Improving the Quality of Weekend Chinese School Teachers

Jingzi Huang黄静子

Associate Professor and Department Chair of Curriculum and Instruction.

Monmouth University

Improving the Quality of Weekend Chinese School Teachers

Chinese Schools are thriving with the increasing attention drawn to the importance of the Chinese language in today's world.  The rapid growth and expansion of weekend Chinese schools presents a challenge to the schools' administrators in terms of maintaining the quality of classroom teachers.  While all schools manage to recruit enough teaching personnel to handle classes, teaching effectiveness is everyone's guess.  Depending on the backgrounds of the teachers, ranging from the few certified K-12 classroom teachers in the US to a larger number of professionals in other fields with no classroom teaching experience at all, there is a huge discrepancy in the quality of teachers.  How can weekend Chinese School teachers be helped to improve teaching effectiveness is an urgent issue.  

While studies exist to examine a number of aspects of heritage language schools (Cho, Shin, & Krashen, 2004; Valdes, 2005; Xiao, 2006; etc.), not much has been done to explore how teacher education experts could work with the weekend language schools to improve the quality of teachers.  This paper examines the challenges facing the weekend Chinese school teachers and explores possibilities of collaboration between Chinese schools and experts in teacher education programs in American universities.  It focuses on an effort of a language education professor who works with weekend Chinese school teachers by means of offering professional development workshops, conducting classroom observations, conferencing with teachers, and providing individualized feedback.  The report reveals what strategies do or do not work from the perspectives of both the professor and the teachers.  The study provides implications for professional development in weekend Chinese schools.

Reference:

Xiao, Y. (2006). Heritage Learners in the Chinese Language Classroom: Home Background.  Heritage Language Journal, 4 (1) , 47-56.

Valdes, G. (2005). Bilingualism, Heritage Language Learners, and SLA Research: Opportunities Lost or Seized?  Modern Language Journal, 89 (3). 410-426.

Family name:  Huang

First name:  Jingzi

Name in Chinese characters:  黄静子

Gender: Female

Highest degree:  Ph.D

Job title:  Associate Professor and Department Chair of Curriculum and Instruction.

Affiliation:  Monmouth University

Office address:  School of Education, Monmouth University, Cedar Ave. West Long Branch, NJ 07764

Home address:  6 Whispering Woods Blvd. Monroe, NJ 08831

1st email address (check it carefully):  jhuang@monmouth.edu

2nd email address:

Office phone number:  732-571-3652

Home phone number:  732-605-1509

Fax number: 732-263-5640

The topic of your paper:  Improving the Quality of Weekend Chinese School Teachers

Will you attend the conference without a paper?  No