, yet in his opinion it represented what ‘Westerners’ are taught from Chinese language textbooks. Again, we see quite a disdain for ‘book language’ (language that comes from foreign language textbooks) that does not accurately represent what real people say in real life. Jiang’s response here appears to cut against an apparent essentialist position of a static language system as he allows for the possibility of language evolution, at least in the realm of spoken Chinese. In China today both versions of asking for directions and their responses exist. It is therefore perhaps not a matter of one being Chinese and the other being ‘Western’. It may indeed reflect a trend towards a new politeness in Chinese society or indeed a difference in education levels reflected in oral language patterns. It may also merely be a case of individual interlocutors finding their own ways to make their opinions and ideas known (Miller & Samp, 2007). When responding to SD2, Chen again split the two exchanges according to place—China and Australia, and the reason given was ‘respect’. She identified SD2(b) as Chinese. When asked how she knew, Chen identified the use of the lexical item, ‘师傅’ (shı ̄fù—master) as a marker of respect, citing that Chinese culture contains a respect for courtesy. I then prompted Chen to consider the significance of the number of words in each dialogue and comment. She pointed to the use of ‘please’ or ‘excuse me’ as an indicator of extra words presumably to add a degree of respect. Chen offered an explanation as to why the first dialogue is Australian—‘you don’t really ask; you don’t call the taxi driver ‘master’ or something’. She clearly viewed the presence of polite language as Chinese and the lack, thereof, Australian—a very polarised view. Chen’s reflection is in direct contrast to Jiang’s, who advocated less rubbish (polite) words for authentic Chinese communication. Song’s response to this stimulus was unique among the four teachers interviewed. She chose to interpret the dialogues in terms of educational rather than cultural difference. She felt that people from the countryside (peasant farmers) were more likely to speak directly to others and that SD2(a) best represented them. The inference was that well-educated

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Chinese people would have more words and use more words in such an exchange. Song: “If you talk to someone with higher education, they give you a longer reply, and more polite closure, etc”.

She was also convinced that SD2(b) originated from Australia or other English-speaking countries. I then pressed further and asked whether any lexical items from the dialogues reflected culture. Song identified ‘师傅’ (Master/Sir) and explained this is a general word used for male ‘tradies’ (colloquial Australian English—tradesmen such as plumbers, electricians, builders) and that taxi drivers fit into this vocational classification. Given other interviewees had referred to this word as ‘master’, I was interested to clarify meaning at this juncture, and so I asked: Researcher: “So it doesn’t mean ‘master’?” Song: “No. It has nothing to do with ‘master’. (LOL) They’re mainly tradies.” Researcher: Thank you. Song: “Actually it’s a different way to say, if we say, “师….傅” (shi ….. fu) [then we are saying master], but this is ‘师傅”. It’s a different way to say it”.

Song explained that the meaning changes if you pause or lengthen the gap between the two phonemes. She offered no other comments as to the significance of this for Chinese language learners. Fan attributed SD2(a) to, ‘what you have in China’. She relegated SD2(b) to, ‘more like a textbook conversation that we teach them’. Her response here was noteworthy on two counts. Firstly, she acknowledged the prevalence of 书面语 (shūmiànyǔ) or ‘textbook language’, and she justified it by linking it to the necessity to ‘teach them how to answer in full sentences’. This is a reference to a pedagogy that prepares students for answering questions in exam papers. Secondly, Fan gave me insight into a possible wider focus on language form over function across the Chinese language teaching fraternity. Fan: “So then, the next one (SD2(b)) it’s more like textbook conversation that we teach them. You answer the full sentence. But nobody actually does that in daily life. Researcher: Ah… so why is it there in the textbooks?

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Fan: (laughing) Because we need to teach them how to answer full sentences sometimes. And it is useful in some case.   For example, HSC exam, if you don’t answer in full sentence, people don’t know who you are talking about. That’s not clear enough. So, they always ask me “Can we answer in dot points in the HSC?” and I say it’s not recommended”. (HSC = Higher School Certificate matriculation exams)

When asked specifically about speaking, Fan remained focused on the HSC examination of speaking and said: Fan: “I wouldn’t say it’s wrong—the first one. Unless they wanted to drag the time, unless they think their answer is too short”.

Given the context of Fan’s school, her role as deputy head of languages, and her track record of excellent HSC results, it was not surprising to witness such a focus on exam results in Fan’s reflections. When pressed to comment on whether any particular language item in the dialogue reflects culture, Fan stated that, ‘师傅’ (shı ̄fù) was definitely a cultural reference. Her elaboration on this again revealed Fan’s beliefs about the inappropriateness of second language speakers using particular Chinese utterances. Fan: “We only use that … only native people know how to use that”.

This comment clearly indicates a binary view of Mandarin users, which sees one group as culturally cognizant and authorised to use all language accurately, and another group who have limited access to culturally informed linguistic items. What followed in Fan’s interview was more revealing about her beliefs about who can and who cannot speak Chinese in a culturally authentic way. Fan: “I only learned it when I was travelling in China—like in the China tour and realised everyone called the driver ‘shı ̄fù’. And in the other way, if they have a master, who teaching them shı ̄fù, they may not even call that shı ̄fù, they may not even call that master shı ̄fù. It’s just a general term because of cultural reference… changed into everybody call that person shı ̄fù”.

This represents a stark contradiction in beliefs in that Fan identified herself as a ‘native Chinese’ of Hong Kong origin and stated ‘only native people’ know how to use the word ‘shı ̄fù’. She then outlined how she had

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learned to use this word on a tour in mainland China. Taking the latter comment in isolation, one could logically conclude that any tourist can learn how to use ‘shı ̄fù’ in a culturally authentic way, yet Fan insisted that it was only ‘native people’ who knew.

Summary CFL teachers readily acknowledge that there is language being presented in textbooks and taught in Chinese language classrooms that is not authentic and/or not contemporary. This suggests improvements could be made immediately to teaching and learning materials and CFL pedagogy. It is still disputed whether L2 learners of Chinese should be taught to speak like Chinese people at every opportunity unless the learners possess Chinese cultural heritage. In this case it is unclear which language utterances correspond with house or home Chinese. SD3: Being Called a ‘foreigner’ SD3 presents a scenario common on the streets of smaller cities in China. Where foreigners are less likely to be seen, local Chinese may remark to one another, ‘look, there’s a foreigner’. This scenario was presented to Jiang to elicit his response about visible difference. Jiang initially stated that, in his experience, the phrase ‘老外’ (lǎowài) is used less and less in China today, even though he has not spent much time in China in the past 25 years. He explained: Jiang: “In a less open society (China in the 1980s), when they see a foreigner, they will think it’s strange. They will be curious. Because they are curious, they say something”.

Noteworthy here is the omission of the word ‘culture’. Jiang chose to explain this scenario in terms of isolation, curiosity, and physical difference, rather than cultural difference, and it is consistent with Gao’s (1998) other-oriented self whereby the foreigner is different from ‘us’. The purpose of SD3 was to evoke a response to the issue of insider-­ outsider language and to provide a contrast to the previous few expressions of politeness in SD1 and 2. The term, ‘外国人’ (foreigner) is literally, ‘outer country person’ or non-Chinese, and one subsequent iteration of this lexical item creates a common label, ‘老外’ lǎowài, which is a

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colloquial rendering of ‘foreigner’. This label creates much confusion between Chinese and non-Chinese alike, as it arouses a range of responses from many non-Chinese as they feel de-personalised, shunned, and essentialised. The Chinese speaker, on the other hand, will likely find these objections incomprehensible because their notion of identifying an outsider as such is purely pragmatic, and the addition of ‘lǎo’ actually adds a degree of respect. Chen confirmed this in the following: “因为他不懂他为什么叫他老外呢。就是一个称号。就老外。” (Because he doesn’t understand why he is being called a foreigner. It’s just a title/ label. It’s just ‘foreigner’.)

A further question, ‘How do you think the foreigner is feeling?’, revealed more about the incomprehension. Chen’s answer, ‘应该不太行 吧’ (probably not too good?) The inclusion of ‘吧’ (ba) at the end signifies a lack of certainty, coupled with a request for confirmation. When asked why, Chen first said she did not know and then when asked to guess, Chen applied the example to herself in Australia. ‘是不是如果我在澳大利亚然后别人叫我 ‘foreigner’, 那感觉挺不好’ (isn’t it the same as if I am in Australia and someone calls me ‘foreigner’, so that feels really bad). Chen showed some intercultural understanding here in that she decentred herself for a moment to understand another’s experience. She surmised that being in Australia for a long period of time and then being called a foreigner represented rudeness. When challenged about whether it is rude in China or not, Chen admitted it can be rude. She cited an experience in Shanghai where, with other ‘Aussie friends’, she overheard a waitress say, ‘this dish is for the foreigners’, and she felt quite offended. She was offended because she is Chinese and was called a ‘foreigner’ along with her Australian friends (Mao, 2015). Finally, Chen added an anecdote from an Anglo-Australian friend who is often called ‘foreigner’ in Hong Kong. She stated he is so used to it, he doesn’t get offended, suggesting personality may also play some part in how this label is received by the hearer. Song’s reaction to a foreign student being referred to as a ‘foreigner’ on the street in China as being a common phenomenon. She made a generalisation about Chinese people that they will do this within China and even outside China when referring to non-Chinese people. Song: ‘Even they (non-Chinese) are in China or Australia, they (Chinese) will still call them ‘老外’ (foreigner) …. ‘你就是老外’ (you are just that, a

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foreigner). When pressed as to the use of ‘老’ (lao—old), Song agreed it is normally used as a signifier of respect, as in,‘老王’ or ‘老李’. This shows that Song is aware of linguistic markers and how they function in the language to reflect meaning and cultural significance. It also showed she is accepting an essentialising practice in Chinese language, the ‘othering’ of non-Chinese (Liu & Self, 2020). Fan’s first response to SD3 is to point out that, to be polite, Chinese people would not say this to a person’s face. She then talked through various aspects of this, almost as self-talk, musing over what was appropriate and what was not. Fan: “They will talk about, ‘oh I’ve got a friend coming with me’ ‘oh 是老外 吗，还是本地人?’ (oh is he a foreigner, or a local (Chinese)) They would ask that. But I would, normally when I see you, I don’t call you 老外 (la ̌owài). They don’t normally say this, or they could say, ‘你是老外，我是中国人’. 当然不一 样了 (You’re a foreigner, I’m a Chinese. That’s definitely not the same) They can say that. So, I actually think la ̌owài, it’s not completely polite. Like not in manner-wise. You don’t call people in front of them laowai”.

It is clear from this response that Fan remains uncertain about how this word can be used with non-Chinese people. Even though it is common for Chinese tourists in Australia, and even Chinese international students in Australia, to continuously refer to non-Chinese people as foreigners, those who have stayed longer, and particularly those who teach Chinese to second language learners, are likely to question this habit. There are still Chinese language teachers in Australia who are unconvinced of the use of 老外 (lǎowài), albeit with a tendency to use it sometimes when unaware (Lin, 2020). What is also intriguing at this juncture is Fan’s use of the word ‘they’. She talks about Chinese people and their linguistic idiosyncrasies without including herself, and yet she clearly identifies as a ‘native Chinese’. Here Fan takes on the persona of an impartial expert who is providing commentary from the outside, even though she identifies as an insider. This is entirely plausible given her life experience of growing up in Hong Kong and then considerable time as an adult in Australia. She has reflected on her own identity for many years and developed intercultural understanding as a result. Following this reflection, Fan offered another such label which she said was ‘a worse one’. She referred to ‘鬼佬’ (guı ̌ lǎo—ghost man) as another example of reference to white foreigners, given they ‘don’t look normal to them’. Interestingly, Fan again removed herself from this group of Chinese, referring to ‘them’.

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Summary Othering is a key component of an essentialist view of culture. Traditionally, there has been a strong binary view of the world from within China, and many still carry this as a default view, even those who have migrated away from China. With time in a new context, and playing a role as language teacher who mediates between cultures, experienced CFL teachers may begin to shift away from othering. However, it appears the binary still exists and exerts influence in the CFL space. SD4: The Use of Titles When Greeting Others Jiang was more emphatic about the differences between the dialogues in SD4. Upon reading the greeting exchanges between a school principal and students in the playground, he concluded one was ‘correct’ and the other ‘incorrect’. To him, the use of the title when addressing a schoolteacher was correct and the alternative of ‘hello Miss’ was unthinkable in Chinese. This reflects assertions by Gu (1990) and Hofstede (2007) in relation to contrasting social and power distance, and Hu et al.’s (2021) honorific titles. Jiang: ‘These children would not say this’ (referring to SD4(b)). Chen immediately attributed language use in SD4 to respect. In this scenario, respect is being shown for a senior teacher by students by use of the teacher’s title. It was interesting to see that Chen acknowledged ways of respecting others in both ‘cultures’ in that she nominates ‘王校长’ (Principal Wang) as ‘the Chinese way’ to respect a school principal and at the same time accepted that the use of the word, ‘Miss’, to address a teacher in an Australian school is also a sign of respect. ‘Miss also means teachers in English, so it’s also showing respect. It’s just different culture how they call it differently’. Chen then contradicted herself by insisting the use of ‘miss’ is not respectful. The use of title is important in her mind, so for principals and teachers alike, the appropriate title should be used to acknowledge status (Hu, Qin & Qi, 2021). ‘如果是尊称老师, 不是叫‘小姐’ (if you respect teachers, don’t say “miss”). Yeah, the title is very, the way you show respect so, ‘老师’ (teacher) is very important’. To clarify any misunderstandings here, I asked for more examples of the use of title in China. Chen offered the example of Head Teacher in a school setting. Specifically,

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Chen: “… you have to, you always call them 主任 (Director) like if someone has a title, for example, 王主任 (Director Wang)。You don’t say, for example, my Head Teacher I call “Jenny” You don’t call their first name. It’s quite, …. you don’t show respect”.

In this example, Chen mentioned her current Head Teacher in Australia, and so further questioning was pursued. “Researcher: You mentioned Jenny. Do you feel 100% comfortable calling her Jenny? Chen: Yeah. Because everyone does. Researcher: Ok. Was there any time before that you felt uncomfortable calling your head teacher by the first name? Chen: No. No”.

The researcher felt this assertion required challenging given the school context in which Chen works is very formal. Researcher: How do you address the Headmaster of your College? Chen: 校长 (Headmaster) Researcher: If you’re speaking to him in English… Chen: Oh… Researcher: …what do you say to him? Chen: Oh, “Doctor Black”. Researcher: Why ‘doctor’? Chen: Because that’s his…. title … isn’t it? (Chen laughed in realization that titles are also important in some Australian contexts) Researcher: Yes. Chen: Yeah so, it’s showing respect. So “Dr Black”.

In response to SD4, Song again offered a different perspective from the other three interviewees by avoiding a cultural explanation for the linguistic differences between the two stimulus dialogues. She started by saying the two dialogues were just different examples of how to address teachers, and she asserted it was merely a language difference. Song: “Just in the language in Chinese we always call “老师或者校长” (Teacher or Principal) according to their profession” Researcher: “So you say it’s only language? In Australia, in this school, why do the students not say, “Teacher Chen”, if it’s only a language difference?

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Song: “It’s just the language, that’s they address the teacher. And I would say any teachers, they call them “sir” or “miss”. And I would say it’s just in language. It’s not really culture”.

I pressed further on this issue and asked Song about the significance of job titles. She answered very emphatically, maintaining her original position, that it was just language that distinguished the two ways of addressing school staff. Song: “To make it clearer, even if a teacher addresses a principal, that will make a big difference in English. When we (staff at her present school) address the principal, we can use the first name. And so, we never call the principal by their title…. However, in Chinese we always call the principal, or even head teachers, by their job title”.

Song’s attempt to divide language and culture was unexpected, and this represents a contradiction in her perceptions of the two. On the one hand she talks about traditional Chinese culture that can be mapped to various complementary linguistic items, and on the other hand, she seems to argue their separateness. Up to this point in the interview, Song did not explicitly say using a teacher’s title is a sign of respect, and so my assumption that she was contradicting herself could be debatable. The assumption was then, however, confirmed when I asked about other occupations, and the following was elicited: Researcher: “Is this the same for other occupations or only teaching?” Song: “All the occupations. 我们会说, (We can say) “科长” (Department Head)，or “王总” (CEO Wang). To add the title is always a sign of respect in Chinese culture. It’s very important”.

Fan was initially confused over the meaning and context of these dialogues. At first, she became fixated on the word ‘小姐’ (xiǎojiě—Miss) and tried to situate the conversation in a formal setting, such as a bank or other customer context. She then relegated it to a textbook dialogue. When I reminded her that the context was a school playground and the exchange was between students and a school principal, Fan declared that the translation must be wrong.

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Fan: “Oh that is a wrong translation. That is a direct translation of English culture, which is wrong. So, what does this exchange show us? Because nobody in China will call their teacher ‘小姐’ (Miss) or ‘先生’ (Mr) …. in Mandarin they would never ever call the person they respect, especially principals or teachers 小姐 (Miss) or 太太 (Mrs). They will never say that. They will always use the surname and the title”.

When pressed as to the use of titles in Mandarin, Fan was adamant that everyone in China uses titles for teachers as a sign of respect (Hu, Qin & Qi, 2021). She also added that the use of titles is much more important in China than in Australia.

Summary Teachers were emphatic about the importance of using titles when addressing adults or superiors in China. To them it was unthinkable that a school student in China would not address the school principal with a surname followed by ‘teacher’ or ‘principal’. It was as if the translation of an English informality cannot and should not exist in Chinese. Whether this rule in Chinese is culture-bound was questioned by one teacher, who claimed it is merely a linguistic difference. The other three teachers were, however, fixated on the notion that it is strongly related to a cultural value that obligates Chinese to use honorific titles. SD5: The Eating Greeting Both dialogues were affirmed as currently used in China; however, Jiang made it clear the first was only used in China. When pressed to give an explanation as to why this was the case, Jiang admitted he had not done any research on this, and so he did not know. Even when the researcher suggested a historical reason for this, linking it to famine, he was adamant that this was not the reason. Jiang did stress, however, that it is only used between people who are familiar with each other—such as close neighbours. The only reason conceivable to Jiang was that of showing care. This is supported by Lin and Miao (2013) who suggest it embodies a spirit of humanistic care. He supplemented this comment with further examples such as:

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Jiang: “We are neighbours, we greet each other a lot …. ‘Oh you’re wearing so little as you go out! You should wear a coat!’ …. I finish work quite late, and I go back home and I saw someone coming down the stairs … ‘you haven’t gone to bed yet? Why not?’ They do that—it’s a greeting”.

Interestingly, when the interview concluded, and I thanked Jiang for his input, he naturally displayed self-deprecating humility in the following: Researcher: “Alright, we’re finished. Thank you very much.” Jiang: “Haha. I didn’t prepare, just talk nonsense! Really, I didn’t prepare and I opened my mouth and out came a flood of water! It was very natural.”

This echoes SD1(b) as the interlocutor self-deprecates when offered praise (Leech, 1983). In response to this stimulus, Chen stated that both statements are used in China. Yet, she went on to make a distinction between their frequency of use and who might use them more than others. There is some disagreement as to why Chinese people use ‘你吃了吗?’ (Have you eaten?) as a greeting. Chen offered the explanation that people were poor in the past and so many were hungry. She said it was rare to have an apple to eat (Juraev, 2021). Now that economic development has taken place, it is better, she says, to say, ‘你好’ (hi) or ‘最近怎么样?’ (How have you been lately?). So, in her opinion, given people’s lives have improved, the eating greeting is now less appropriate. This contrasts with Jiang’s emphatic assertion that it is unrelated to historical famine. When asked whether people in Australia ask each other this question (Have you eaten?), she immediately said ‘no’ and laughed at the question, and added: Chen: “I have never been asked this question. Maybe because economic, or culture, environment. I think Australia has 100  years, or short history. Hasn’t been gone through a lot of (poverty)… so that’s the reason that that’s not the usual question to ask. ..,”Have you eaten?” I think Australia is quite a fortunate country”.

In conclusion, I thanked Chen and praised her for her answers, and interestingly, she immediately took a humble approach saying: “Chen: 说的回答还可以 (My answers were ok)。 Interviewer: 还可以吗?(ok?)

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Chen: 我觉得还可以吧。我尽量了(I spoke ok. I tried)”.

It is noted here that Chen’s final response differed from Jiang’s in that she allowed for some humble, yet positive self-comment, whereas Jiang described what he said as ‘rubbish’ and ‘words just flooding out naturally’. This could also be attributed to a generational difference, given that Jiang is over 60 years of age and Chen is in her 30s. Song’s reflections on SD5 showed she is aware of the linguistic functions that greetings perform and that they differ between languages, that is, they are not necessarily directly translated and used interchangeably. She acknowledged that different ways to greet someone exist in different languages. Her rationale for why Chinese people say, ‘Have you eaten?’ as a general greeting was that ‘eating is important in Chinese culture’. Following this comment, Song likened the Chinese greeting to English people talking about the weather, as if to say it is shallow and lacking any intention to engage in a longer conversation. She did not offer a cultural explanation as to why English people might talk about the weather. At this point, I became interested to know whether Song expected any of the culturally informed linguistic items to be used by her students at school. For instance, I asked if any students ever greet her in the morning with, ‘老师好，你吃饭了没有?’ (Hello teacher, have you eaten?) Song responded with ‘never’, and when asked why, she simply stated, ‘I didn’t teach them, so they won’t know it’. She then quickly added: Song: “Um, they will learn that when they are on exchange. 他们会说，”吃饭 了，吃饱了” (they are able to say, “I’ve eaten, I’ve finished eating), and the best Chinese they learn is, “我包了” (I’m full!). They will learn that in their in-­country experience. However, it is acceptable to say, “你好” (Hi)”.

This explanation revealed a deliberate choice to ignore an opportunity to use authentic language outside the borders of China. Song has deemed it unnecessary for second language learners to learn and use culturally authentic greetings in an Australian setting. Further to this, I asked about student expressions of humility when speaking Chinese. Researcher: “Have you ever had a student express humility, by rejecting a compliment about their Chinese speaking ability?”

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Song: “Mm, maybe once or twice in all the past years, but not commonly.” Researcher: “Were you surprised? What was your reaction to that?” Song: “Mm, I’m not surprised. They probably said that because the day before I told them about this! But that’s not their natural reaction. So, they learnt it the other day, so they use it. And that’s it! They don’t really reject any (compliments). Especially when I talk to them in English, they wouldn’t do that, even talking with me”.

Here we see confirmation that Song has no intention to develop or assess this aspect of interculturality in her students. If it happens, it is only by chance, and it is not given any significance. There is also evidence that Song’s pedagogy might be characterised by a teacher-centred approach in which students learn only from the teacher, or perhaps the textbook by proxy, and are then assessed according to their knowledge and skills as developed in class with the teacher directing most of the learning. Song’s comment, ‘but that’s not their natural reaction’, is pertinent because increasing interculturality in this learning context would be characterised by more naturally occurring instances of humility expressed in corresponding Chinese language utterances. Fan had a lot to say in response to the final stimulus. She identified SD5(a) as what Chinese people commonly say and SD5(b) as textbook Chinese. Fan then shared with some enthusiasm that she always explains the reason for the first dialogue to her students. Fan: “Because food was such a vital thing before and so lack of, so people worry about each other—have you eaten.” Researcher: Are you talking particularly about the famine from ’58 to ’61? Fan: “Not because of that only. A long time ago the whole culture it’s just… Because food is the …” Researcher: “Because it’s an agricultural society?” Fan: “…we don’t always have, so … Oh when friends or people turn up, you worry about ‘are you hungry?’ Because people are hungry three times a day. “would you like some food?” It’s not always that I’m offering you food, they’re now used to it for greeting. So that’s why I teach the students about … when we talk about food culture, we actually use that for greetings now”.

In this response, Fan revealed her willingness to contextualise her explanations of language use. When asked about this, she was able to give an even more specific example of when to use the greeting, ‘你吃了吗?’ (nı ̌ chı ̄le ma? Have you eaten?)

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Researcher: “How can the students learn when to use 你吃了吗? (nı ̌ chı ̄le ma?) And who to ask?” Fan: “The context is usually 你吃了吗 (nı ̌ chı ̄le ma?) is a person who can look after the other person would ask it, or in the position to provide something. That’s why teenagers, younger people, they don’t usually say that. Unless they are in high school, in Uni and they go out with some other friends, and they might say 你吃了吗 (nı ̌ chı ̄le ma?). It doesn’t mean that they are offering food at all. But um, but for some reason, in my understanding it’s not for little kids going around’你吃了吗’ (nı ̌ chı ̄le ma?), it’s unusual”.

This explanation appears universal in function and context in that when a meal is due, or someone is a personal carer, it is common for one to ask the other if they have eaten. Fan did not give the same explanation that Jiang and Chen offered, that using such a question functions as a greeting even when interlocutors are not going out together or gathering around one of the meal times, but merely asking to show they care. Fan’s explanation was more similar to that of Song, who stated plainly that food is important to Chinese people. Fan also added that, linguistically, there are many other ways to greet people and that these were taught to her students when their ‘background’ and ‘level’ permitted. The first of these two caveats, ‘background’, reinforces again something significant about Fan’s beliefs about who can learn which Chinese utterances. This again suggests that she withholds some language from some language learners but allows other learners access. In relation to ‘level’, Fan elaborated by explaining that some of the language taught from the textbook is merely the basic building blocks of the language, and she seemed resigned to the fact that it was not always authentic, stating, ‘Yeah, some of the textbook I would not use in my daily life’. However, following this admission, Fan again revealed her essentialist beliefs about language learning. Fan: “But sometimes it also depends on who you are. If you are a foreign kid, an Australian kid and you say, “你吃过了吗” (nı ̌ chı ̄guole ma? Have you eaten?), people actually find it very weird”.

I was then able to elicit the source of this attitude when asking Fan about her own experience in Australia. She revealed she had attempted to use what she viewed as authentic Australian English in, ‘Fair dinkum, no worries mate’, and found that Australian people thought it was weird.

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From this personal anecdote, Fan seems to have chosen a fixed path for her non-Chinese background students. Fan was not in favour of the rote learning of basic phrases, but she stated that her students needed to know what the text means. Following a foundation of the basics, Fan said her students would then ‘learn the flavour, the extra, the colourful…’, referring to alternative, and perhaps more culturally informed, language. She admitted that when the foundation was being taught, students needed to know that there were some alternatives. This represented an openness to negotiating meaning making with students, which is a trait of increasing interculturality (Bird & Osland, 2005; Byram & Wagner, 2018). In her own summary of the interview, Fan offered the following: Fan: “So maybe our background has affected our way to express ourselves. No matter what, just because of our background. So maybe we should just talk, and people will be still happy to talk to you, maybe the little minor cultural things, we might get it wrong, but the majority of the time, if you speak the language you can still communicate. That’s the main thing isn’t it. I get you, and you know what I’m saying, and we get along and you don’t feel that I’m rude. I think that’s what we need”.

These comments approach a desire to ‘see culture through the discourse patterns of individuals, rather than static culture’ (Byram, 1997; Camilleri, 1993; Holliday, 2013; Jin, 2014; Kramsch, 2011; Kramsch & Zhang, 2018).

Summary There was disagreement about the origin of this greeting phrase. While some believed it relates to times of famine and therefore expresses personal concern (Fan & Chen), others were not convinced of this and explained that it works as a greeting showing care because ‘food is important in China’. None of the participants appeared open to the idea that their L2  students should be encouraged to use this phrase. This was either because ‘it’s something they will learn on exchange’ or it is ‘not something young people say to each other’.

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Conclusion Responding to compliments, using polite language when asking for directions from a stranger and using titles to address adults are language functions commonly addressed in language learning textbooks and classrooms. Hence, experienced language teachers will have taught students how and when to use them. In this research teacher participants were given two versions of each of these language exchanges to compare. In each case they reflected thoughtfully and offered comments on linguistic accuracy, cultural meaning, and who might use each utterance. It was apparent from teacher responses to these stimulus dialogues that Chinese language teachers certainly believe language carries culture, although their ability to explain the connections/origins differed. What was also made clear was that teachers have relatively strong opinions about who speaks this way or that, or what constitutes correct Chinese. What is interesting is that whether ‘correct’ or not, there were differences of opinion about who needs to learn and who should use the language. On the strength of confidence in textbook use in Chinese language classrooms, it appears teachers are willing to tolerate ‘inaccuracies’ (textbook Chinese) in order for curriculum targets to be met, so that students can move through the levels of learning. This is not conducive to the facilitation of intercultural reflection.

References Bird, A., & Osland, J. S. (2005). Making sense of intercultural collaboration. International Studies of Management & Organization, 35(4), 115–132. Boyce, C. (2020). The “We Chinese” problem. Journal of Political Risk, 8(4). Core Analytics. Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Multilingual Matters. Byram, M., & Wagner, M. (2018). Making a difference: Language teaching for intercultural and international dialogue. Foreign Language Annals, 51(1), 140–151. Cai, H., Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., Wang, C., Carvallo, M., Xu, Y., et al. (2011). Tactical self-enhancement in China: Is modesty at the service of self-­ enhancement in East Asian culture? Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(1), 59–64. Camilleri, C. (1993). Les conditions structurelles de l’interculturel. Revue française de pédagogie, 43-50.

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Chen, R. (1993). Responding to compliments: A contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 20, 49–75. Chen, R., & Yang, D. (2010). Responding to compliments in Chinese: Has it changed? Journal of Pragmatics, 42(7), 1951–1963. Cheng, D. (2011). New insights on compliment responses: A comparison between native English speakers and Chinese L2 speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(8), 2204–2214. Fong, C. S., DeWitt, D., & Leng, C. H. (2018). The analysis of cultural and intercultural elements in Mandarin as a foreign language textbooks from Selected Malaysian Public Higher Education Institutions. MOJES: Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 6(1), 66–90. Gao, G. (1998). “Don’t take my word for it.” – understanding Chinese speaking practises. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 22(2), 163–186. Gu, Y. (1990). Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 237–257. Gudykunst, W.  B., Matsumoto, Y., Ting-Toomey, S., Nishida, T., Kim, K., & Heyman, S. (1996). The influence of cultural individualism-collectivism, self construals, and individual values on communication styles across cultures. Human Communication Research, 22(4), 510–543. Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture and organizations. International Studies of Management & Organization, 10(4), 15–41. Hofstede, G. (2007). Asian management in the 21st century. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 24(4), 411–420. Holliday, A. (2013). Understanding intercultural communication. London: Routledge. Hu, X., Qin, M., & Qi, P. (2021). Exploring the importance and social status of “laoshi” as a greeting used by Chinese students to address their teachers. International Journal of Chinese Language Teaching, 2(1), 87–95. Jackson, J. (2018) Interculturality in international education. New  York, NY: Routledge. Jin, T. (2014). Getting to know you: The development of intercultural competence as an essential element in learning Mandarin. London Review of Education, 12(1), 20–33. Juraev, D. M. (2021). Interference in the formation of linguoculturological competence in teaching Chinese. World Bulletin of Social Sciences, 2, 22–23. Kramsch, C. (2011). The symbolic dimensions of the intercultural. Language teaching, 44(3), 354–367. Kramsch, C., & Zhang, L. (2018). The multilingual instructor. Oxford university Press. Leech, G. N. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. Longman. Li, W. (2009). Different communication rules between the English and Chinese greetings. Asian Culture and History, 1(2), 72.

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Lin, C. Y. (2020). Relocating the functions of Chineseness in Chinese popular music after the China wind. China Perspectives, 2020(2020-2), 7–14. Lin, T. (2013). The concepts of “politeness”: A comparative study in Chinese and Japanese verbal communication. Intercultural Communication Studies, 22(2), 151–165. Lin, Q., & Miao, G. (2013). “The cultural connotation of the greeting” have you eaten. Journal of Jiamusi Education Institute, 11. Liu, L. (2016). Different cultures and social patterns matter in English and Chinese greetings. Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal, 7, 2342–2346. Liu, Y., & Self, C. C. (2020). Laowai as a discourse of Othering: Unnoticed stereotyping of American expatriates in Mainland China. Identities, 27(4), 462–480. Loh, W. C. T. (1993). Responses to compliments across languages and cultures: A comparative study of British and Hong Kong Chinese. Department of English, Research Report Series No. 30, pp. 1–89. City University of Hong Kong. Mao, Y. (2015). Who is a laowai? Chinese interpretations of laowai as a referring expression for non-Chinese. International Journal of Communication, 9, 22. Miller, A. N., & Samp, J. A. (2007). Planning intercultural interaction: Extending anxiety/uncertainty management theory. Communication Research Reports, 24(2), 87–95. Mills, S., & Grainger, K. (2016). Directness and indirectness across cultures. Springer. Pan, Y., & Kadar, D.  Z. (2011). Historical vs. contemporary Chinese linguistic politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(6), 1525–1539. Parepa, L. A. (2017). Rebuilding national unity through discourse in China: strategic narrative and concordance. TIPA. Travaux interdisciplinaires sur la parole et le langage, (33). Schartner, S. A. (2019). Intercultural transitions in higher education: International student adjustment and adaptation. Edinburgh University Press. Shi, Y., Gregg, A. P., Sedikides, C., & Cai, H. (2021). Lay conceptions of modesty in China: A prototype approach. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 52(2), 155–177. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2000). Rapport management: A framework for analysis. Culturally speaking: Managing rapport through talk across cultures (pp. 11–46). Continuum. Tang, X. H., & Liu, S. Z. (2004). The norm of politeness and pragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication address forms. Foreign Languages and Their Teaching, 187, 11–14. Wang, I. K. H. (2018). Long-term Chinese students’ transitional experiences in UK higher education: A particular focus on their academic adjustment. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 30(1), 12–25.

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Wang, J., & Taylor, C. (2019). The conventionalisation of mock politeness in Chinese and British online forums. Journal of Pragmatics, 142, 270–280. Wang, Q., & Chang, L. (2010). Parenting and child socialization in contemporary China. Wu, D. Y. H. (2002). 9. The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities. In China Off Center (pp. 167–184). University of Hawaii Press. Xu, Y., Zhang, L., & Hee, P. (2014). Parenting practises and shyness in Chinese children. In Parenting across cultures (pp. 13–24). Springer. Ye, L. (1995). Complimenting in Mandarin Chinese. In G.  Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as native and target language (pp. 207–295). University of Hawaii Press. Zhou, L. (2022). Self-denigration in Mandarin Chinese: An alternative account from sincerity. Language & Communication, 87, 1–10.

CHAPTER 4

Teacher Voices on Thoughts About Language and Culture Teaching

Abstract  This chapter reports findings from semi-structured interviews of the same four teachers discussed in the previous chapter. The interviews investigated personal background and current school context, general beliefs about culture, and culture in language teaching. Findings suggest approaches to language teaching are influenced by a diverse range of factors including educational and family background, individual understandings of culture, personal cross-cultural experiences after arriving in Australia, learner-cohort profiles in the current teaching context, and perceptions of what should be taught to whom in the current teaching context. The chapter also contains descriptions of each teacher’s interculturality, that is, their intercultural competence as defined in a synthesis of literature. This has relevance to language teacher capacity to develop intercultural competence in their students, which in turn may influence success in language learning. Keywords  Intercultural competence • Interculturality • Teacher beliefs • Language teaching • Culture in language teaching • Teacher voices

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Smith, Teacher Voices in Chinese Language Teaching, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89213-5_4

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This chapter reports on the reflections of four teachers as they talk about themselves, language teaching, and culture. It is a listening exercise for us to better understand what they believe about the connections between language teaching and the culture that is carried by the language. The previous chapter reported teacher reflections on five stimulus dialogues. This chapter provides an extension to these reflections as teachers were asked to talk about their personal background and school context, and beliefs about culture and language teaching.

Personal Background and School Context Jiang describes himself as educated in China, including his primary, secondary, and tertiary schooling. In his tertiary studies he majored in English and Chinese and studied Japanese. Upon arrival in Australia in 1991, he was informed that his degree was not recognized by the Australian teacher accreditation process, and thus he embarked on more tertiary studies at a large university in Sydney, where he qualified as a foreign language teacher. Prior to coming to Australia, some of his 15  years’ teaching experience included working as a head of department in a Chinese secondary school. Several years after graduation in Australia, Jiang undertook further study, this time a Master of Applied Linguistics. During his master’s coursework he gained employment in the International Studies department of the university and taught Chinese at tertiary level. He reflects about this time in a somewhat frustrated, yet philosophical way: Jiang: I said, “you guys, you don’t recognize my degree and my experience. Now you ask me to apply for the job” … So, I start teaching…

A series of funding cuts to education under the Howard federal government (1996–2007) reduced his employment status to part time. In addition to this work, he held a position as student manager at a private Foundation Studies college. Of note at this juncture in Jiang’s self-­ description is his high degree of self-confidence and self-efficacy. Jiang’s employment at his current school was under very different circumstances to his other Chinese teaching colleague Chen (the second teacher participant in this study). Whereas Chen was employed as classes expanded, Jiang was the foundation Chinese language teacher responsible for starting the programme in his school. His experience and knowledge of the school’s history and ethos, based on him having a grandchild at the

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school, stood him in good stead for this position. Thus, he was employed full time from his first year beginning with Years 7 and 11 Chinese classes. He also taught ESL throughout the school and Chinese at the Open High School (a government distance-education provider for language study). Jiang’s success in developing the Chinese language course at his current school paved the way for Chen to be employed several years later. Jiang commented on the advantages of his background for Chinese language teaching. He believes his English major was of significant benefit when it came to teaching in Australia. He was among a minority of Chinese language teachers who spoke English fluently. He also cites having studied the classics in China as a good foundation for Chinese language teaching in Australia. His experience as a foreign language student, through the courses he took in Japanese, added to his appreciation for second language learning and teaching. When asked about any disadvantages relating to his background, Jiang took more time to think. He reflected on his need to learn about Australian culture. Even though he had studied western culture as an English major in China, he felt this was inadequate preparation for teaching in Australian schools. Jiang: Because I was an English student, I learned a lot of western culture, this was helpful, but come and really teach the Australian kids, I still need to know more.

Here Jiang cited, for example, that knowledge of local school rules, how to deal with parents, student attitudes, and how to manage them were all different in the Chinese context. One realisation he reflected upon was the need to ‘make Australian students like you’. Whereas students in China somewhat automatically respect their teachers by way of a long-­ standing value for education, Australian students are ‘more like equals’. In other words, in Australia the teacher cannot assume obedience, constant and unwavering attention, or respect just because they are a teacher, and they stand at the front of a classroom. Jiang: They don’t think—"you’re a teacher, I should listen to you”. So, classroom management is a big issue. If you couldn’t control the class, especially high school, you can’t teach.

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Jiang’s school is an elite boys’ school in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. He described the family background of students as ‘rich’ and explains that this facilitates a well-resourced teaching environment. He also commented that this situation means many students are ‘not very hungry about their future’ given they can ‘work for their father or go to their father’s company’. His school is also one in which sport is very attractive, where there is a proud tradition of sporting prowess. Most of Jiang’s students are beginner language learners and are therefore enrolled in the so-called Beginners or Continuers Chinese courses (NSW Board of Studies). He described Year 7 students as immature, who sometimes ‘drive him crazy’. He said he believes most students like him and would say he is a nice person who wants to teach them, who wants to push them to learn. Jiang appeared like a fatherly figure in the classroom. His age (approximately 60) seemed to command respect and he took teaching seriously. He appeared genuinely focused on his teaching as well as on student learning. Chen described herself as someone who ‘grew up there’. Her identity reference point was first geographical (in this case, Taiwan). She listed as strengths of her background speaking, writing, reading, and cultural understanding, and in relation to cultural understanding she affirmed she can explain Chinese traditional festivals, such as the mid-autumn festival, adding if she had not grown up there, ‘I think I will find a lot of things quite differently’. By contrast, a stated weakness in her background was English speaking. Here she mentioned accent as a barrier to communication with Chinese language students, noting students sometimes need to ‘ask me again’ and ‘I try my best’. In fact, she said ‘I try my best’ twice, indicating a lack of confidence in the Australian classroom setting. An overall lack of confidence in describing her experience as a Chinese language teacher was also seen in her final words of the interview—‘我尽量了’ (wǒ jı ̌nliàngle—I tried as best I could). The context in which Chen functions as a Chinese language teacher is an elite Prep to Year 12 independent boys’ school in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney. She is the second Chinese language teacher to be employed in recent years during the development phase of the Chinese language programme at the school. She described the students as mostly non-­ background speakers, with some more recent arrivals who have had experience in Singapore schools. Chen teaches Years 5–11 and readily offered descriptions of the differences between her Year 5–6, 7–8, and

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9–11 students. In reference to her Year 5–6 students, she stated, ‘I find the way they learn is quite different’, citing that they like to learn songs, and that ‘they love learning about culture’. The next cohort, Years 7–8, were distinguished from the former group based on their unwillingness to learn songs. The reason given by Chen was ‘they think they are already grown up, so they don’t want to do the songs’. Beyond this, students fell into the post-compulsory or a language-elective category and were designated by Chen as ‘really keen to learn (Chinese)’. Song finished her secondary schooling and bachelor’s degree in China before coming to Australia to complete a master’s degree and Diploma of Education. She lists being a native speaker of Chinese as a ‘huge’ advantage in relation to teaching Chinese in Australia. Additionally, she feels that growing up in China has given her a profound knowledge of the language and culture. A third point she made was that her undergraduate course as an English language major meant she studied theories of second language acquisition, and this she says can be applied to the teaching of Chinese in Australia. When asked about any disadvantages of her background, Song cited not going to school in Australia, not knowing the system better than the students, and needing time to adjust to the teaching and learning style in Australian schools. Classroom management was another challenge she mentioned as a disadvantage, as well as not being a native English speaker. The context of Song’s teaching is an independent inner-city K-12 school which places an emphasis on foreign language study. Many of the students live in the city centre and therefore display greater independence than their suburban peers. Song reported that up to 95% of students are ‘white Australians’ who do not have much contact with other cultures. Song: They don’t have much contact with other cultures; or less contact with Asian cultures. So, they never knew anyone who’s Chinese or Asian. They probably didn’t use Chinese, didn’t listen to Chinese at all before they started course here.

The other pertinent comment Song made about student background is that most of the learners currently enrolled in Chinese classes have spent time learning another foreign language prior to beginning Chinese study. The primary school curriculum contains foreign languages as a compulsory course. Hence, even though students may learn French for several

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years in the primary school, they come to Chinese as relatively experienced language learners. Fan described herself as someone whose entire education, including university study, was in Hong Kong. At tertiary level she studied literature translation, rather than education, but after relocating to Australia, she completed a Diploma of Education at an Australian university. Fan came to Australia in 2000 and began her teacher education training in 2001. The following year she began teaching at her current school, where she has been for almost 20 years. When asked about the advantages of her background, Fan’s first reference was to her linguistic abilities. She reported that she is bilingual in Cantonese and Mandarin, and English is her third language. In her mind, this translates to an advantage when gaining trust and communicating with parents. In addition, she made a cultural reference to ‘background’, evidently to strengthen this assertion. Fan: And with my Chinese background, because I spoke (Chinese) with no accent, that makes it very easy for me to get the trust of the students and their parents. Whoever can speak Chinese, they know I’m not going to give them the wrong accent… the first thing. And because my background is Chinese.

Next, Fan referred to Chinese literature as another strength of her academic background. She cited her background in Chinese literature to justify her capacity to teach any level of Chinese language, and then added a reference to her English language proficiency to support an ability to compare culture. Fan: You know like native Chinese so, and I studied literature too so with all those advantages I know that I can teach any level. I can teach from background … because I speak good English as well, so from second language to heritage to, which I need to compare culture, and to background. So, makes it very easy to find a job, and because of English I can teach ESL as well, which I taught in this school as well before.

In relation to any disadvantages related to background, Fan referred to geo-linguistic variation and lexical change as two of the challenges in her work as a teacher of Chinese. In her response, she prefaced her remarks with an anecdote that revealed quite a proactive approach to the understanding of a new culture.

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Fan: So, when I first came to Australia my only concern was, I didn’t understand what the students were saying sometimes. I understood their English word, but I didn’t know what they’re trying to express. It’s like street language. I wasn’t very good, so I was watching “Home and Away” every day, like I don’t like soaps, but I was watching it to learn what do people say in these kinds of situations.

Following on from this anecdote, Fan referred to several linguistic challenges to illustrate the disadvantages of someone born and raised in Hong Kong, who now teaches Mandarin. Fan: Ah. My background, because I’m from Hong Kong, there are a lot of new usages in mainland China or online Chinese that I did not have any contact with. And the same thing happened, the mainland Chinese language has evolved very quickly, especially online language. And the latest street language, I wasn’t very good with that.

Fan’s response to this challenge was to seek current resources that could update her knowledge and complement her teaching. She first found resources from Taiwanese websites that listed ‘street language’. Unsatisfied with this, Fan successfully requested extra funding for the employment of teacher assistants from Mainland China. With this support, she felt more competent in providing the most up to date ‘口语’ (kǒuyǔ—oral language) to her students. In addition, Fan reported a shift in the way she improved herself, moving away from watching Australian/American soaps to watching Chinese soaps. Fan: So I tried to solve that problem, so from 5–6 years ago we employed a native assistant, native speaker assistant, which they have just arrived, they just arrived Australia less than 5 years, and they have a lot of contact with their friends in China, so give us a lot of insights, if I don’t know what’s that mean? 吐槽’ (tǔcáo shì shénme) 是什么?(What is “tǔcáo”?) they could just let me know very quickly. And now myself, I used to watch English program, you know English drama, like “Prison Break” that kind of thing. And now I go back to watch Chinese drama—and the current ones. So now I’m learning a lot myself as well. I have to learn it because I didn’t grow up in that environment.

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This is evidence of a deliberate choice to position herself as a learner and one who collaborates with others to construct meaning—one of the attributes of increasing interculturality discussed in Chap. 1. Learning for Fan is indeed first inter-mental (social) and then intra-mental (individual). She appeared to understand the broadening of social dimensions necessary for quality teaching and learning. The context of Fan’s teaching is a large faith-based independent elite pre-K to 12 girls’ school in the inner west of Sydney. Fan reported the following about when she first arrived at the school: Fan: you could see hardly any black-haired students in the assembly, ….. and now there are more and more students from a Chinese heritage background.

She also indicated there has been a growing number of students from Mainland China—‘at least 30–40 now’. One of the reasons she gave for the growing numbers of heritage students was the introduction of the Heritage Chinese course (now called ‘Chinese in Context’). Fan suggested that this course has been increasing in demand in the Chinese Australian community and so it has attracted students to the school. Fan holds a leadership position in the school as Assistant Head of Languages.

General Beliefs About Culture When asked to define ‘culture’, Jiang listed aspects of visible and deep (Shaules, 2019) culture, and he referred to ‘culture’ as a place-based phenomenon. While he referenced traditions such as Chinese New Year and other festivals, he focused more on value-based aspects of culture such as politeness, respect, and the importance of family. ‘Culture’ for Jiang, however, is very much a geographical paradigm—‘that country’s culture’. This is revealed by a comment on ‘intercultural language learning’ as outlined in the NSW Chinese syllabus. Jiang immediately assumed this was related to the heritage course and substituted ‘intercultural’ for ‘international’. This indicates he possibly only associates the heritage course with explicit teaching of culture, and he does not understand the meaning of intercultural language learning, or the specific requirements of this section of the syllabus.

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Jiang: For the students here, the Australian people, the students, you need them to know more about the …. It’s a foreign language, you need to know that country’s culture at least. So, this is how they become international right?

When asked to define the word ‘culture’, Chen stated the following: Chen: It’s how the people believe, and how they interact with each other. And I also think the living style is different. And mentally thinking, the way …. I think in Australia, even the education they value, not just only academically. They value doing well in music or sports or art. But when in China, in Taiwan, always do the cram school, after school cram school. Always study! It’s really, it’s how people believe, think differently.

Here we see a combination of various aspects of culture, including belief, behaviour, and values. From her example Chen affirmed a deep belief in the importance of learning in Taiwan, and hence the high value placed on education—particularly academic education. A contrasting example she gave of the additional value placed on music and sports in Australia forms her belief that people ‘believe’ and ‘think differently’ (between Taiwan and Australia). After describing her teaching context, Song was asked to define ‘culture’. Her response indicated a relatively sophisticated understanding of the differences between shallow and deep culture. Song: Culture? Oh, it’s a very broad …. I would say it’s a group of people with a common history, common language, and they have been living together for a really long time to actually get into the same culture. And there are many aspects in culture. Superficial ones like, the way people do things, traditional festivals, the way people dress, talk to each other. And then there are more deeper concepts about people-to-people relationship. And how people do things … how to value some the aspects in life, in society and life.

Her basic definition, people with a common history, language, and shared geographical space, was very general in scope. She quickly indicated, however, that ‘culture’ is a complex and multifaceted concept. And it is here we can see her more thoughtful understanding of the term. She divides culture into ‘superficial’ and ‘deeper’ concepts. Tangible aspects of people’s behaviours, fashion, as well as language fall into the superficial category, whereas values such as humility, moderation, respect, and

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politeness are what she calls deeper concepts. People-to-people relationships and how aspects of life are valued in society are deep culture. Fan defined culture in terms of peoples’ practices. She referred to daily life and lifestyle and gave the example of religion, connecting it to peoples’ heritage or their ethnic background. She then added that it is ‘heavily related to food, celebrations, clothing, the way you talk and the way you behave’. When asked for further explanation on ‘the way you talk’, Fan referenced people from an Asian background and the way they speak more politely to older people. In terms of behaviour, she asserted she could distinguish those students in her classes who had grown up in an Asian context, by the way they relate to adults. Fan: I can easily spot whether a student is Asian grown, like Korean, Japanese or Chinese, even they are in Australia, even if they speak good English, I can still tell from the practice of their home, the way they treat teachers, their fellow students, their manners…. But it doesn’t have anything negative about the students who grew up in Australia. So, everyone has their own way of behaving.

When asked for a list of aspects of Chinese culture, Fan gave the following: Fan: Festivals, food, clothing, and celebrations such as birthdays and weddings, and also history, and um, literature….. is that enough?

Most of these aspects correlate with Fan’s views on ‘culture’ in general, yet literature and history appear as extra aspects she sees as pertinent. A follow-up question—What do you think are the most important aspects of Chinese culture that students should learn in their first two years of Mandarin study?—elicited the topics of origin of the language, China and Chinese history, Chinese geography, who’s speaking Chinese in the world, what the written language looks like and why, festivals, and the practice of celebrations.

Beliefs About Culture and Language Teaching Jiang was asked how written Chinese and Chinese culture are connected. He began with comments relating to the connection between Chinese writing and traditional roles in society. He also mentioned that peoples’ physical attributes are valued and devalued, and this can be expressed in

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written characters. For instance, Jiang attributed several Chinese characters to reflections of Chinese traditional culture as they relate to gender roles. He cited the man being given priority over the woman as depicted in an ideograph of a woman which includes a broom, and an ideograph of a house which contains a woman on the ground floor, the traditional location of the kitchen. In fact, from one character—‘building’ (Fig.  4.1) —he was able to describe a combination of meanings; ‘樓’ (building) is made up of a square to show the building is level, a wood radical (on the left) to indicate the material used in construction, and a woman (bottom right) at the bottom of the building where the kitchen is located. From this we can see Jiang takes an enriched cultural approach to teaching Chinese writing. He seeks and reveals cultural content in the writing system to enrich the learning process for his students. This shows an awareness and a willingness to deconstruct Chinese characters for the purpose of establishing cultural links with language. It enhances understanding and promotes retention of knowledge. It also serves to model a way of learning that integrates extra-linguistic meaning. This operates to engage learners on another level—a level beyond linguistic meaning and perhaps into the realms of intercultural understanding. Jiang explained that many characters in Chinese writing are derived from the natural world. Words such as ‘山’ (mountain), ‘日’ (sun), ‘月’ (moon), ‘木’ (wood), ‘森’ (forest), and ‘火’ (fire) are good examples. Where this was not envisaged as possible in the minds of ancient Chinese people, he proffered the use of ‘imagination’ in Chinese character creation. Here he referred to the two characters ‘上’ (shang) and ‘下’ (xia), to explain how written ideographs derive from people’s imaginings of the world: ‘上’ (up/top/above) and ‘下’ (down/bottom/beneath). Another feature of Jiang’s responses in this section was his reference to history, not merely the commonly quoted ‘Chinese long history’, but a specific comment on the agricultural nature of Chinese societies and the nuanced way Chinese farmers looked at the world. The character 田(tian), for instance, represents a field. Jiang explained that this is a good example Fig. 4.1  Deconstruction of Chinese character: ‘樓’ (building)

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of how peasant farmers made a field—a piece of land divided into four equal segments. In another comment, Jiang explained how we can see what was valued in Chinese society by studying the writing. The connection between being thin and being ill is seen in the character ‘瘦’ (shòu). This character contains the radical (a meaning particle in Chinese characters) for ‘ill’. In ancient China, to be thin was undesirable and implied sickliness, disability, or poverty. Given this connection, Jiang was suggesting that teaching and learning can benefit from pointing it out explicitly, thus giving his students something to hang meaning upon. Jiang also drew a link between culture and technology. To explain the origin of the word ‘sit’ (‘坐’) in Chinese, he revealed that the character is a pictograph made up of two people sitting beside each other on the ground (soil). Jiang: Like to sit down—I never feel my students find this difficult—we see two people sitting on a …… you know 500 years ago there is no sofa (so they sit on the ground)—even the word ‘sofa’ is a translation from English. So, “sit” (坐) is very close to the ancient culture.

Jiang also explained that the word ‘sofa’ is rendered as ‘沙发’ (shāfā) in Chinese—an example of a transliteration from English—and in this he showed he is acutely aware that language evolves, and new words enter as technology requires them. From the interview, we can see Jiang enjoys bringing Chinese characters to life. He has discovered creative ways of engaging his students and he enjoys communicating these ‘language stories’ through investigating the written language with his students. Jiang was also asked about the nature of spoken Chinese and how it relates to culture. His first comment was about body language and what it ‘says’ about you as a person—your reliability, stability, and so on. He explained that people find it hard to sum up an individual if all they see are various movements, gestures, and facial expressions, without much being said. Jiang indicated that default judgements in these cases can be based in suspicion. In this he was emphasising the importance of verbal communication in human relations. He then offered a caveat and spoke at length about expectations placed upon women in Chinese society. Jiang: If a girl is too talkative, no, no, no (she should not). 三从四德 (sāncóngsìdé—three of four virtues)—it’s a rule if you want to be a good lady— now “san̄ cóng” not too strong. Before you get married you have to 夫从 (fū cóng

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listen to your dad). And after you get married, you listen to your husband. And if your husband dies, you should listen to your son. These 3 obeys—you must obey these 3 rules. There are also four virtues (四德—sìdé). You’ve got to appear to have a virtue (德). From your appearance you can’t be too open. You have to be serious—for good looks they say you must be轻飘 (qı ̄ngpiāo—buoyant), you must also take care of your skin. Also, you should not speak too loudly, nor too much. In order to achieve merit (功德—gōngdé), you’ve got to work in the house—work hard. If you don’t work, but always talk, you can’t look after the baby properly. You can’t look after your husband. You can’t look after the house, no. You are not a good woman.

In this extract from the interview, Jiang is referring to ‘rules’ from a classical Confucian text known as the Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial (Steele, 1966). In it are outlined ‘three obediences’ and ‘four virtues’ which represent basic moral principles for women under Confucianism. Even though Jiang did not explicitly say he teaches these concepts as a part of the language programme at his school, this indicated he is passionate about Chinese traditional culture, and perhaps sees Chinese culture through a more traditional lens. In the interview, he often book-ended his comments with ‘…. this is the culture’, which suggested he has a fixed notion of traditional culture that pervades his interpretations of modern culture. Further probing into why certain words are chosen in speech acts, and how they may reflect culture, elicited the following response, indicating the importance attached to humility. This is a good example of a direct link between language and deep culture. Researcher: What about the words we choose when we speak Chinese? Some words we choose indicate culture. Jiang: We choose words when we speak, like in China at a job interview— this requires speaking. The words the [interviewee] chooses most of these must be humble words. If you are humble, they will look up to you [respect you]. If you choose big words [lofty words], people will look down on you. They’ll say you are too arrogant. If I say, “I’m a good teacher”, it’s bad. [When I came to interview for this school] I didn’t say that. I said, “when I come, everything will be new, I will have to work hard, bla bla bla”. But here [in Australia] at job interviews you have to say, “I’m the one. I can do that. Choosing me is the right choice”.

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Jiang has a very clear idea in his mind about the difference between what is expected in a Chinese interview context and an Australian one. This response was born out of his own experience living and working in Australia over the past 25 years. In interview experiences, Jiang has had to balance obedience to an inner voice telling him to remain humble and to refrain from stating plainly what his achievements and abilities are, with the contradictory need to communicate directly and confidently what he brings to the position in the Australian job. This represents a good example of how he has been culturally conflicted in this context. The use of idioms is an iconic feature of spoken and written Chinese, and so the researcher asked Jiang to comment on their use in spoken and written language. Jiang indicated his belief that the use of idioms shows someone is well educated and that scholars should use them to produce efficient utterances and higher-quality written prose, and he added that idioms are more often used in written Chinese than spoken Chinese. Next, Jiang was asked to list several aspects of Chinese culture that he thought were important for beginner students to learn in their first two years of language study. The first was respect for education and the teacher, a reference to deep culture, defined by Parsons and Shils (2017) as a value that becomes deeply internalised. He added students need to develop an appreciation for the richness of Chinese history and language. Jiang went on to stress that the choice to learn a second language means ‘you not only learn a language, but also a lot of other values—as a person, as a family member, as a student in the school’. His following comments were an interesting mix of generic personal development skills and values explicitly taught in a Chinese setting. Jiang: That’s why in my first lesson with Year 7 classes there’s a big change. I give them three words according to our Chinese culture ….. RESPECT—you respect your teacher, you respect your classmates, respect your parents, respect their money, respect your life. Then I tell them to be DISCIPLINED. [You do something even if] you don’t want to do, but that’s the rule. If your parents ask you, your teacher asks you, you have to do it. You can’t break the law, and now you break the rules…you will be breaking the law. And another word is BE MATURE—it’s time to be mature. What’s mature, what’s immature—I give them some things [to think about].

To investigate Jiang’s educational philosophy a little further, the researcher asked him to consider whether Chinese culture is best taught or

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discovered through language use. His response suggested a reticence towards the employment of constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, even though he said both were useful. Direct teacher explanation was Jiang’s primary approach—being the ‘quicker’ way. He did admit that once they got started, students were able to find links between written characters and culture. And Jiang added that it is a source of interest for students when they discover these links for themselves. When asked for an example of this, Jiang offered the following (see also Fig. 4.2): Jiang: Ok. When they learn the Chinese character “fán” (繁), it is always very hard. Alone, 繁 is very complicated. But the students can divide (deconstruct) it. This makes it so easy! They remember each part [of the character separately then put it back together], “每” (the “me ̌i” from me ̌itiān), then they learn “ 系”, (the “xi” from méigua ̄nxì) then they just put them together. Because each part is related [to other knowledge], they find “繁”—oh, it’s [originally] so complicated, but not now. If they recognize its parts, they suddenly feel interested to pick it up.

Jiang has discovered that when students begin to see, or are indeed taught, that many characters are made up of component parts, they will have the power to discover more and retain more. Through this process, Jiang has demonstrated an intercultural approach (Bird & Osland, 2005) to Chinese language teaching, because he has allowed his teaching to be informed and improved by others’ (students’) discoveries. One aspect of intercultural competence is the willingness and capacity to collaborate with others in meaning making (Bird & Osland, 2005). Jiang is clearly open to engaging students in this way.

Fig. 4.2  Deconstruction of 繁 into its component parts

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Jiang: …[students are] in the class and “ooh, now I understand!” So, when you teach—especially writing, when the new word is a little bit hard, you have to teach them—explain it. I like to break it to meaningful pieces, meaningful units.

In turn, Jiang also revealed his commitment to ‘teaching the book’. It is common practice in a Chinese education schema to be taught from a set textbook and then to be assessed on the content of that book. It has been suggested (Orton, 2008) that many teachers of Chinese in Australian schools, who have come from a Chinese education background, will, to a greater or lesser extent, hold the view that success in teaching is achieved through delivery and assessment of textbook content. This view is manifested in the following comment. Jiang: They finish Book #1 they know almost 60 “radicals” [written components indicating meaning in a Chinese character]. Because in each lesson there are 9 radicals, and six lessons, so [54 radicals in total] ….

When asked about his teaching success, Jiang talked about motivation and continuity as keys to successful language learning. He said his students first need to like the language and find it interesting. In his view, successful teachers will know how to motivate students to like the subject. The addition of a second Chinese teacher at Jiang’s school, several years after he started, meant that students were able to continue studying Chinese beyond the compulsory stage, and he asserted this opportunity has led to greater levels of student engagement in Chinese language learning. Jiang: So I think it allows the students to continually study Chinese, it’s very important I think to make them like it…. make them interested.

When asked to describe the relationship between written Chinese and Chinese culture, Chen displayed a comprehensive knowledge of Chinese character etymology. The example given was: ‘安’(ān) (宀 + 女)(meaning safe) Chen: For example, like the word, “safe”. Under the roof 宀 is only one girl女. You cannot have two women living in the same house. So, you can’t live with your mother-in-law. So that’s traditionally. That was talking the mother-in-­ law and the daughter-in-law living together, traditionally—in traditional

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society that’s three generations living together. And one of my friends joked about this word—it’s very interesting.

When pressed for another example, Chen offered a related idea. She explained the extra value given to the birth of one male and one female child, and how this is reflected in the written language. Together these words form ‘good’ in Chinese. ‘好’(hǎo) (女 + 子)(daughter + son = ‘good’) Chen: Chinese writing …… and also the culture, traditional they believe that if a woman has a baby. If a family has a baby boy 子 and a baby girl 女, that’s perfect. That’s how the culture how they create the word. 好 ( good). It’s quite interesting.

In addition, Chen was asked to comment on the relationship between spoken Chinese and Chinese culture. She immediately thought of words with double meanings, or double entendre. Here, Chen referred to a descriptive device in Chinese that indicates whether a person is a smooth-­ talker or not. Literally, the phrase is ‘This person is very good at talking’. The literal meaning suggests they are eloquent and possess a wide vocabulary. Yet, in Chinese it is often used to denote cautionary admiration, in that this person may cleverly deceive you with their words and manner of speaking. Chen: 比如说:这个人挺会说话。(For example: this person is very good at talking) 但是你有别的意思。(but you give it another meaning) 是什么?(what is it?) 就是，(it’s just),   he’s very good at talking to others. Researcher: You mean can be very persuasive? Or … Chen: Smooth, um , …I don’t know the way, um … Researcher: Flirting? Chen: No. Really smooth in talking.

To elicit some further reflection, the researcher asked Chen to comment on the potential connection between the use of idioms and culture. In response, Chen was able to give a historical account as to the use of an ancient saying and connect this to contemporary values. She chose ‘万般皆 善品惟有读书高’ (wànbān jiē shàn pı̌n wéiyǒu dúshū gāo) which translates

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as ‘everything is good but only books are high’, meaning everything is subservient to study. Given that in ancient China (‘like in the Ming and Qing dynasty’), status was based upon education and knowledge, highly paid jobs were monopolised by those with more learning. Chen suggested, ‘maybe that saying continue’”, and so today’s practice of extra tutoring in ‘cram’ schools and the high value placed upon selective entrance in NSW schools by Chinese parents, for instance, can perhaps be explained in these terms. Unlike ‘the West’, where intelligent children are expected by parents to achieve academically, and others perhaps pursue other interests, many Chinese believe ‘all can succeed if they study hard enough’. In other words, failure is attributed to laziness rather than lack of academic ability. Idioms can both reflect and promote beliefs. In this example, the idiom 好好学习 天天向上, meaning study hard and you’ll see daily progress, represents a belief in the power of education to improve your future. In practice, it leads to a multi-billion-dollar industry of after-school tutoring (补习班), which bolsters exam results (考好考试) and improves entrance to good schools, such as James Ruse High School (the top-ranking academically selective school in NSW). Once a number of students prove this to be an effective measure by gaining enrolment, the idiom is proven and thus works to promote the belief, as described in Fig. 4.3.

Fig. 4.3  The relationship between idiom, belief, and practice

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An additional idiom offered by Chen was ‘书中自有黄金屋’ (shū zhōng zì yǒu huángjı̄n wū)—a book holds a house of gold—and she added, ‘so if you study hard, you will find a good future for yourself. I think that’s like Confucian, like when I was brought up, we had to do piano, all different things. It was just a lot of work’. At this point in the interview, it was unclear to what extent Chen believed this to be necessary in the current context of her Chinese language teaching. Yet, given the way she commented on her own experiences in Taiwan, it appeared she was not committed to enforcing the same regimen with her own students in Australia. Upon probing the reality of idiom use today, the researcher asked Chen to comment on the difference between people who use idioms in everyday speech and those who do not. Clarification was made as to the mode of idiom use at this juncture. Chen made it clear that idioms are more commonly used in written Chinese, and seldom used when speaking. This corroborates a similar comment from Jiang. The researcher can also note here that, in his experience, teachers of Chinese language to more advanced students expect the use of idioms in essay writing. They do not expect the same in oral exchanges. The importance of idioms in Chinese is to summarise and preserve traditional values and ancient culture. At this stage Chen, to draw a parallel between Eastern and Western cultures, offered the following as an example: Chen: I don’t know whether it’s comparable, it’s like Shakespeare. You know, you still value those old terms.

Even though Shakespeare is given credit for coining hundreds of English colloquial phrases, Chinese idioms still possess more power over the formation and safeguarding of Chinese values at both individual and society level. If asked, Chinese young people will list several idioms, chanted by parents or grandparents, on an almost daily basis, that relate to keeping healthy, studying hard, and respecting older members of the family—mantras that, if followed, lead to success, prosperity, and a better life. Next, Chen was asked to specify what aspects of Chinese culture should be taught to beginner students (Years 7–8) in Chinese language classes. She immediately referred to festivals. Given festivals are concrete, tangible, and highly sensory events, it is easy to conceive why they are so popular in

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the Chinese language classroom. What strengthens this phenomenon is that Chinese language textbooks used in Australian schools, to a greater or lesser extent, present culture as a unique collection of behaviours (eating with chopsticks and celebrating Spring Festival), icons (red dragons and lions), and customs (giving cash in red envelopes). This concept was supported by Chen’s following comments: Like Chinese New Year’s. I think a lot of my students like dumplings. I taught them how to make dumpling in my Yr 5–6. And then was the background story. Like beifang, the northern part of China, they eat dumpling, and they put the coin [in] and when I told them about the coin story, they thought that was disgusting. Its means fortune and the colour yellow represents gold, and red is good luck. And I tell them the story and I think they quite interested. So, I think that’s important for them to learn about the festival.

To probe for further non-festival examples, Chen mentioned songs again and was then at a loss to continue, drawing a simple contrast between ‘interesting’ festival cultures and ‘difficult’ speaking and writing. Researcher: Ok, apart from festivals? Anything else? Chen: Songs as well. It’s more easy for them to understand. And they are more interested. When they do the pronunciation and the character, it’s quite hard from them to learn…, as the beginners.

To further establish what Chen believes about culture and Chinese language teaching, she was asked to judge between a teacher-centred and a constructivist approach to classroom teaching. When asked whether it is better for students to ‘discover through language use’ or ‘be taught’ Chinese culture, she flatly stated it is better to teach it. Her justification for this was to define ‘discovery’ as Google-based research and conclude that an explanation by a teacher would lead to better understanding. Interestingly, she added, ‘that’s just my personal view’ at the end of these comments, perhaps an indication of a less than complete conviction in the assertion. Indeed, Chen was very clear on her opinion about the connection between cultural knowledge and linguistic performance in the following: Researcher: If a student has a good understanding of Chinese culture, and Chinese people, does that improve their language? Chen: I think it will help. But it’s not directly related.

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From this, the researcher concluded that Chen views culture and language as separate learning areas and is therefore not in a good position to develop the intercultural competence of her students. Upon further questioning as to how such knowledge may help language learning, Chen seemed to admit it may help, yet her following comments negated this. I think it might help them understand how the words, revolve [evolve] how the words have certain meaning behind them. But I think they also need to study hard and practice…. and also, they need to memorise all the characters, to visualise.

Given that the Chinese language curriculum in Australia has evolved to include requirements for ‘cultural awareness’ in language use (Stage 4, Moving Between Cultures, 2003) and more recently ‘intercultural language learning’ (Chinese K-10 Syllabus, 2017), it was deemed important to inquire as to Chen’s knowledge of this, and her pedagogical response as a teacher of Chinese language in NSW. The following excerpts represent how these requirements have been expressed in syllabus documents available to all teachers. In the 2003 K-10 Chinese Syllabus Students learn about • The significance of cultural awareness in language use and the influence of cultural values on how meaning is conveyed • Key features of social interactions in diverse contexts • Ways of identifying cultural values and practices in observing social interaction among members of the community Students learn to • Recognise that there are culturally appropriate expressions for particular contexts • Recognise how culturally appropriate language and behaviour are used in formal and informal contexts • Recognise the importance of culture and cultural awareness in learning a language

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From the Chinese K-10 Syllabus (2017): Rationale Through learning languages, students develop an intercultural capability and an understanding of the role of language and culture in communication and become more accepting of difference and diversity. They develop understanding of global citizenship, and reflect on their own heritage, values, culture and identity.

Further elaboration on intercultural understanding is provided explicitly for all teachers, and it elevates intercultural understanding to a central aim of learning languages. Intercultural Understanding The development of intercultural understanding is a central aim of learning languages, as it is integral to communicating in the context of diversity, the development of global citizenship and lifelong learning. Learning languages can enable students to develop their intercultural understanding as they learn to value their own language(s), culture(s) and beliefs, and those of others. They are provided with opportunities to understand the reciprocal relationship between language, culture and identity, and how this relationship reflects the values and beliefs of a community. Students are encouraged to reflect on their own and other cultures in ways that recognise similarities and differences, create connections with others and cultivate mutual respect. Learning to move between languages and cultures is integral to language learning and is the key to the development of students’ intercultural understanding. Students learning Chinese are provided with opportunities to understand that language develops and operates in a sociocultural context. They are encouraged to make connections between social and cultural practices and language use, identifying culture-specific terms and expressions in Chinese and making comparisons with other languages and cultures. They examine differences in language use and behaviours, explaining variations according to context, purpose, mode of delivery and the roles and relationships of participants. Students are provided with opportunities to understand how cultural identity influences ways of communicating, thinking and behaving. They reflect on their experiences when interacting in Chinese and English-speaking contexts, considering adjustments made and how this affects intercultural communication. (NESA, 2017)

Chen appeared to have little understanding of ‘intercultural language learning’ when asked.

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Researcher: Ok. Just a question about the syllabus. You know the BOSTES syllabus. To what extent are you aware of the references to intercultural language learning in the syllabus? How important is that? Chen: The interculture? I haven’t …. I think it’s important for them to learn the culture, definitely. To understand, not only language, but also understand the culture. Yeah because when they go to China, they need to know when they address people. And the way to talk, you know not offend. Different culture it’s very important.

Her immediate response was to talk about ‘culture’ and to offer an illustration in the context of politeness. She also further strengthened the geographical distinction she made at the beginning of the interview by including ‘when they go to China’ and this reflects her spatial view of culture—as something that derives from and exists in a particular place. When pressed for an example, Chen gave one of the most predictable examples of formal and informal greeting vocabulary—namely, ‘nín hǎo 您 好’(Hello—polite) and ‘nı ̌ hǎo 你好’(Hello—informal). The next few questions in the interview related to typical Chinese advice-giving exchanges which draw upon cultural beliefs. Chinese will often say to others, ‘put on more clothes’ when the weather is cold, or ‘drink more water’ when someone feels unwell. The researcher was interested in attempting to find out how Chen perceived these. Chen agreed that she would use both these phrases in these contexts, and when asked why, her first response was that her mother taught her to say this. She explained it is to do with showing care. Chen situated these utterances within the scope of family and good friends: that’s how my family, and also my good friends and my relatives, my cousin will say that to me’. Relationship maintenance appears to be central to this phenomenon, as Chen asserted that when telling a sick friend to drink more water, ‘they will appreciate that’. Another example of a typical Chinese utterance that is often used as a sentence starter is ‘我们中国人’ (We Chinese ….). Chen was asked if she would ever begin a sentence in this way and she replied positively with ‘sometimes’. When asked why, she again referred to ‘place’, ‘because that’s where I come from, it’s my culture’. Further questioning as to the context of use revealed some interesting comparisons between China and Australia.

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Researcher: Can you give me an example of a sentence that you would start that way? For example, the importance of education. If that’s the topic. Chen: Ok. 我们中国人教学方式就是高压。就是一直读书补习。 澳大利亚人都没有什么作业，家里面的作业。有时候有一篇文章 我教Yr11的时候。。 但是我们中国人，父母一直高压 (translation: Our Chinese education system is high pressure. It is just continuous study and revision. Australians really do not have any homework to speak of. Sometimes they may have to write an essay. I give this to Year 11 occasionally. But in China, parents constantly apply pressure.)

When asked whether it is necessary for a second language learner to be able to behave like a Chinese person when communicating in Chinese, Song was quite assertive in saying ‘no’, but she qualified her answer with the following statement: Song: …. but it’s important that they understand the behaviour, or the way people should behave in the culture, so that they can respect each other.

This is seen as significant in relation to the decentring required for increasing intercultural competence in language learning, as discussed in Chap. 1. It also acknowledges limitations to self in understanding how others behave. The researcher then pressed Song for an example of how non-Chinese background learners might experience conflict over the connection between behaviour and respect in a Chinese language context. Song: The first one that comes into my mind is when I took my students to exchange in China. They all “complained” to me about how the families are so, so care about them. Too much a bit. So, they told me the families kept asking whether they have enough food, whether they are cold, or to put more clothes on. And they feel it’s a bit too much. And then I had to explain to them that’s how Chinese people show their hospitality—to strangers, to guests. So, if they understand the idea about this, they will be able to respect that. And they will be able to respond appropriately.

Interestingly, Song’s point here is not only about understanding a foreign culture and behaving in an informed way that shows respect. Her use of the phrase ‘respond appropriately’ indicates that she has an expectation

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that linguistic choices will be culturally informed, so that what one of her students says in response to being over-cared-for in a Chinese host family will be culturally appropriate. In other words, rather than complaining or ignoring comments to eat more, they can perhaps comment on how good the food is and how well they have just eaten. In the next section of the interview, when Song was asked to comment on the relationship between written Chinese and Chinese culture, she first asked a clarifying question about whether the researcher was referring to individual Chinese characters or the body of Chinese literature. When asked to comment on both, she initially commented on the historical richness of Chinese literature and identified this as the storehouse of Chinese values. Specific examples given here are ‘谦虚’ (modesty) and ‘中庸’ (moderation), which Song said are in the literature and art of China. She then added: Song: …. and thousands of years and Chinese people really respect that. We don’t really appreciate heroes, or someone just stands out by themselves. We always have the collective ideas, as a whole group to do anything. And all these are mentioned all the time in the literature—in the written work passed down many years.

Song then commented on the connection between written Chinese characters and culture. Her first point was a historical one about the loss of culture through the character simplification process during the last century. She referred here to a strongly held belief (especially in Hong Kong and Taiwan where traditional characters are still used) that as individual strokes of many thousands of Chinese characters were deleted or modified, the cultural content and heritage held within each pictograph or ideograph became threatened. Song: In terms of Chinese characters, hanzi is so …. I guess probably because of the simplified process—简体字的过程 (character simplification process), lost quite a lot of the connection between the written word itself to the Chinese culture. So, there’s pros and cons in that process.

She appeared philosophical about the process. Given calligraphy as an art form has experienced a particularly great loss in this process, the researcher asked Song to comment on the importance of writing beautifully. Her comments indicated that the artistic written

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form was once important, but that society has changed and with technology has come a waning necessity for handwriting in general. She suggested it has now essentially been relegated to hobby status. Following on from this, Song then reflected on the relationship between spoken Chinese and culture. She began with an explanation of the relationship between Mandarin and regional/local dialects spoken across Mainland China. Song: Spoken languages are quite unique in China. We do have a lot of dialects. And we do have a common language called 普通话(Mandarin)。But when we say普通话, a common dialect, it’s not a literal language by a lot of people in China, so spoken language it more reflects the local or regional culture than the whole Chinese or 汉族 hanzu (ethnic Han majority) 或者说‘汉语’ 或者说‘中 华民族’ culture (language of the Han people or Chinese peoples’ culture), I would say that.

Thus, her point is that Mandarin, as a spoken common tongue, does not directly reflect the culture of any one place, in the way that Cantonese reflects the culture of the people of Guangdong province, or Shanghainese reflects Shanghai culture. In other words, there is no such thing as a common Chinese culture reflected in the common tongue, Mandarin. On a personal level, Song commented that she feels little cultural connection when she speaks Mandarin, having grown up in Guangdong, speaking Cantonese as her first language. She added: Song: I mean I still have that, but not as strong as my home language, which I grow with, which I use to talk with my friends.

Interestingly, when asked to give an example contrasting Mandarin with Cantonese, Song could not think of one immediately, but offered the following comment: Song: I don’t really think of a specific example now. A lot of them are the same though. Say how you greet someone in Chinese. You will say, “你吃饭了吗”. And we still do that in Cantonese…it’s the first greeting to establish the relationship with someone.

This was significant because what she is saying here is that there may be no difference at the values level, yet linguistically there is a big difference, and this disconnects her from feeling culturally connected. In other words,

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speakers of Cantonese will greet a neighbour or friend by asking whether they have eaten, just as a Mandarin speaker will, yet the spoken language is different, and these utterances somehow work to connect the speakers to their local culture. The differences between Mandarin and Cantonese for the question “Have you eaten?” are as follows: Mandarin: ni③ chi① le⓪ ma⓪ Cantonese: nei⑤ hek③ liu⑤ maa①

When asked about how important it is for a Chinese language learner to use this language, Song agreed it is ‘quite important’, but she stressed context is also relevant. Song: However, that depends on the context [in which] the learners need to use the language. If they are going to use the language to just talk to their friends, or socialise with some Chinese people, I would say it’s not that much important. Because all these casual settings, the friends or Chinese people will know they are non-native speakers, they are not able to use them so literal greeting form or ways people using the language. However, if you want to use the language to do business, or do research, more into some deeper thinking or more use the language pragmatically, so the learners or the speakers need to have better understanding or skills to use the language more cultural appropriately.

Here, she made allowances for the fact that learners are not necessarily culturally Chinese and so she does not expect them to strive to imitate Chinese people in their language use. To discover Song’s approach to culture teaching, the researcher asked her to identify the most essential cultural aspects that beginner Chinese language learners need to learn in their first few years of study. The first item she mentioned was knowledge of Chinese family relationships. Song: They should know something about Chinese family relationship. Because that’s something quite profound in Chinese culture. I’m talking about students, so in their age, so that’s something it’s easy to reflect with. It could be different for adults or little children.

Secondly, Song mentions how to address others.

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Song: Say the way you address older people or teachers, or somebody to show respect. The way to address them in Chinese culture is very different from what we do in English culture.

She also referred to the pragmatics of shopping in China as a cultural topic. This is most likely relevant because each year Song accompanies a student group to China. Finally, she made a reference to the value of education, but relegated this to Years 11 and 12 as a cultural topic of study. In relation to pedagogy, Song was asked to comment on whether these cultural aspects are best taught or discovered. In her response, she displayed an awareness of constructivist pedagogy which dominates the Australian schooling landscape; however, she was also somewhat pragmatic about the opportunities available in her school context for creating culturally authentic environments. She observed that cultural learning best takes place in the context of a trip to China, which includes homestay with a local host family. Song: At the end of the day, what a learner learns something is through his or her discovery. Even if the teacher teaches them, it doesn’t mean they learn it. So, it’s always a process or pathway for them to discover it by themselves. However, at the same time, teachers can be the one to show them, to guide them, or to lead the discussion in the classroom. And obviously in Australia, we don’t have a lot of that cultural environment, or the language environment, so it’s more the teacher’s responsibility to provide the scenario, provide some cases, provide some examples, for the students to discover the rules or to discover the differences, to make a comparison or contrast the two cultures. But if they have the in-country experience, they in those three weeks they will learn more than what I have told them for three years!

Song clearly sees the benefit of immersion experiences for cultural learning, and their impact on language proficiency development in students. Yet she appeared to make no allowance to teach such language in her Australian classroom, and there appeared to be no expectation for her students to pursue this type of language use outside of a homestay context in China. Fan agreed that there is a connection between written Chinese and Chinese culture. She cited the traditional and simplified character scripts, to begin her explanation, stating each represents a different culture. The traditional script, which is ancient, encapsulates many stories from history, and the radicals reveal the earliest pictographs used by Chinese people to

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represent meaning from the world around them. Early pictographs gave way to radicals as the writing system became more efficient and more abstracted from the natural world. Fan: It shows the culture is getting more sophisticated …. they are running out of pictographs to represent daily events …. The vast amount shows the vast rich culture of Chinese history…. one of the oldest cultures in the world of course.

Fan also suggested that word order typology derives from cultural values. An example given is putting the surname first—thus giving priority to the family name. When asked about the influence of culture on spoken Chinese, Fan’s first thought was the mixing of languages. She referred to English words creeping into Chinese sentences, the phenomena of ‘Singlish’ (Singaporean English) and ‘Chinglish’ (Chinese English) and the mixture of Chinese dialects for the purpose of creating humour. Fan: Mandarin or Cantonese, lots of people will suddenly say a dialect word to achieve a sense of humour. Like in Mandarin, some people might speak something in Cantonese, so people just laugh….

In this section, Fan also referenced changing values as a determinant of changing language. An ancient form of storytelling (‘文言文故事’— wényánwén gùshì), used succinct sentences with rich yet concrete content. She said these stories contain concentrated value-laden meaning, promoting values such as filial piety and respect for the God of heaven. Fan then reflected on how the Chinese language has been consistently undergoing change faster with each new generation, to the point where people test each other on the meanings of new words and phrases. Fan: the only way I can find out these new changes is to watch mainland Chinese or Taiwanese shows….. they invite all those stars and they play games and the way they talk…. And you can see this is all the new culture.

Interculturality and Pedagogy Each of the four teachers’ voices has now been heard and their reflections have been overlaid with a synthesised description of interculturality (see Chap. 1). These teachers have provided a window into the Australian

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context of CFL teaching. To summarise each contribution, I now present a discussion on CFL teacher interculturality.

Teacher Jiang Jiang’s pedagogy is richly influenced by many factors from both identity and missional perspectives. His confidence in his own position in the school and within the classroom in front of his students is evidently derived from a relatively rich education background that includes both Chinese and English study, which afforded him first-hand insight into the realm of second language acquisition. His vocational journey is also quite rich given his age, and so there is a real sense of resilience and positive self-­ efficacy. This is also strengthened by his current position as foundation Chinese teacher at an elite independent school. Jiang’s beliefs about what is good for learners of Chinese are shaped strongly by his education background in China, his beliefs about the moral development of children, and his own passion for teaching the language and the culture it represents. His experience in Australia, however, has necessitated finding ways to engage students and help them retain knowledge, much of which is new to him as an educator. Jiang’s pedagogy is characterised by a belief that students require training in respect for education and their teachers, which by default places teachers ‘on the stage’ as lecturers, while pre-service teachers are routinely trained and encouraged in Australia to be facilitators of learning under a predominantly constructivist pedagogy. Even though high levels of respect are an expectation in the school where Jiang currently teaches, he tended to frame his rationale in terms of traditional Chinese values rather than contemporary school culture. His teaching is characterised by teacher-led instruction, accompanied by reference to textbook content and exercises. He does allow for some student inquiry into the origins of written Chinese, yet this is short-lived as a strategy as Jiang is still concerned with getting through the content within the allotted time and ensuring students have the right answer. His demeanour is pleasant, and he has good rapport with his students, albeit within the clarified boundaries of the teacher–student relationship. When evaluated against the NSW Quality Teaching Framework (QTF), Jiang’s pedagogy does reflect aspects of intellectual quality, in that it includes deep knowledge and understanding, as well as problematic knowledge. There was evidence that he includes metalanguage specific to

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second language acquisition. In relation to a quality learning environment, Jiang’s commitment to and communication of quality expectations were evident. He has high expectations for his students and the level of social support he offers is also high. He was less likely to allow students to self-regulate and determine direction in learning, yet he clearly indicated he was committed to training them for this. An understanding of the third dimension of the QTF, significance, was also evident, yet limited in its development. Jiang often gave students explanations of context—in fact he seemed to enjoy telling historio-linguistic stories in class. This afforded his students some degree of background and cultural knowledge so that they could begin to integrate their understanding. In relation to inclusivity and connectedness, Jiang appeared less engaged. He tended to value the use of the textbook as a way of ensuring consistent progress throughout the course. This is not without merit as it recognises the professional nature of textbook research and publishing. On the other hand, an over-reliance on textbooks may serve to perpetuate language and values that perhaps should be challenged. Given that his presentation of the Chinese language and its culture is somewhat fixed in time, Jiang cannot adequately acknowledge contemporary iterations of language and culture. Even though his lessons may often be interesting to his students, Jiang’s pedagogy is relatively one-dimensional in that it presents an ancient yet resilient language and culture that is valuable to understand and learn about. While students are not explicitly encouraged to develop as intercultural language learners, he is facilitating effective learning experiences and he does represent an active advocate for Chinese language learning within and beyond his teaching context.

Teacher Chen Chen is poorly placed to develop interculturality in her students based on the description applied in this book. It is obvious that she enjoys teaching Chinese language and she has established positive relationships with her students. Her decision to alternate between language teaching and the teaching of songs and ‘cultural events’ in Years 5 and 6 means she is establishing a pattern of dividing language and culture in the foundation years of Chinese language learning at her school. In her mind, Chen is trying to give students what they want, by including fun activities in the early years and removing songs when they are no longer considered ‘fun’ by her older students. Chen feels it is more appropriate to focus on linguistic

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development when students move beyond the primary school into high school (Years 7–12). In order to do this, she follows a written teaching programme that is complemented in content and sequence by a set textbook. In line with her comments about lacking confidence in English, Chen tends to avoid extended verbal exchanges with her students. Much of the classroom discourse was in the form of question and answer between student and teacher, rather than open discussion between several interlocutors. This means it is unlikely that any collaboration in meaning making takes place. When evaluated against the NSW QTF, Chen’s pedagogy does reflect aspects of intellectual quality, in that evidence exists of deep knowledge and understanding, as well as problematic knowledge. There was little evidence, however, that she includes metalanguage specific to second language acquisition, yet this may be a factor of low English confidence. In relation to a quality learning environment, Chen communicates high expectations to her students. She also offers high levels of social support by encouraging her students to persevere and by answering all questions raised in class. This commitment to student support may be more than just a personal attribute, given the school values and explicit promotion of quality student support. I observed Chen’s students were unlikely to engage regularly in self-regulation and self-determining the direction of their own learning. The third dimension of the QTF, significance, was evident in Chen’s comments about her teaching, as well as in her classroom practice, yet it was narrow in focus. She showed an ability and willingness to give time to explanations of linguistic meaning and origin. In her Year 5 and 6 classes, Chen also spent time ensuring all students understood the significance of cultural events and other cultural icons introduced in her teaching. In summary, we can say Chen’s pedagogy is directly influenced by her degree of intercultural development. Her views about the fixedness and geographical detachment of culture determine the way she presents the Chinese language and the culture from which it springs.

Teacher Song The degree to which Song has an awareness of and has developed in intercultural competence can be understood in terms of her identity and mission as a Chinese language teacher. Her identity includes aspects of her

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past, such as her birthplace, her mother tongue, her education story, and her current position. It also includes her skills as an English speaker, her degree of self-confidence as a teacher, and her identity as a Cantonese Chinese. Song’s mission involves her role as a classroom teacher and established member of the Languages Faculty at her school. It involves ongoing adjustment in teaching methodology in order to engage students through increasingly effective classroom management, and in addition it involves active participation in her subject-specific community of practice—the NSW Chinese Language Teachers Association. Song’s perception of ‘culture’ at first appeared more sophisticated and more informed than that of Chen, in that she was well aware of its shallow and deeper conceptions. However, she also essentialises it to a point that prohibits her learners from developing an intercultural approach to language learning. Song’s unwillingness to allow second language learners to decentre themselves from their own culture for the purpose of appreciating that of a Chinese person stifles the possibility that they will use Chinese language in a culturally informed way. Rather, she relies on well-prepared instruction of linguistic content and is happy to answer questions about ‘culture’. Her only concession is to promote an in-country experience that includes homestay in China, when students learn ‘culture’ first-hand. Even though Song was able to identify linguistic benefits to students on this programme, there was no evidence of an attempt to duplicate this in her classroom in Sydney, even though she admitted, ‘if they have the in-­ country experience, in those three weeks they will learn more than I can teach them in three years!’ There was evidence, however, of increasing interculturality in Song’s willingness to give credence to a constructivist pedagogy. Song: At the end of the day, what a learner learns is through his/her own discovery. Even if the teacher teaches them, it doesn’t mean they learn. So, it’s always a process or pathway for them to discover it by themselves….. however, it’s more the teacher’s responsibility to provide scenarios …. for the students to discover the differences….

Song’s assertions regarding what she has ‘taught them’ and ‘not taught them’ indicated she does not collaborate with learners in meaning making. Rather, she determines what is useful for students to know. There was also no evidence to suggest that Song reflects on her own culture to a point where ‘me’ and ‘them’ fade into ‘us’. Her students are clearly labelled ‘non-background’ and are therefore distinct because they are not Chinese,

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and because of this they are unable to maximise and use authentic language with Chinese people. Allowing students to discover the differences represents a cross-cultural approach to culture teaching. When the starting point is difference, it is difficult for learners to approach the ‘other’, decentre themselves, and ‘walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’. And so, seeking common ground becomes an unidentified goal. Finally, rather than consciously rejecting essentialism, Song has embraced it. This is despite her rebuff of being identified personally as a ‘Mandarin’.

Teacher Fan Fan is relatively well placed to develop interculturality in her students, because she is aware that culture is not static and that reflection is a valuable process in allowing for the appreciation of others. However, her decision to divide her learners along lines of cultural heritage is seen to be counter-productive to any potential for increasing interculturality in second language learners. In fact, even if a focus on allowing heritage learners to access more authentic culture facilitates better language learning for them, they are also being taught every day to essentialise culture. One example of this is Fan’s custom of using a two-column table with a lesson outline for heritage students and another for the non-Chinese background students, displayed on a smartboard at the beginning of each lesson. Even though Fan does this to be organised and efficient in her teaching, she is, at the same time, reinforcing an essentialist view of culture and language learning in her students. When evaluated against the QTF, Fan’s pedagogy does reflect some elements of quality teaching. In relation to intellectual quality and quality learning environment, Fan is a teacher who clearly communicates expectations that are intellectually challenging and which sometimes problematise knowledge. Her use of the smartboard at the beginning of each lesson has established an effective routine that efficiently moves students from greeting the teacher to being on-task. This method creates an expectation of learning. Fan offers support to her students on a group-by-group basis, electing to focus her attention on each of the two course groups, Heritage and Continuers. This serves to create and maintain a content-based pedagogy, which operates at the expense of individuals within each group. Students in Fan’s classes were given a high degree of autonomy in that they were made responsible for achieving the ‘work set’ for each lesson, as

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summarised on the smartboard. This, however, does not equate to students determining the direction of learning, as defined in the QTF. It was apparent that Fan had a clear idea of what content knowledge was to be covered in each lesson in order to meet syllabus requirements and move students through the language content at a pace conducive to mastery of linguistic milestones, ultimately leading to success in Year 12 exams. In relation to significance under the QTF, Fan was more likely to seek and establish links between prior and future knowledge and understanding with her heritage students.

Conclusion It is clear that Chinese teachers come from diverse backgrounds. To be Chinese is not one thing. To be a Chinese language teacher is not one thing. Among the cohort of Chinese language teachers in Australian schools there are different understandings of intercultural teaching. In a sense there are arrived-at beliefs about how and what elements of CFL should be taught to whom. This is not something in its entirety that CFL teachers arrive with when they migrate to Australia. Rather, their existing beliefs about language teaching develop during their work in schools and in interactions with CFL colleagues in professional/social spaces such as the Chinese Language Teachers Association. Current CFL pedagogy is limited in its capacity to engage fully with second language learners and promote the language effectively to this cohort. The existing binary view of CFL pedagogy perpetuates an essentialist view of language teaching.

References Bird, A., & Osland, J.  S. (2005). Making sense of intercultural collaboration. International Studies of Management & Organization, 35(4), 115–132. NSW Education Standards Authority. (2017). Chinese K-10 Syllabus (2017). https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-­10/learning-­ areas/languages/chinese-­k-­10-­2017 Orton, J. (2008). Chinese language education in Australian schools. University of Melbourne. Parsons, T., & Shils, E. A. (2017). The social system. In Toward a general theory of action (pp. 190–233). Routledge. Shaules, J. (2019). Language, culture and the embodied mind. Springer Singapore. Steele, J. C. (1966). The I-li, or Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial (禮儀). Taipei: Chengwen.

CHAPTER 5

The Way Forward

Abstract  The Australian government and its education ministry need to be clear in the way they define CFL teaching and learning because this affects the way Australians view Chinese language learning. It also affects curriculum implementation, how teacher competence is envisaged, and philosophies of student recruitment. There are significant barriers for learners from a nonChinese heritage background to access CFL education given the ways schools rationalise teaching resources and the ways in which teachers prioritise improvements to their practice. One key recommendation is greater engagement between the Modern Language Teachers Association (MLTA) and Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA) across all Australian states. Keywords  Intercultural competence • Interculturality • Chinese language pedagogy

In seeking to present a way forward, this chapter reflects upon the research presented in previous chapters and presents a position on how interculturality, as defined in the dominant literature, can inform judgements about the quality and significance of current CFL pedagogy in Australian schools. What teachers of Chinese language believe about culture and language

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teaching, and how they describe themselves, has been surveyed and ‘heard’ in some detail through the voices of four teachers from diverse Chinese backgrounds.

Appropriateness of a Western Intercultural Competence Model A synthesis model of interculturality (see Chap. 1) has allowed for a way to understand transitional Chinese language teacher interculturality and its relationship with subsequent Chinese language pedagogy. The eight measures of increasing interculturality employed in this book (see Table  1.1) provide reference points for interpreting the narratives of Chinese language teachers and their classroom practice. Through this exercise what was most apparent was the tendency towards, rather than away from, essentialism. As to finding an enduring way to evaluate intercultural competence in teachers of Chinese in Australian schools, Euro-centric models of interculturality may not be optimal given the cultural distance that exists between ‘Chinese’ and ‘Western’ teachers. Assumptions about what constitutes positive improvements in intercultural competence are still under debate in the literature, and Chinese identity or ‘Chinese-ness’ is often confused between national, ethnic, and linguistic boundaries. Put another way, what if the Western literature definition and description of intercultural competence fails to adequately capture the beliefs and practices of Chinese language teachers? Given some teachers already acknowledge that shifts have taken place between, for instance, being born and raised in a Cantonese context and being educated in Mandarin as a Chinese citizen, intercultural competences have already been developed. And so, if interculturality is merely measured on a macro-scale, which sees a Chinese becoming more Australian, then the more subtle adjustments that have already taken place within the Chinese context will have been missed and unacknowledged. As a result, this book argues that increasing interculturality in teachers of Chinese language in Australian contexts should perhaps first be measured taking the Chinese context into account and then broadening out into an Australian school setting.

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Dominance of Visible Culture Three conclusions can be drawn as to the inclusion or omission of visible and deep culture in CFL teaching. There is momentum away from including values-based culture, such as modesty, humility, and moderation, in classes of second language learners. Language utterances deriving from Chinese values, or language that is particularly authentic to people with a Chinese heritage, are being withheld from second language learners. Secondly, it is visible culture, in the form of cultural artefacts such as festivals, foods, and fireworks, that dominate the landscape of ‘Chinese culture’ pedagogy. Thirdly, opportunities for linking language with culture are reserved for heritage learners. There are at least two reasons for this. 1. That relevant content relating to intercultural understanding in the Australian curriculum has not been adequately imparted to pre-­ service and in-service teachers 2. That the binary of second language learner and heritage learner has caused a rift that too easily partitions visible culture and values-based culture learning There appears to be a mental script (Stigler & Hiebert, 2009) that guides teachers with a Chinese heritage to view foreign language teaching in a certain way, and this is at odds with the intercultural imperative that has been gaining momentum over the past two decades in language teaching in Australia. The current cohort of Chinese teachers in Australia were likely taught foreign culture from a comparative perspective characterised by essentialist views. This forms a script that essentializes culture teaching in CFL.

Pedagogical Diversity In relation to pedagogical diversity, I argue that there is a continuum along which teachers of Chinese are moving as they adjust to new contexts and new student cohorts. Each school context is different, and so challenges faced by teachers of Chinese language differ. Teachers have different styles of teaching to heritage learners and second language learners, but it is not the case that one foreign pedagogy in need of correction is being delivered to all Australian learners of Chinese. It is a matter for all modern language teachers to consider their own place on the continuum

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of intercultural language teaching, if not because of the stated imperative to develop intercultural understanding in students (ACARA, 2016), then for the reason that it is a more effective and rewarding way to facilitate language learning. On the one hand, it appears natural and comfortable for Chinese to teach Chinese to the Chinese (the heritage approach). On the other hand, it appears that in the case of Chinese teaching Chinese to second language learners, some teachers are displaying a transitional interculturality. This book reports elements of awareness of ‘the other’, and teachers report and demonstrate intentional pedagogical adjustments. Yet, a conscious perception of the need to personally pursue and model interculturality to students is lacking. If current research supports the case that both heritage and second language learners benefit from intercultural language teaching, then teachers of Chinese in Australian schools should consider their own positions in relation to this. This consideration will necessarily involve reflection on personal trajectories and pedagogy.

Playing the Role of Gatekeeper In her study revealing how teachers can influence education policy implementation, Larke (2019) argued that the impact of new curriculum policy is not unidirectional because while it informs what teachers do, teachers also interpret it at the local level. This book has shown that teachers of Chinese, particularly those who teach classes in which heritage and second language learners learn together, are prone to playing a cultural resource/gatekeeper role in their influence over policy in practice. It has been shown that teachers of Chinese in Australian schools represent a rich resource for the teaching of Chinese culture. It has also been shown that there are instances of a gatekeeping of cultural learning, whereby second language learners are locked out of values-based language learning. This pedagogy promotes distance between heritage and second language learners, leading to a lack of confidence in the latter, leading to declining enrolments in the non-mandatory phase of language study in Australian schools (Orton, 2008, 2016). Larke (2019) suggests that a lack of external pressure on what to do and how to do it creates a vacuum of guidance on new curriculum initiatives. This leaves teachers no alternative but to focus on their own school context and how curriculum should be interpreted, often under the influence of the Chinese teaching community of practice.

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Recent Studies and Their Contributions to This Discussion In addition to the literature for the new research presented in this book, several recent studies are reviewed here to add legitimacy to the discussion.

Reading Strategies in L2 Chinese Learning Ke and Chan (2017) examined the relationship between non-Chinese cultural sphere (NCCS) learners’ reading strategies and L2 proficiency. They found proficiency was related to decoding strategies used in reading tasks. Their study also compared the reading strategies used by Chinese cultural sphere (CCS) learners with NCCS learners. Ke and Chan (2017) found that CCS learners at the elementary level appeared to have an advantage over NCCS learners in relation to character/word orthographic processing, but this advantage disappeared as each group increased their proficiency. They noticed that once intermediate level was reached, both groups tended to use similar decoding strategies when reading Chinese. This is evidence for a need to redress the reported deficit approach to Australian NCCS learners because it points to L2 learner potential.

Oral Corrective Feedback Bao (2019) studied oral corrective feedback (CF) beliefs and practices of eight experienced teachers of L2 Chinese classes. Data collected from classroom observations and questionnaires revealed relative prevalence of different types of CF, showing consistencies between beliefs and practices for the frequency of CF, the least-used feedback strategy, and the emphasis on teacher-led feedback. The discovery that recasts were the most prevalent and prompts least prevalent mirrors the tendency observed in the new research presented in this book towards direct instruction and an avoidance of constructivist approaches that promote learner agency in second language acquisition. Bao (2019) also found inconsistencies between beliefs and practices for the timing of feedback, commonly used strategies and the volume of CF offered, and concluded that CFL teachers’ entrenched beliefs have significant impact on CF practices. There is therefore a need for training in and promotion of reflective practice in CFL teaching if teachers are to effectively challenge entrenched beliefs that may be at odds with quality teaching.

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Motivation Wen (2018) argues that regardless of the background of learners, classrooms with opportunities to speak Chinese with peers, and activities based on authentic communication including a degree of fun, are preferred. Ideally, what happens inside the classroom should, as closely as possible, mirror that which occurs every day in Chinese-speaking communities outside the classroom. She further asserts that to increase motivation tasks can be challenging but must also be under the learner’s control. Of note also in Wen’s (2018, p. 357) research is the acknowledgement that different factors motivate learners at the entry level (Year 1 of learning) compared with those at the intermediate level (Year 2 and beyond). For instance, for CCS learners, ethnic background and family context are strong motivators for the desire to begin learning Chinese; however, the successful development of effective learning strategies and effort are stronger motivators beyond this stage. Research presented in this book indicates there are assumptions being made about what motivates heritage learners that may not be valid.

Limitations and Implications/Recommendations for Further Research Data collection took place over a relatively short period of time (three months), and there were some variations in each interview as questioning sometimes went ‘off script’ to pursue relevant tangents. Some teachers had a lot more to say than others in different phases of the interview. There may have been instances of the ‘researcher desirability effect’ (Neuman, 2000) in the interview data, given my unique identity as a non-­ Chinese background Mandarin speaker and language teacher, as well as my position on the Executive Committee of the Chinese Language Teachers Association in NSW. Likewise, teacher classroom behaviour and choice of task may have been affected by my presence and participation in the room during observations. This book recommends both professional learning initiatives and institutional changes to improve the learning outcomes for all students of Chinese.

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Recommendations (a) Critical intercultural reflection requires that all in-service and pre-­ service Chinese language teachers attain a working knowledge of the intercultural understanding requirements housed within the Australian curriculum. This includes an ability to write and implement teaching programmes that especially promote ‘significance’ and develop interculturality in all learners of Chinese. This can be achieved through government-funded training as well as through Chinese Language Teachers Associations (CLTA) in each state of Australia. Individual schools may also wish to implement training at the local level. (b) Greater collaboration between Chinese language teachers and other language teachers in each state is recommended. Chinese language teachers would benefit from meeting teachers of French, German, Japanese, Spanish, and other languages, and spending time with them in conference or workshop settings or even engaging in peer observation in each other’s schools. If the community of practice can be widened beyond the sphere of Chinese language teaching alone, then language teacher interculturality can be enriched and Chinese language teachers can improve their understanding of second language learners, and even perhaps heritage learners. (c) Higher expectations should be placed on second language learners in order to produce genuinely bilingual graduates in Chinese from the general Australian population. This is probably best achieved by initially funding smaller separate classes of second language learners, who are neither distracted nor intimidated by Chinese heritage learners or Chinese background speakers which is currently a too-common phenomenon.

Further Research Given the findings of this book show teacher reticence to link Chinese cultural values with linguistic outcomes for L2 learners of Chinese, it is recommended that further studies investigate effective pedagogical interventions that might improve the teaching of Chinese to second language learners in Australian schools. Secondly, a study that further investigates

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the efficacy and relevance of intercultural language teaching across languages is suggested to understand how intercultural development in all language teachers and their students can be supported. Thirdly, interculturality research from a Chinese perspective, or in a Chinese context, is required to ensure a better understanding of what might take place when a Chinese person becomes more intercultural. Fourthly, given much of the recent uptake of Chinese as a foreign language around the globe can be attributed to high levels of funding being directed towards the international marketing of Chinese, it is worth investigating to what extent the Chinese language has been shaped and marketed as an international product that competes in the foreign language space and to what extent this approach has influenced the quality of CFL pedagogy internationally.

References Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], (2016). Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au. Bao, R. (2019). Oral corrective feedback in L2 Chinese classes: Teachers’ beliefs versus their practices. System, 82, 140–150. Ke, S., & Chan, S. D. (2017). Strategy use in L2 Chinese reading: The effect of L1 background and L2 proficiency. System, 66, 27–38. Larke, L. R. (2019). Agentic neglect: Teachers as gatekeepers of England’s national computing curriculum. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(3), 1137–1150. Neuman, W. L. (2000). Social research methods. Allyn and Bacon. Orton, J. (2008). Chinese language education in Australian schools. University of Melbourne. Orton, J. (2016). Building Chinese language capacity in Australia. The Australia-­ China Relations Institute (ACRI). Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (2009). The teaching gap: Best ideas from the world’s teachers for improving education in the classroom. Simon and Schuster. Wen, X. (2018). Motivation and Chinese second language acquisition. In The Routledge handbook of Chinese second language acquisition (pp.  352–372). Routledge.



Appendix A: Online Survey for CFL Teachers

The survey has been developed with reference to literature and based on the personal and professional reflections of the author spanning two decades and two countries. Likert scale: Strongly disagree (SD), Disagree (D), Agree (A), Strongly Agree (SA). Survey question 1: Beliefs about culture

SD D A SA

Culture is quality in a person that comes from education in the arts, literature, manners, etc. (e.g.) ‘she is a cultured person’. Culture is a particular stage in history, or of a certain nation. (e.g.) ‘Greek culture was at its height in …’. Culture is made up of particular behaviours and beliefs belonging to different social, ethnic, age groups, etc. (e.g.) sporting culture, drug culture, youth culture. Culture is all the ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted to the next generation. Culture is long-established customs and traditions of a specific group of people. (e.g.) festivals, marriage customs, funeral customs, eating habits, music, and dance traditions. These statements are drawn from accepted beliefs about culture from various perspectives (See: Moran & Lu, 2001)

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APPENDIX A: ONLINE SURVEY FOR CFL TEACHERS

Survey question 2: Beliefs about language learning

SD D A SA

Languages have structures anyone can learn. Some parts of language have no cultural meaning. High success in language learning requires high intelligence. Adults learn language basically the same way as young children. Every person is born with the ability to learn language. Your language limits what you can know and understand about the world. (see: Hoff, 2013; Lantolf, Thorne, & Poehner, 2015; Wen, 2013)

Survey question 3: Beliefs about culture and language

SD

D

A

SA

Language is culture. Language carries culture. Learning a new language involves learning a new culture. Some languages have more culture than others. Mandarin has more culture than English. People from Asian backgrounds learn Chinese faster than others. (See: Byram, 1994, 1997; Ishihara & Cohen, 2014; Kramsch, 2014)

Survey question 4: Beliefs about teaching

SD D A SA

In my classroom, I am the ‘China expert’. The textbook is a valuable resource. Chinese is a strategic foreign language to learn. My students will achieve a high level of Chinese. My job is to correct errors made by my students. My job is to follow up on student homework. My job is to maximise the amount of speaking practice in class. My job is to share ideas and resources with other teachers of Chinese. My job is to build closer relationships with other staff in my school. Values common in China should be taught to students learning Chinese. (See: Busch, 2010; Cephe & Yalcin, 2015; Kern, 1995; Kuntz, 1996; Peacock, 1999)

Survey question 5: Beliefs about culture teaching

SD D A SA

Chinese culture is difficult to define for my students. I allow my students to discover what Chinese culture is as they learn the language. Chinese culture should be explained by the teacher. (continued)

  APPENDIX A: ONLINE SURVEY FOR CFL TEACHERS 

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(continued) Survey question 5: Beliefs about culture teaching

SD D A SA

All Chinese language learning textbooks should have sections about Chinese culture. Learning about culture takes up too much time in the curriculum. Chinese culture is constantly changing. Native speakers of Mandarin have an advantage when teaching because they know the culture. It is difficult for non-Chinese background students to understand Chinese culture. It is difficult for Chinese heritage students to understand Chinese culture. (See: Byram & Wagner, 2018; Dervin & Dirba, 2006; Moloney, 2008; Moran & Lu, 2001; Xu, 2012)

Survey question 6: CFL teacher’s views about values/behaviours

SD

D

A

SA

When given a compliment, I should reject it. When an elderly person gets on a bus, I should give them my seat. I should wait until others give their opinion before I give mine. I should try to visit my parents regularly. I will encourage my own children to focus on academic excellence. I should not argue with my boss. Values are constantly changing. If someone buys something for me, I should repay them. I help others because I know they will help me in the future. In conflicts, I make sure others don’t lose face. Friendship is sometimes more important than family. (See: Faure & Fang, 2008; Hall, 2010; Johnston, 2003; Leung et al., 2010; Moloney & Xu, 2012, 2015; Wang et al., 2013)

References Busch, D. (2010). Pre-service teacher beliefs about language learning: The second language acquisition course as an agent for change. Language Teaching Research, 14(3), 318–337. Byram, M. (1994). Teaching-and-learning language-and-culture (Vol. 100). Multilingual Matters. Byram, M. (1997). ‘Cultural awareness’ as vocabulary learning. Language Learning Journal, 16(1), 51–57. Byram, M., & Wagner, M. (2018). Making a difference: Language teaching for intercultural and international dialogue. Foreign Language Annals, 51(1), 140–151.

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Cephe, P. T., & Yalcin, C. G. (2015). Beliefs about foreign language learning: The effects of teacher beliefs on learner beliefs. The Anthropologist, 19(1), 167–173. Dervin, F., & Dirba, M. (2006). On liquid interculturality: Finnish and Latvian student teachers’ perceptions of intercultural competence. AFinLAn vuosikirja. Faure, G. O., & Fang, T. (2008). Changing Chinese values: Keeping up with paradoxes. International Business Review, 17(2), 194–207. Hall, J. K. (2010). Interaction as method and result of language learning. Language Teaching, 43(2), 202–215. Hoff, E. (2013). Language development. Cengage Learning. Ishihara, N., & Cohen, A. D. (2014). Teaching and learning pragmatics: Where language and culture meet. Routledge. Johnston, B. (2003). Values in English language teaching. Routledge. Kern, R. G. (1995). Students’ and teachers’ beliefs about language learning. Foreign Language Annals, 28(1), 71–92. Kramsch, C. (2014). Language and culture. AILA Review, 27(1), 30–55. Routledge. Kuntz, P. S. (1996). Beliefs about language learning: The Horwitz Model. Lantolf, J. P., Thorne, S. L., & Poehner, M. E. (2015). Sociocultural theory and second language development. In B. Van Patten & J. Williams (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition: An introduction (pp. 207–226). Leung, M. Y., Chan, Y. S., & Chong, A. M. L. (2010). Chinese values and stressors of construction professionals in Hong Kong. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 136(12), 1289–1298. Moloney, R. (2008). You just want to be like that: teacher modelling and intercultural competence in young language learners. Babel, 42(3). Moloney, R., & Xu, H. (2012). We are not teaching Chinese kids in Chinese context, we are teaching Australian kids: Mapping the beliefs of teachers of Chinese language in Australian schools. Proceedings of CLaSIC, 2012, 470–487. Moloney, R., & Xu, H. (2015). Transitioning beliefs in teachers of Chinese as a foreign language: An Australian case study. Cogent Education, 2(1), 1024960. Moran, P. R., & Lu, Z. (2001). Teaching culture: Perspectives in practice (pp. 34–47). Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Peacock, M. (1999). Beliefs about language learning and their relationship to proficiency. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(2), 247–263. 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), 116–135. Wen, H. (2013). Chomsky’s language development theories: Rescuing parents out of dilemma. International Journal of Learning & Development, 3(2), 151. Xu, H. (2012). Imagined community falling apart: A case study on the transformation of professional identities of novice ESOL teachers in China. Tesol Quarterly, 46(3), 568–578.

 Appendix B: Interview Questions (Part A)

(Part B consists of the five stimulus dialogues—featured in Chap. 3) 1. Can you describe where you were educated? 2. In relation to your teaching of Chinese as a foreign language, what would you say are some of the advantages of your background? 3. What about disadvantages of your background? Are there any? 4. Can you describe your current school and comment on the student background? 5. Please write down five to six key aspects of Chinese culture that first come into your mind. 6. Do you think that when a non-Chinese person learns Chinese language, is it necessary for them to be able to behave like a Chinese person? 7. How do you think written Chinese and Chinese culture are connected? 8. How about spoken Chinese? How does that reflect Chinese culture? 9. How important is it for a Chinese language learner to be able to use this language? 10. If a student is in their first or second year of learning Mandarin, what are some of the most essential cultural aspects that they need to know in those first two years?

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Smith, Teacher Voices in Chinese Language Teaching, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89213-5

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11. Is it better for students to discover the culture within the language, or for the teacher to directly teach it? 12. I want to turn your thinking towards the syllabus, the BOSTES syllabus. To what extent are you aware of the references to ‘intercultural learning’? 13. Would you ever say to anybody who is sick, ‘Put on more clothes, or drink more water’? Why? 14. Would you ever begin a sentence with, ‘我们中国人。。。’? (We Chinese ….)

Index

A Asking for directions, 64, 65, 73–77 B Beginners, 24, 96 Beliefs, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 16, 20, 34–37, 39–41, 54–56, 58, 66, 72, 76, 87, 94, 100–102, 110, 114, 115, 122, 127, 130, 133, 137 C CFL, see Chinese as a Foreign Language Chen, 2, 9, 45, 46, 64, 65, 70–72, 74, 78, 80, 81, 84, 85, 87, 88, 94, 96, 101, 108, 109, 111–116, 123–125 Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL), 1–26, 41, 50, 54, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, 72, 77, 80, 122, 127, 129, 131, 133, 136–139

Chinese characters, 4, 57, 103, 104, 117 Chinese culture, 21, 22, 35–39, 41, 46, 48, 50, 55, 56, 67, 69, 71, 74, 82, 85, 102, 105, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 117–120, 131, 132, 138, 139, 141 Chinese heritage, 11, 13, 15, 18, 25, 37, 39, 41, 50, 55, 100, 131, 135, 139 Chinese language teachers, 2, 7, 9, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 37, 42, 45, 79, 89, 95, 127, 130, 135 Chinese Language Teachers Association, 9, 54, 64, 125, 127, 134 Communities of practice, 5, 45 Compliments in Chinese, 49, 64, 69–73 Constructivist, 3, 6, 15, 36, 37, 39, 43, 107, 112, 120, 122, 125, 133 Culturally informed linguistic choices, 3, 7

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 S. Smith, Teacher Voices in Chinese Language Teaching, Palgrave Studies in Teaching and Learning Chinese, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89213-5

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INDEX

Cultural understanding, 4, 57, 58, 96 Cultural values, 20–22, 35, 113, 121, 135 Culture learning, 3, 6, 20, 36, 39, 40, 48, 55, 131 D Decentre/de-centre, 3, 13, 14, 50, 70, 125, 126 Deep culture, 45, 101, 102, 105, 106, 131 E Eating greeting, 84 Engagement, 5, 7, 14, 108 Essentialism, 13, 49, 50, 56, 70, 126, 130 Essentialist, 47, 49, 52, 55, 56, 74, 80, 87, 126, 127, 131 Essentialize/essentialized, 2, 6, 7 Ethnographic approach, 10, 12 Ethnography, 11, 12 F Fan, 9, 45, 47, 49, 56, 57, 72, 73, 75, 76, 79, 82, 83, 86–88, 98–100, 102, 120, 121, 126–127 Festivals, 20, 21, 35, 45, 46, 48, 96, 100–102, 111, 112, 131, 137 Foreign languages approach, 16 Foreign learner field, 21 G Gatekeeper, 132 Greeting, 48, 64, 67–69, 80–88, 115, 118, 119, 126

H Heritage language approach, 16 Heritage learner field, 21 Home, 15–23, 25, 26, 57, 58, 73, 77, 84, 102, 118 House, 16–23, 58, 73, 77, 103, 105, 108, 111 I Identity, 3, 13–17, 21, 22, 34, 36, 51–54, 58, 67, 79, 96, 114, 122, 124, 130, 134 Intercultural approach, 16, 107, 125 Intercultural competence, 2, 7, 8, 13–15, 22, 36, 39, 43, 50, 51, 107, 113, 116, 124, 130 Interculturality, 8, 16, 17, 20–22, 42, 51, 71, 86, 88, 100, 121, 123, 125, 126, 129, 130, 132, 135, 136 Intercultural language learning, 7, 14, 15, 73, 100, 113–115 Intercultural understanding, 13, 39, 46–49, 78, 79, 103, 114, 131, 132, 135 J Jiang, 9, 45–47, 50, 57, 69, 70, 73, 74, 77, 80, 83–85, 87, 94–96, 100–108, 111, 122–123 L L1 Chinese speakers, 2 L2 learner, 2, 133 M Middle ground, 2

 INDEX 

N National Curriculum, 13 Non-Chinese background, 2, 7, 37, 38, 55, 58, 88, 116, 126, 134, 139 P Participants, 9–12, 15, 35, 37, 40, 44, 55, 64, 88, 89, 114 Pedagogy, 2, 3, 5–9, 11, 15–17, 19, 21, 22, 38–45, 50, 53, 54, 58, 75, 77, 86, 120–127, 129–132, 136 Q Quality Teaching Framework (QTF), 3, 8, 13, 122, 124, 126, 127 S Semi-structured interviews, 10, 12, 45

145

Significance, 3, 5, 8, 13, 39, 58, 74, 75, 79, 82, 86, 113, 123, 124, 127, 129, 135 Song, 9, 45, 47–49, 56, 71, 72, 74, 75, 78, 79, 81, 82, 85–87, 97, 101, 116–120, 124–126 Stimulus dialogues, 9, 12, 63, 64, 68, 81, 89, 94, 141 T Teacher identity, 54 Teaching materials, 6, 34, 48 Third place, 2, 3 V Visible, 20–22, 38, 39, 43, 45, 46, 48, 50, 55, 57, 77, 100, 131 Visible culture, 22, 38, 45, 46, 48, 50, 55, 57, 131 Voice, 6, 45, 63, 106