Classroom learners of Chinese in senior secondary school

Abstract

Abstract This study looks at the Chinese-learning experiences of six classroom learners who continued to the end of secondary school in Victoria, Australia, through in-depth interviews. Various systemic deterrents to continued Chinese language study are identified by the participants, including: (1) the schooling journey, including transition between primary and high school and disruption from uninterested students in compulsory classes; (2) the curriculum and the learning demands dictated by the form of assessment; (3) the risk of poor assessment results prejudicing post-school study options, in particular because the cohort includes large numbers of home speaker learners. In Victoria, Australia, a large part of what schools provide is dictated by the metasystem of education and the assessments at which it aims. Thus the structural deterrents to Chinese classroom learner continuation identified are within the power of government agencies to change, in order to enable more of these students to continue.