Literacy Instruction for Chinese as a Second/Foreign Language

Wang Ya-ling (王雅玲)

George Mason University

The purpose of this presentation are to 1) provide a review of literature on literacy instruction of Chinese as a second/foreign language (CSL/CFL) at university level 2) report on a qualitative study of a CFL teacher at a suburban university in the middle east of the U.S. that explores teacher’s instructional philosophy, teaching methods, and activities considered helpful in targeting adult learners’ literacy development.

Part I of the project is a literature review associated with Chinese literacy instruction of radicals, characters, words and sentences. Part II of the project is a qualitative interview study including one CFL teacher at university. CFL teacher is being interviewed using a semi-structured protocol. Interview data are transcribed and analyzed for themes related to research questions.

The findings of interview study revealed that teachers’ teaching philosophy originates from ancient Chinese educational proverb, from teacher preparation training and others. Teacher’s instructional belief greatly influenced by teacher preparation training guides her teaching and decision making. The following elements are characterized by Chinese literacy instruction: use grammar fluently and appropriately in the context, provide substantial authentic comprehensible input, develop literacy grounded on spoken language, read beyond the surface level of texts, and others. Additionally, lack of instruction on how to organize an essay is remarkably present. Perceived difficulties include stroke order, character writing and so forth. Theories on SLA and knowledge and skills on reading and writing of ESL are the ones that CFL teachers expect to improve in order to facilitate their literacy instruction.