Instructional design for co-created and context-based VR Chinese learning environments

Written in an extended dictionary format, the Manual for Teaching and Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language aims to cover all key terms related to teaching Chinese as a foreign language. Each section contains an introduction with language-specific information, and identifies students and teachers’ common questions, including the capacity of Chinese as a morphologically unmarked language to indicate categories such as tense and mood. Many entries listed in this manual come with an explanation, a commentary, and rich examples. The Manual for Teaching and Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language appeals to both Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers and students, as well as being the ideal reference for researchers conducting comparative studies of the Chinese and English languages.

This poster presents the overview and the first step of the PhD project Chinese Education at Confucius Institutes in Belgium: A Pedagogical and Socio-Cultural Perspective. In recent decades, the enhanced globalization (Badwan, 2021) and mobility (McWilliams, 2008) have increased the complexity in foreign language classrooms in multilingual contexts (Bonnet & Siemund, 2018). It is thus worthwhile to explore the dynamics among diverse pedagogical and socio-cultural factors in real-life practices of foreign language education. Situating this issue in Belgium, this project investigates Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) education at local Confucius Institutes (CIs), aiming to provide insights into educational approaches at CIs as designed; delivered and received by different stakeholders (administrators, teachers, and learners). In the sections of Project Overview and Research Design of the poster, the key information on the project is summarized. First of all, Research questions identify the scope of the research, probing mainly in the following directions: What are the gaps between actual local educational practices at CIs in Belgium and CIs’ official educational objectives? To what extent does the teaching of CFL at CIs reflect Belgian learners’ socio-cultural backgrounds? What are the pedagogical and managerial practices exerted at CIs in Belgium? How do these pedagogical and managerial practices interact with local socio-cultural contexts? It is evident from the Research questions that the project mainly focuses on the potential misalignment between official objectives and on-site practices of management, teaching, and learning at CIs in Belgium, as well as the interplay of local socio-cultural factors (e.g., language conflicts, language ideology) in such educational contexts. In regard to Methodology, a mixed methods approach is chosen for data collection, in order to tackle the research questions from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. A variety of data collection instruments including interviews, classroom observations, and a survey questionnaire are applied among three main target groups, namely, administrators, CFL teachers, and CFL learners at CIs in Belgium. The section on Research design then synthesizes the key information of the project in a multilayered structure. At the outer layer, the official objectives of CIs are examined through document analysis. The inner layers of Administrators, Teachers, and Learners are then studied by employing fitted data collection instruments, with the foci on the status quo and the relevant socio-cultural factors. For example, the target group of teachers triggers the research on local socio-cultural contexts of CFL teaching, and the current teaching methods and classroom practices conducted by the CFL teachers at CIs in Belgium. Hence, interview and classroom observation data are collected to analyze these aspects. The next section on First Step of the Project provides general information on the initial systematic review of the project, which is a review of post-2010 literature on the administration at CIs around the globe. In the total research project, it is situated at the inner layer of Administrators of Research Design, acting as a preparatory study for the empirical research on administrators at CIs in Belgium, in order to tackle Research question ① and ③. The aim of this systematic review is to examine the actual managerial practices at CIs in different areas, especially regarding the misalignment of CIs’ official objectives in local institutions. The article selection routine follows the PRISMA guidelines (Page, M. J. et al., 2021) with “Confucius Institutes/CIs” as the search term. 347 articles were selected with research foci in seven categories and cases from 46 countries/regions. Relevant contents of the selected articles are then extracted for Thematic analysis, based on which a Coding tree of themes with three levels of generalization is constructed in the section of Present Findings. Level 1 of the coding tree is developed from the research aim of the systematic review, namely, to map CIs’ official status (Overview of CIs' management) and CIs’ actual managerial practices (successes, problems, and suggestions), which are then deconstructed. The practical sides of CIs’ management are categorized in the three most relevant aspects of Management, Education, and Intercultural communication at Level 2. Themes for further analysis surface at Level 3 and stand for the most prominent messages of the upper-level categories. For instance, the Level 3 theme “Lack of local socio-cultural concern” reflects one aspect of key information of the Level 1 and Level 2 categories “Problems of CIs' management – Management”. Finally, the Conclusion section of the poster states the strengths of the research project and the next step following the first step. The project is encompassing educational research collecting data from multiple sources, and the output might improve the localization of CFL education and intercultural understanding of such global educational institutions. The ensuing step of the project will be the systematic reviews of the other two target groups of teachers and learners as well as their practices at CIs.

As a result of rigorous scholarship efforts over the past 50 years, a rich understanding has been gained regarding the processes associated with teaching and learning Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL). CFL particularly benefits from research in second language acquisition (SLA). This chapter provides a critical review of major SLA theories by examining three key constructs: learner language, second language learning processes, and second language learners. Implications of SLA findings on CFL learning and teaching are discussed in terms of setting realistic expectations for CFL learners, creating an optimal learning environment for CFL learning, and tailoring teaching to individual learners. The chapter concludes by highlighting areas in need of increased attention and alternate perspectives that will contribute to our understanding of the complexities associated with CFL learning and also generate theory-guided practices for CFL teaching and learning.

Within the field of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) teaching, there has been limited engagement with Global Citizenship Education (GCE). The politicisation of CFL education in today’s diverse and multilingual Australian classroom remains a significant cause for concern as it endangers spaces of pedagogic possibility. Drawing upon data from an Australian primary CFL classroom we consider how pedagogic practices speak to Freire’s conceptualisation of ‘dialogic practice’ and ‘critical consciousness’ and how such approaches open up pedagogical encounters and opportunities for disadvantaged students to become informed global citizens. We explore how students came to recognise themselves as culturally sensitive learners and aware of the future demands of global citizenship through dialogues with their Chinese peers via video conferencing and letters. Through focusing on these pedagogic vignettes of integrating GCE into CFL teaching practice, we present an argument for a more dynamic view of CFL education where pedagogic approaches foreground interconnectedness and diversity.

Although recent years have witnessed increasing interest in learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in China and around the world, there seems to be a paucity of research into the medium of instruction in the CFL classroom. This paper describes a study of the practice of MoI choice in the CFL classroom, situated within the framework of translanguaging. Five focus group interviews and eight classroom observations were conducted across five universities in China. Approximately 43 participants participated in the interview stage of the research, while 149 CFL students across eight CFL classrooms were involved in the observation stage, with six students and four teachers also interviewed after the observations. The findings suggest that translanguaging was commonly used by teachers. However, due to limits on resource availability and to the linguistic complexity of a CFL classroom, these translanguaging practices also posed challenges to the teachers. Interestingly, English was predominantly employed for explanatory and elicitation functions, whereas Chinese was chosen mainly for teaching and instructing purposes. While translanguaging practice was observed in both the beginner CFL class and in the more advanced class, the monolingual approach was still predominantly used and advocated across different levels.

As a topic of rising interest, language teacher motivation has been studied through various lenses and across different contexts over recent years. Yet, relatively scant attention has been paid to Chinese language teachers teaching overseas. Using Q methodology and supplementary interview data, this study investigated the motivational profiles of multilingual Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers who teach abroad. An analysis informed by the Factors Influencing Teaching Choice (FIT-Choice) model identified four types of career choice motivation: ‘self-devotion and social contribution’, ‘personal utility’, ‘personal interest+’, and ‘personal pursuit and immigration path’. The results show that teachers with a strong sense of national pride and social responsibility chose the career mainly for social contribution. They shared with teachers driven by personal interest, a positive attitude and a strong commitment to the career. Teachers driven by personal utility and teachers pursuing diverse life experiences or permanent residence were more likely to choose to teach Chinese as a last resort, which potentially inhibited their determination and commitment to the job. The study further explores the complexity of teachers’ career choice motivation by investigating the interaction between the identified types. The discussion of these findings contributes to a better understanding of the subjectivity of multilingual CFL teachers and provides insights into Chinese teachers’ professional development and the sustainability of international Chinese education.

This study designed and developed a Chinese character handwriting diagnosis and remedial instruction (CHDRI) system to improve Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners’ ability to write Chinese characters. The CFL learners were given two tests based on the CHDRI system. One test focused on Chinese character handwriting to diagnose the CFL learners’ errors in the stroke order and their knowledge of Chinese characters, while the other test focused on the spatial structure of Chinese characters. Sixty-five participants, who had a strong desire to learn Chinese characters, voluntarily participated in this study. The results revealed that the CHDRI system enhanced the CFL learners’ ability to write Chinese characters and to understand the spatial structure of Chinese characters, especially Sinosphere CFL learners. Moreover, it was found that remedial instruction materials not only reduced the amount of time the teacher spent coaching CFL learners in Chinese language learning but also facilitated the teacher's ability to provide feedback to individual learners.

Though online learning has gained popularity in foreign language (FL) education, there is a lack of measurement tools with robust psychometric properties to comprehensively assess the quality of online FL instruction. This study explored the factor structure and measurement invariance of teaching presence in the framework of Community of Inquiry (CoI), a critical construct to understand instructors' responsibilities in precipitating and facilitating successful online learning. Data was collected from 564 college-level online learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL). Results of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis supported a five-factor structure of teaching presence, including design and organization, facilitating discourse, direct instruction, assessment and feedback, and technological support. Further evidence was also found to support the internal consistency and convergent validity of the derived factor structure of teaching presence. The nomological validity of the developed scale was established with the positive relationships between each subcomponent of teaching presence and online interaction (learner-instructor interaction, learner-learner interaction, learner-content interaction, and learner-technology interaction). Multi-group CFA indicated strict measurement invariance of the 27-item teaching presence scale across gender, age, and prior online experience. The findings extended the theoretical strengths of the teaching presence construct into FL education and highlighted its important role in fostering interactive online FL learning environments. Furthermore, the developed teaching presence scale can serve as an effective tool for future teacher educators and practitioners to evaluate instructional quality from the learners' perspective, thereby ensuring meaningful online FL learning experiences.

A nuanced description of “what” (the curriculum) and “how” (the pedagogy) to teach in Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) education remains unexplored in existing scholarship. This paper addresses this paucity by undertaking a practitioner inquiry to explore the intersection of Eastern pedagogy and Western students in an Australian CFL classroom, with the aim of improving classroom practice and enhancing low socio‐economic status (SES) students’ learning experiences. Ten language lessons were segmented into phases and analyzed within the parameter of classification and framing theorized by Bernstein. An analysis of research journals and students’ focus groups shows culturally responsive pedagogy integrating constructivist and traditional Chinese approaches to teaching has the potential of inducting underprivileged students into knowledge about curriculum and language, providing them with linguistic capital and high aspirations for the future. Pedagogically, this article offers insights for CFL teachers to mediate Chinese and Western teaching beliefs and education schemas; practically, the findings glimpse the ways in which CFL education can be discursively constructed as a cultural agenda that (re)shapes the educational experiences of underprivileged students and mobilizes them into critical hopes that can be acted upon. This paper has important implications for foreign language theory building and for responding to the “back to basics” curriculum approach in schools serving disadvantaged communities.

Despite the rapid development of telecollaboration in foreign language education, telecollaborative exchanges involving Chinese as the target language have not received sufficient attention. Adopting an action research approach, this study focuses on examining the student perceptions as well as the challenges of a carefully designed Chinese-American telecollaborative learning program involving Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) students at a small liberal arts college in the US and Chinese-speaking English majors at a large university in China. This study drew on a variety of data for analysis, including naturally occurring interaction data (i.e., Skype conversations, WeChat group discussion transcripts), students' weekly reflection journals, informal interviews with the students throughout the semester, end-of-program interviews, student responses to an end-of-semester questionnaire, and the teacher-researcher reflective journal. The results showed that this program was, in general, well received among the CFL students at the US college. The intermediate-level CFL students evaluated this program more positively than the elementary-level students. However, this program also faced many challenges, such as scheduling and technological issues with Skype conversations, target language proficiency gap, perceived irrelevance to Chinese proficiency development, heavy workload, lack of depth in WeChat group discussion, and the demanding role of the teacher-researcher.

This study explores the transformation of teacher–student relationship between expatriate Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) teachers and their students situating in the Australian educational context. The disparity of tradition between the two educational cultures influences substantially on communication between teachers and students within classroom. To better understand how CFL teachers’ background educational culture may impact their interaction with Australian students, focus group discussion data were applied as the data collection method. Findings reveal that at the beginning of their teaching practice CFL teachers’ understanding of teacher–student relationship influenced by their background educational culture had major impact on their strategies in teacher–student interaction in class. However, with the progress of teaching and meantime influenced by the Australian local educational culture, their behaviors for dealing with teacher–student relationship in class changed. Basically, their ways of handling teacher–student relationship transformed from a more Eastern guanxi tendency to a more Western rapport tendency. This transformation did not occur automatically and easily; it was achieved by the CFL teachers’ struggles and tribulations in the process of interacting with their Australian students. In an era of CFL teacher shortage, it is hoped that this study would shed some light on CFL teacher education.

While there has been an increase in research on Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers’ identity worldwide, limited attention has been drawn to CFL teachers’ positioning and affordances to interpret their identity construction in an overseas context. To fill the gap, this study investigated seven novice CFL teachers’ identity construction as Chinese language teachers in primary schools in New Zealand from positioning and affordance perspectives. Retrospectivesemi-structured interviews were adopted to understand how the novice CFL teachers were positioned, how they positioned themselves, and what affordances they perceived to be influential to their Chinese language teacher identity construction. The findings showed that the novice CFL teachers’ identity construction was subject to the social, institutional, and individual levels of being positioned, self-positioning, and affordances. Specifically, (1) consistent self-positioning at the social, institutional, and individual levels could largely determine the novice CFL teachers’ identity construction; (2) inconsistency of identities between being positioned and self-positioning at the social, institutional, and individual levels might weaken the novice CFL teachers’ identity construction; (3) affordances as opportunities at the social, institutional, and individual levels could strengthen the novice CFL teachers’ identity construction, whereas affordances as challenges could not. The study concluded with implications and limitations to inform future research.

The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated how ubiquitous and pervasive technology to support communication and collaboration has become in people’s lives. This article seeks to provide an overview of the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). The authors systematically reviewed 68 empirical research articles and 3 review articles published between 2008 and 2022 (early April). This in-depth review aims to investigate: (1) the characteristics of CMC-facilitated CFL learning in the worldwide context; (2) common theoretical foundations and methodological approaches; (3) CFL learners’ linguistic and intercultural communicative competence development through CMC; (4) affordances and limitations of CMC in the field of CFL research. Findings from this review suggest that the majority of studies were in formal education contexts within Anglosphere countries. The most commonly acknowledged theoretical foundations in CFL were well aligned with the wider second language acquisition (SLA) domain. A mixed-methods approach was the predominant methodological approach undertaken in the selected papers, with a small number of experimental or quasi-experimental studies between 2008 and 2022. The analysis also identified a clear research gap in relation to young CFL learners in the literature. The predominance of studies at ab initio level would suggest that more research is needed on younger CFL learners and on intermediate and advanced CFL learners using CMC. Additionally, the synthesized affordances of applying CMC technologies in CFL practice from this review were: (1) active engagement; (2) authentic communication; (3) learner centeredness; and (4) opportunities for practice and discovery. By addressing technological and individual CMC implementation limitations in a CFL context, suggestions and recommendations about further research and teaching practice are highlighted in the conclusion section.

This chapter frames the history and rationale for a research-based examination of new modes of teaching and learning within Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL). The chapter investigates the nature of innovative pedagogies, offers a brief overview of the history of the teaching of CFL, identifies the current challenges in CFL, and observes new developments emerging through recent CFL research publications. The chapter highlights three areas of teacher knowledge needed: understanding of learners, understanding of teachers themselves, and understanding of resources available which offer new opportunities. Integrating learner, teacher and technology, the chapter concludes with an overview of the studies in the volume. The chapter both disseminates innovative work being done in CFL, to create a greater circle of influence, and exemplifies an inclusive diversified and creative community of practice for CFL.

Guided by the TPACK theory (Mishra & Koehler, 2006), this chapter reviews and compares the technology standards related to and designed for teachers of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) from the entry level to the accomplished level in the United States and China. It has found that the technology standards are often included in the comprehensive standards for teachers and parallel the standards about other aspects of teaching. The technology standards related to CFL in the two countries share some similarities but also differ in important ways. Several important and critical understandings are identified, including the needs for CFL technology standards, the theoretical foundations for CFL technology standards, and a more solid and comprehensive infrastructure for CFL education. Recommendations are made to address the needs, and research is called for to study the development and implementation of CFL technology standards.