Cultural Concepts as Powerful Theoretical Tools: Chinese Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Relationship with Students in a Cross-Cultural Context

Teachers’ cultural backgrounds can result in challenges in establishing positive teacher-student relationships in cross-cultural settings. The context for this study is based on the everyday practice of teachers and students in the classrooms of diverse Australian schools, where issues of cross-cultural teacher-student relationships have been raised. This study involved a group of Chinese-background Mandarin teachers who had one year of volunteer teaching experiences in Australian schools. Data were collected from focus group discussions at the point of the completion of their twelve-month teaching practice, in order to access their fresh memories of their experiences. It explores their “culture” in relating to their Australian students during their teaching practice. This research draws on Chinese cultural concepts for theorizing and finds that the cultural concepts of Guanxi/relationship, Dengji/hierarchy, Zunzhong/respect, and Hexie/harmony have had a significant impact on these teachers’ understanding and management of teacher-student relationships in their Australian classes

English Medium Instruction as a Local Practice

From the perspective of translanguaging and instruction theories, this Open Access book examines Chinese English Medium Instruction (EMI) lecturers’ linguistic and pedagogical characteristics. This book demonstrate that ‘English’ in EMI is not a monolingual issue and EMI lecturers have applied their bilingual advantages to systematically and strategically advance their pedagogy practices through a translanguaging process. This book reflects upon EMI lecturers’ culture-imbedded teaching and learning philosophies and explores the implications of local classroom practices, such as topic-centered instruction and teacher presentation through demonstration. This book argues that EMI teaching is not an approach that can reach universal consent across linguistic, cultural and educational systems; it is an approach that is exclusively contextualised in the lecturers’ closely related cultural and educational system, and restricted by the available resources. This is an open access book

English Medium Instruction as a Local Practice

From the perspective of translanguaging and instruction theories, this Open Access book examines Chinese English Medium Instruction (EMI) lecturers’ linguistic and pedagogical characteristics. This book demonstrate that ‘English’ in EMI is not a monolingual issue and EMI lecturers have applied their bilingual advantages to systematically and strategically advance their pedagogy practices through a translanguaging process. This book reflects upon EMI lecturers’ culture-imbedded teaching and learning philosophies and explores the implications of local classroom practices, such as topic-centered instruction and teacher presentation through demonstration. This book argues that EMI teaching is not an approach that can reach universal consent across linguistic, cultural and educational systems; it is an approach that is exclusively contextualised in the lecturers’ closely related cultural and educational system, and restricted by the available resources. This is an open access book

English Medium Instruction as a Local Practice: Language, Culture and Pedagogy

From the perspective of translanguaging and instruction theories, this Open Access book examines Chinese English Medium Instruction (EMI) lecturers’ linguistic and pedagogical characteristics. This book demonstrate that ‘English’ in EMI is not a monolingual issue and EMI lecturers have applied their bilingual advantages to systematically and strategically advance their pedagogy practices through a translanguaging process.  This book reflects upon EMI lecturers’ culture-imbedded teaching and learning philosophies and explores the implications of local classroom practices, such as topic-centered instruction and teacher presentation through demonstration. This book argues that EMI teaching is not an approach that can reach universal consent across linguistic, cultural and educational systems; it is an approach that is exclusively contextualised in the lecturers’ closely related cultural and educational system, and restricted by the available resources

A Case Study of Bilingual Student-Teachers’ Classroom English: Applying the Education-Linguistic Model

This paper explores the practicum experience of a group of bilingual student-teachers who taught Chinese using English to learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in Western Sydney schools. Specifically it explores how these student-teachers used English as the instructional language in class and what strengths and weaknesses they demonstrated compared to their host teachers. Data were collected through observing and audio-recording the participants’ teaching, aiming to capture the actual features of their English use in class. The data were structurally-coded employing the ELM categories. Discourse analysis was employed to interpret and understand the language use of the bilingual student teachers and also their supervising teachers. The bilingual student-teachers in this research, whose English proficiency was at IELTS 7.5, and who had experienced six months of intensive teaching practicum, were found able to demonstrate grammatically and discursively acceptable expressions throughout their teaching. The difficulties experienced by this cohort were more due to their lack of skills and flexibilities in teaching and classroom management rather than their inappropriate use of instructional English

Road Safety Literacy for Speakers of English as a Foreign Language: Educating novice drivers for the public’s health

The public health dimensions of road safety literacy for novice drivers who speak English as a foreign language, are a concern due to increasing transnational mobility. The research literature indicates interest in this language issue in terms of comparisons with native English speakers, gender, and international evaluations.  However, studies of road safety as a literacy issue are limited. Using an autobiographical approach this paper explores the textual, inter-textural and performative literacy of a Chinese learner-driver in Australia. Evidence of the learner-driver’s life history, use of multiple languages, and cultural differences are shown to impact on her development of road safety literacy

Information literacy challenges for Chinese PhD students in Australia: A biographical study

This study explored the information literacy (IL) development of international higher degree research (HDR) students from China as they undertook their research studies in an Australian university. International HDR students need advanced IL skills to complete their research degree. However, IL research and training in western countries has tended to regard international HDR students no differently from their undergraduate counterparts. That is, there has been a focus on basic information skills rather than considering the more complicated and advanced IL needs within a research context. The project presented in this paper aimed to explore this gap. Three international PhD students from China participated in this research. A biographical approach was used to collect the data, and a total of 222 reflective accounts were collected from the participants over a period of fifteen months. In these reflections, they recorded significant life and study experiences at the University of Western Sydney. This approach allowed the participants freedom to express their thoughts and feelings without interruption and enabled them to speak frankly and freely without prejudice. The approach to data analysis underpinning this study was based on Bruce’s (1997) relational model of IL. The findings indicate that these international HDR students experience significant difficulties in developing their IL skills during their research studies in their western university. The complex nature of research study, which demands high levels of IL, significantly contributes to these difficulties, as do the different language and culture of international students which pose additional challenges to their information use. This article concludes with recommendations for research supervisors and librarians to consider in the provision of IL education for international students

Perspectives of transformative learning and professional agency : a native Chinese language teacher's story of teacher identity transformation in Australia

The notion of teacher identity has gained momentum in second language (L2) teacher education in the past decade. However, the research into Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) teacher identity has yet to receive more attention. The study employed a narrative inquiry to explore a native Chinese CFL in-service teacher’s identity negotiation and transformation within an international teacher education program. Self-reported narrative accounts, including multiple in-depth interviews and once-a-term reflective journals, were complemented by field notes and program documents. This data captured how the participant teacher negotiated internally with self and externally with the new environment to pursue professional growth. Mezirow’s transformative learning theory was used to reveal the cognitive trajectory of the participant’s teacher identity transformation with critical reflection as the central stage. Further, guided by Eteläpelto et al.’s framework of professional agency, the study also unraveled multiple external and internal influences on the transformational trajectory. The findings confirmed the value of integrating these two theoretical perspectives to explore language teacher identity development and offer insights into L2 teacher education practices focusing on teacher identity development

Building students’ entrepreneurial competencies in Chinese universities : diverse learning environment, knowledge transfer, and entrepreneurship education

Entrepreneurship education is a critical issue for higher education (HE) students, and thus has been on the agenda of national sustainable development in China. However, few studies have approached the enhancement of HE students’ entrepreneurial competencies in relation to the perspective of their learning environment. This study developed and employed the Theoretical Model of Entrepreneurial Competencies to examine the path of improving HE students’ entrepreneurial competencies. The results reveal that a diverse learning environment is an important external factor in developing HE students’ entrepreneurial competencies. Knowledge transfer, self-efficacy, and cognitive flexibility mediate this relationship. Moreover, entrepreneurship education significantly moderates the effects of self-efficacy on HE students’ entrepreneurial competencies, but it does not play a moderating role between cognitive flexibility and entrepreneurial competencies. This study provides insights for both policy and managerial endeavors in sustainably advancing HE students’ entrepreneurship through an innovative learning environment

Bilingual teachers' contextualization in teaching Chinese as a foreign language in Australian schools

This research focuses on the practice of contextualization in teaching Chinese as a foreign language among a cohort of bilingual language teacher-researchers. It aims to extend the prevalent emphasis in the current literature that acknowledges the role of context in language education; however, these research studies primarily give voice to linguistic contexts or relegates context into a static physical space such as ‘environment’. This research is grounded in a social constructionism perspective whereby context is regarded as a dynamic relation-building process, or more accurately, a contextualizing process, enabled through various sociocultural activities. The data reveal that the teacher-researchers employed various forms of contextualization in teaching and linked these to particular teaching content through identifiable, purposeful activities, resulting in a variety of students’ responses. This research provides an evidence-based understanding of contextualization in CFL teaching for a more sustainable second language education