Developing Interculturally-Oriented Teaching Resources in CFL: Meeting the Challenge

Abstract

This chapter critically examines the challenges faced by teachers of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) as they endeavour to develop and implement interculturally-oriented pedagogical practices. These challenges are examined in the under-researched context of higher education and concentrate on the selection, adaptation and use of authentic teaching resources – transcultural/translingual ‘migratory’ autobiographies, oral history accounts and language learning memoirs. The chapter explores the strategic integration of these resources in a CFL university program, specifically, within a first year cultural context course offered to both specialist and non-specialist university students. The integration of these resources is underpinned by (1) critical pedagogical strategies that go beyond the ‘cultural’ to explore the ‘individual’; and (2) the introduction of a dynamic, (inter)subjective Chinese perspective that may be unpacked and problematised. Examples of three learning activities are used to illustrate the ways in which learners can be engaged in the critical exploration of this perspective to support suspension of judgement and critical deconstruction of stereotypes, all considered key aspects in the development of learners’ critical intercultural awareness. The discussion of these examples suggests that while selecting, adapting and using interculturally-oriented teaching resources are likely to remain a trying challenge, it is a challenge that cannot be overcome without a paradigmatic shift in the way we conceptualise our task as language educators. The chapter concludes by outlining practical strategies to help CFL teachers make the most out of resources available and, most importantly, take the steps necessary to address their widened educational mission.