Bilingual Teachers’ Contextualization in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language in Australian Schools

Abstract

This research focuses on the practice of contextualization in teaching Chinese as a foreign language among a cohort of bilingual language teacher-researchers. It aims to extend the prevalent emphasis in the current literature that acknowledges the role of context in language education; however, these research studies primarily give voice to linguistic contexts or relegates context into a static physical space such as ‘environment’. This research is grounded in a social constructionism perspective whereby context is regarded as a dynamic relation-building process, or more accurately, a contextualizing process, enabled through various sociocultural activities. The data reveal that the teacher-researchers employed various forms of contextualization in teaching and linked these to particular teaching content through identifiable, purposeful activities, resulting in a variety of students’ responses. This research provides an evidence-based understanding of contextualization in CFL teaching for a more sustainable second language education.