Chinese is an ancient language, but the present scope of its global study is unprecedented. Comprehending the impacts of worldwide linguistic realities on ‘Chinese as a Foreign Language’ (CFL) teachers and students will be critical to its long-term success. The most important phenomenon has been the establishment of English as a lingua franca, especially in the expanding marketplaces of Asia. This book examines the role of English as a medium of instruction in CFL classrooms. It begins by integrating existing studies on the global spread of English with research on English as a medium of second language acquisition. Several valuable empirical analyses from actual CFL classrooms serve both to validate the use of English as a lingua franca and expose that much more work needs to be done to ground this practice in deep sociocultural and ecological settings. The author advocates the development of a new pedagogy that emphasizes taking account of specific cultural, social, and political contexts in order to reach an ever-more diverse body of students. The book concludes with a discussion of the role of English in China’s national education system and social development, as well as predictions about the future relationship between Chinese and English.
Author(s): Danping Wang
Publisher: Peter Lang AG
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: 276
Cover
Contents 5
Acknowledgements 9
Preface 11
Part 1 The Global spread of the Chinese and English languages 21
Chapter 1 Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) 23
The re-emergence of China and the Chinese language 23
A chronology of Chinese teaching 30
Linguistic accounts for the difficulty in learning Chinese 41
Learning Chinese in Chinese society 50
Chapter 2 English as a lingua franca (ELF) 57
The spread of English in the Expanding Circle 57
English in Europe and Asia 62
English in modern China 66
English in CFL education 70
Part 2 The paradigm shift in foreign language teaching 75
Chapter 3 Language choice and language pedagogy 77
Debating L1 use in the L2 class 77
Paradigm of the L2-only pedagogy 78
Paradigm shift to the multilingual pedagogy 84
Research on multilingual pedagogy 91
Chapter 4 Language choice in the Chinese context 101
The national language policy 101
The medium of instruction controversy 103
The monolingual norm: Chinese-only pedagogy 106
The multilingual reality: The ELF pedagogy 111
What is the ELF pedagogy 114
Part 3 How English is perceived and used in CFL 119
Chapter 5 English for CFL students 121
A bilingual questionnaire on student’s language attitudes 123
The portrait of a multilingual CFL class 125
Attitudes towards ELF pedagogy 133
Attitudes towards learning Chinese in China 135
What has influenced students’ language attitudes? 136
Students’ own comments on their language attitudes 137
Conclusion 140
Chapter 6 English for CFL teachers 145
A qualitative account of teachers’ perspectives 147
The virtual position: Chinese-only pedagogy 151
The maximal and optimal position: ELF pedagogy 158
Conclusion 164
Chapter 7 English in CFL classrooms 167
A classroom observation of actual language use 167
Three pedagogical funtions 169
Conclusion 186
Chapter 8 English in CFL textbooks 189
A short history of CFL textbook publications 189
Criticism of English in CFL textbooks 192
Surveys on the quality of English used in textbooks 195
Conclusion 203
Part 4 ELF pedagogy and beyond 207
Chapter 9 ELF pedagogy 209
A review of the research 209
Achieving a multilingual pedagogy: Start from simple 210
How to prepare for ELF pedagogy 213
Chapter 10 Future of Chinese foreign language teaching 219
Educating CFL teachers 219
Will Chinese replace English as a lingua franca? 226
From modernity to internationalization 228
World Chinese: Depoliticise CFL teaching 229
Future research 232
References 235
Appendix I: The questionnaire 265
Appendix II: The teacher interview protocol 271
Appendix III: Transcription conventions 273
Appendix IV: Textbooks reviewed 275
