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Multilingualism in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (TCSOL): Insights from TCSOL Teacher Education

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Multilingual Education Yearbook 2020

Part of the book series: Multilingual Education Yearbook ((MEYB))

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Abstract

The rapid development of China’s economy and society has meant that Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) has received unprecedented international recognition, and sparked a growing demand for teachers of Chinese to speakers of other languages (TCSOL). The controversy between an increasing emphasis on CFL teachers’ English competency and the pedagogical tradition of the Chinese-only principle is evident in TCSOL teacher education programs. In this chapter, I use data taken from interviews conducted with a TCSOL teacher educator and three pre-service CFL teachers, and from two major textbooks used by core courses, to report from a multilingual perspective on the presence and advocacy of first/other language-as-teaching-and-learning-resource pedagogies in the curriculum of a TCSOL Bachelor program in a university in south-east China. Inconsistencies were revealed between the monolingually-oriented teacher education practices related to use of the existing language resources of learners promoted in this program, and what the preservice teachers believe and practice. The chapter concludes with a recommendation for an integration of a multilingual approach to language teaching into such programs to encourage future teachers to better exploit their students’ existing repertoires of language knowledge.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Foreign Languages, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China

    Li Lei

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  1. Li Lei
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Correspondence to Li Lei .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Foreign Languages, Beijing Normal University, Tangjia, Zhuhai, Guangdong, China

    Wenhao Tao

  2. School of Education, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia

    Indika Liyanage

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Lei, L. (2020). Multilingualism in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (TCSOL): Insights from TCSOL Teacher Education. In: Tao, W., Liyanage, I. (eds) Multilingual Education Yearbook 2020. Multilingual Education Yearbook. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41211-1_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41211-1_9

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-41211-1

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