Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language

One of my tutoring students e-mailed me this new book info that will be published by Cheng & Tsui this June. I guess there will be more and more books like this for teachers to be published in the future.

I like what the editor said in the introduction (as in purple text)of the book regarding "Who" may become a Chinese Language Teacher in the U.S.:

Needless to say, the task of finding and training qualified teachers is not an easy one.

First. many of the native Chinese-speaking candidates may not have the needed subject matter expertise, or an understanding of the common themes and trends that join all foreign lang. teachers... In short, they are not participants in the specialized conversation that goes on regularly between teachers of Chinese.

I totally agree with the editor. Even as a native Chinese speaker, and had always got good grades in Chinese classes, I sometimes "forget" about a lot of things in the language itself. Not to mention some Chinese native speakers who use the language only in a daily conversational setting.

2ndly, (which, to me, is the most important factor for a Chinese program in U.S. mainstream school to survive and thrive) many of these native speakers are coming from Chinese-speaking countries that have educational systems which differ greatly from that of America, thus creating a wide disparity as to how education is viewed, valued and carried out.

Without an understanding of one's teaching context, environment, and particular school culture, Chinese language programs run the risk of failing because they not matched to the goals, needs, and desires of a particular setting, or because they have not taken into account the makeup of the various students whom they are trying to serve.

I guess this is the biggest challenge (or fear) for me after I accepted the job offer, and going to serve a private school community this school year. Knowing the students body and the students' family backgrounds will be a good starting point.

As I mentioned to my supervisor during the interviews, I have to remind myself all the time when it comes to curriculum design or lesson plan plotting that Chinese is only a subject that belongs to a foreign language genre. It's not English, Math or Science. Therefore, the teachers of CFL can not expect their students to dedicate all their time and energy on this least important subject.