Chinese Language Teaching in a Saudi Context: A brief review

Abstract

While English remains the predominant language with prestigious status, which is highly valued throughout the world, other languages are also of paramount importance. For example, interest in teaching the Chinese language as a foreign or second language has increased both inside and outside China for historical, political, and economic reasons. Chinese has become an international and global language and millions of foreign students learn it to compete in the business market. Chinese language enjoys special attention from Saudi decision-makers. Recently, some selected schools introduced Chinese to Saud students for the first time in 2019. When teaching any foreign language, many problems occur in the teaching and learning process. Some of these problems are caused by psychological, cognitive factors, or individual variables. Others are related to teaching practices and curriculum designs. As teaching Chinese as a foreign language is relatively new in Saudi Arabia, there is a lack of official documents dealing with this issue and few studies have addressed this as a research topic. This brought us neatly to the necessity of producing more researches in this respect. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to lessen the gap and provide an overview of introducing Chinese language to Saudi students as a foreign language (CFL). It seeks to present some notes and indications of the inclusion of teaching Chinese in the Saudi educational system. It will discuss the possible problems to be encountered in light of the current situation and literature review, and finally, some recommendations and implications for further research are given.