Although recent years have witnessed increasing interest in learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in China and around the world, there seems to be a paucity of research into the medium of instruction in the CFL classroom. This paper describes a study of the practice of MoI choice in the CFL classroom, situated within the framework of translanguaging. Five focus group interviews and eight classroom observations were conducted across five universities in China. Approximately 43 participants participated in the interview stage of the research, while 149 CFL students across eight CFL classrooms were involved in the observation stage, with six students and four teachers also interviewed after the observations. The findings suggest that translanguaging was commonly used by teachers. However, due to limits on resource availability and to the linguistic complexity of a CFL classroom, these translanguaging practices also posed challenges to the teachers. Interestingly, English was predominantly employed for explanatory and elicitation functions, whereas Chinese was chosen mainly for teaching and instructing purposes. While translanguaging practice was observed in both the beginner CFL class and in the more advanced class, the monolingual approach was still predominantly used and advocated across different levels.
Asian scripts that are significantly different from Roman-derived alphabets usually impose difficulties in learning. Translanguaging has therefore been explored as a pedagogical tool for the language classroom, including Chinese. While learning Chinese characters is thought to be one of the main challenges for students learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL), there seems to be a paucity of up-to-date research into the strategies that adult students use to learn this logographic script. Situated in the translanguaging framework, this study employs the think-aloud method to investigate strategies utilised by a group of CFL beginner adult learners when learning characters. Drawing on the results of five think-aloud exercises with CFL learners over five weeks, as well as follow-up tests of their long-term memory of Chinese characters, this study shows that a variety of translanguaging strategies were utilised during the process of learning Chinese characters, and that overall three types of translanguaging strategies were observed: a) embodiment, b) translanguaging resemblance, and c) hybrid. The proposed typology of translanguaging strategies contributes to the further application of translanguaging as a methodology. It also sheds light on future learning strategy research across different linguistic systems.
Taking inspiration from a popular online English test, this study first documents the development of an achievement test containing a newly developed C-test and pseudo-character test for beginner-level Chinese learners. Then, based on the test results collected from 53 university learners and using statistical tools, analyses were conducted on its content validity, construct validity, criterion-related validity, difficulty, discrimination power, and reliability. Results indicate that this new achievement test has relatively satisfactory reliability and validity, with only minor issues that need to be addressed in future studies. Situated in the context of language assessment, the study sheds light on the application of the C-test and a pseudo-character section in both face-to-face and at-distance Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) classrooms. Furthermore, the study also provides practical and applicable methods for CFL teachers to develop their own assessments.
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