Teaching Chinese As an Additional Language: Issues, Approaches, and Pedagogy

Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57-69 ISSN: 2147-3501 (Print) 2148-9688 (Online) DOI: 10.15340/2147350112832

Research Article Teaching Chinese as an Additional Language: Issues, Approaches, and Pedagogy

Chunlei Lu1*, Tony DiPetta 2, Yuming Xu3 1 2 3 Brock University, Canada

Abstract: With the rise of China as a global economic and political power, the Chinese language has become one of the most important trade and cultural languages in the world. The demand for learning Chinese as an additional language has increased dramatically in recent years including a rapid rise in demand for elementary and secondary school Mandarin classes and teachers across North America. While the demand for Chinese as an additional language has increased substantively, however, qualified and certified teachers familiar with additional language teaching methodologies and more specifically with the understanding of how Chinese as an additional language is best acquired and retained by learners are rare. This article examined the current issues associated with instruction of Chinese as an additional language, analyzed the characteristics of the Chinese language, and explored important theoretical principles for teaching additional languages as they relate to the increasing demand for instructional capacity in the teaching of Chinese as an additional language. Based on the research literature, recommendations and practical suggestions for the classroom instruction of Chinese as an additional language are presented and discussed.

Keywords: Chinese, additional language, teaching, issue, pedagogy

*Chunlei Lu, Faculty of Education, Brock University, St. Catharines, L2S 3A1 Ontario, Canada Email: [email protected] Tony DiPetta, Faculty of Education, Brock University, St. Catharines, L2S 3A1 Ontario, Canada Email: [email protected] Yuming Xu, Faculty of Education, Brock University, St. Catharines, L2S 3A1 Ontario, Canada Email: [email protected]

1. Introduction With China’s growing economic and geopolitical importance, the country’s official language— Mandarin Chinese—has quickly become one of the most economically and culturally important languages in the world (Wu, 2010). As a result of this new global importance, Duff (2008) notes that Mandarin Chinese is “…gaining momentum internationally as a more widely studied language by students from non-Chinese ethnic backgrounds” (p. 6). She suggests that globalization is not only a phenomenon in economic terms but it also affects cultural trends, human migration in terms of where people choose to move to live and work, and educational focus and demand in terms of what languages people want to study in schools (Duff, 2008). Mandarin Chinese is therefore one of the fastest growing and in-demand languages among non-Chinese children and adults because people are recognizing China’s increasing global importance and realizing its utility for business and employment opportunities in a complex and competitive global marketplace. From an economic, political, and cultural perspective then learning Mandarin Chinese is seen as a vital necessity for understanding and interacting effectively with China in a new economic world order that is increasingly competitive. The growth of China’s global reach and influence combined with the growing immigration of Chinese to North America has resulted in Mandarin Chinese becoming a rising star in North

Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57–69 57 American language classes (Finn, Lu, DiPetta, Young, & Ye, 2013). In the United States, it is estimated that 4 per cent of secondary school students are enrolled in Mandarin language classes and 3 per cent of elementary schools offer Mandarin language courses. In Canada, the Chinese language has become the second most spoken immigrant language in the country and demand for Mandarin in Canadian schools is soaring especially in Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta which has had Chinese bilingual programming in its public schools system for more than 30 years. Chinese is now the third most widely spoken home language after English and French in Canada and after English and Spanish in the United States (Li & Duff, 2008). The rapid increase in demand for learning Chinese as an additional language however has not been accompanied by an adequate increase in the number of qualified and professionally certified Chinese as an additional language teachers (Arnoldy, 2007) nor by updated teachers’ training, professional development, and the development of appropriate teaching materials for Chinese language instruction in North American schools (Everson & Xiao 2009; Wu, 2010). The standard teaching methods for Chinese as an additional language in North America tend to be behind new understandings of how Chinese as an additional language is best acquired and retained by non-Chinese learners (Duff 2008; Everson & Xiao, 2009; Wu, 2010). This paper is therefore to examine the current issues associated with instruction of Chinese as an additional language, analyze the characteristics of the Chinese language, explore important theoretical principles for teaching additional languages, and discuss specific strategies rooted in the research literature for the classroom instruction of Chinese as an additional language are presented and discussed. The term Chinese or Mandarin as an additional language is used in this article rather than the terms second language, foreign language or international language, because Mandarin Chinese may be a learner’s third or fourth language (Judd, Tan, & Walberg 2010) and, in countries with a large population of Chinese immigrants (e.g., Canada, USA), Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese) is often an essential community language, rather than a second language or a foreign language or an international language. The term Chinese as an additional language therefore is used as an inclusive term that is more culturally, politically and pedagogically appropriate (Lu, 2014) when referring to Chinese language learning which is not an individual’s first or native language.

2. The current issues with Chinese as an additional language instruction Teaching Chinese as an additional language within China dates back to the Tang Dynasty (7th to 9th century AD), a golden age of cosmopolitan culture when representatives of foreign countries flocked to China and needed to learn its language and culture. The practice of teaching Chinese as a foreign language outside China can be traced to the 19th century but Chinese language instruction did not reach significant numbers until the 1930’s and the onset of World War II (Xing, 2008). Before World War II, foreigners who learned Chinese as an additional language were mainly restricted to missionaries, scholars, government officials, and a few eccentrics (Kane, 2006). When World War II erupted, there was a surge of interest in learning Chinese in Europe and North America, and many Chinese students who pursued study of the other disciplines in Europe and North America became the Chinese language teachers at the universities where they were studying (Xing, 2008). The earliest Chinese language school in a community in Canada was established by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Society of Victoria in the Province of British Columbia, Canada, at the end of the 19th Century to provide free instruction to all Chinese children (Li, 2008). In Vancouver, British Columbia, the first Chinese language curriculum as a subject in the public school system was developed in 1987 (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2012) and continues today with. Mandarin Chinese as a subject provided in elementary and secondary schools throughout the provinces of British Columbia (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2012), Alberta (Edmonton Public School Board, 2012), and in Ontario (York Region School, Board, 2013). In the United States, there are approximately 1,100 middle or secondary schools offering Chinese language education (Dillon, 2010). According to the Asia Society Survey Report in 2004 (as cited in Everson & Xiao, 2009), 2,400 American high schools were interested in establishing Chinese language programs, but could not, because of a lack of qualified teachers. Even with the lack of qualified teachers, these language programs more than doubled since 2005 (Weise, 2007). In the U.K., 500 secondary schools have Chinese language programs with a total of approximately 70,000 students (Xiao, 2011; Zhang & Li, 2010). The demand for Chinese Mandarin as a lingua franca or bridging language between China, as one of the world’s largest and fastest growing economic, cultural, and political forces, and the rest of the globe, has been geometrically growing in recent years (Duff, 2008; Li, 2008). The

58 Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57–69 current interest in learning Chinese is also driven by the rapid growth in Chinese emigration to Western countries across Europe and North America. However, many issues can impede the development of Chinese as an additional language programming in these countries including such factors as a shortage of suitable teaching materials and qualified teachers, little research on the teaching methodologies in Chinese as an additional language, and a lack of formal teacher training programs (Everson & Xiao, 2009; Li, 2008). Many Chinese language teachers in Canada and the United States have historically been Chinese native speakers without sufficient professional training and qualification in teaching Mandarin as an additional language. Even experienced Mandarin teachers coming from Chinese speaking countries or regions may struggle when teaching local students because these teachers have been trained and have worked professionally in very different educational and cultural systems (Everson & Xiao, 2009). Anecdotal reports and information provided by Chinese immigrants to Canada and the United States suggest that the increasing demand for Chinese language programs, complicated by a lack of trained Chinese language teachers, has resulted in some elementary and secondary schools employing uncertified or informally trained Chinese native speakers as language teachers within the public school system. In some instances these uncertified teachers are required to complete their teacher’s training and certification within a specified period of time. For example in Ontario a non-certified teacher can be employed through the use of a Letter of Permission (LOP) which is granted by a school principal when there is a subject specific need and there are no certified teachers of that subject available. Non-certified teachers working under LOP’s have two years to obtain certification or they lose their teaching position. Moreover, if a certified teacher of the needed subject area applies for the position the teacher working on a LOP must give up that position. Letters of permission are widely used in Ontario for subjects such as technological education (e.g., Construction, Transportation, Hospitality Services and Technological Design) and in language education mostly for French but also for some so- called heritage languages where shortages of certified teachers in those subject areas exist. In Ontario and many provinces in Canada, heritage language programs are usually developed by and for local community language groups including Chinese, Italian, and other smaller language groups in mostly urban communities. These heritage language courses are usually taught by native speakers of the various languages that make up local communities but who are most often not certified teachers. In many cases, these languages including Chinese Mandarin are being taught by teachers who are not well prepared or professionally certified to teach an additional language. While these native speakers may understand the language and may well be fluent speakers and writers in that language, they most often have little or no understanding of how learning styles vary among their students, and how cultural differences contribute to how well or how poorly students learn a particular language (Ogbu, 1992). Another factor effecting Mandarin as an additional language instruction in the West is that while new teaching methodologies and resources for additional language instruction have been developing rapidly in recent years, many teachers of Chinese as an additional language still cling, for a variety of reasons from lack of teacher training or professional development to cultural or personal beliefs about teaching, to the teaching methodologies and approaches with which they were taught Chinese as their primary language without benefit of current best practices that are reflected in the literature (Duff, 2008). For example, many non-certified or non-professionally trained Mandarin teachers emphasize grammar, reading, and translation skills while ignoring the influence or importance of conversational practice, cultural information sharing, and socially interactive approaches to teaching and learning languages. Moreover, untrained or uncertified language teachers often favor rote memory, copying characters and sentences, translation, grammar pattern drills, and paper and pen tests as the main assessment approaches, discounting the growing role of Differentiated Instruction, authentic learning, and the potential roles of technology and social interaction in language instruction (Duff, 2008; Everson, 2008). It is noteworthy that even some teachers who have received formal language teaching training continue to focus their teaching methods on an Indo-European language acquisition approach in which the unique characteristics of pictographic or character based Chinese language acquisition are largely disregarded or only paid scant attention. This focus has contributed to the lack of teaching resources and materials that accept and recognize the culturally specific language needs of Chinese as additional language learners which is one of the largest impediments to the development of Chinese language programs outside China (Everson & Xiao, 2009). To date, numerous text books and teaching materials developed in China have not been well-connected to students’ lives and interests outside China, and only recently are Chinese scholars and publishers beginning to take these concerns into consideration when creating new and export-oriented language texts and materials. If the goal of optimal and large-scale Chinese language acquisition by learners of Chinese as

Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57–69 59 an additional language is to be attained, these issues need to be addressed. Moreover, if teachers of Mandarin as an additional language are to be developed and trained both inside and outside of China, then better understanding of the unique characteristics of Chinese language, current research on additional language acquisition theories and methodologies of instruction, and research based strategies for classroom practice will all need to be incorporated into Chinese language teacher training programs.

3. The unique characteristics of the Chinese language The Chinese language, which is the primary language used by more than one-fifth of the world population, mainly refers to Mandarin Chinese - 汉语 hànyǔ or 华语 huáyǔ or 中文 Zhōngwén in historical translation. Chinese is the official language of mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau; one of the four official languages of Singapore; and one of the six official languages in the United Nations. While the Chinese language has a variety of dialects, Mandarin forms the overarching officialdialect , Speakers of all Chinese dialects use the same symbol-based text format in order to communicate with each other in writing. While the Chinese language has experienced dramatic changes over the past 150 years in spoken and written forms, it is only one of a very few contemporary languages that is documented in an unbroken tradition extending back to the second millennium B.C. (Chen, 1999; Norman, 1988).

3.1. Spoken Chinese In the early 1920s, in China there was a movement to attempt to establish a standard spoken Chinese language; however, it was not until the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 that the Chinese government began to promote a standardized form of Chinese. In 1955, Mandarin or the Putonghua (普通话), the modern Chinese national common language based on northern dialect with Beijing standard pronunciation, was proclaimed as China’s official standard spoken language (Chen, 1999). Putonghua translates into English as common tongue and represents the Chinese political desire for one standard form of Chinese that would help bond the various ethnic Chinese groups of the vast country together. In order to help speakers of all dialects learn the official Mandarin Chinese, the government adopted pinyin—a Romanized phonetic system as the official standard methodology for teaching Mandarin Putonghua in all Chinese primary schools in 1958 (Xinhua, 2008). In mainland China, Mandarin or Putonghua remains the official teaching language in all elementary and secondary schools and institutions of higher education. Spoken Chinese is a tonal language. Each character in the written language is a syllable and has a tone which is built into the lexicon, which means that tones affect the meaning of the character (Xing, 2008). According to Chao (1968) who developed a Scale of Five Pitch Levels, Mandarin has five tones. The five tones which range from Tone 1 which represents an even level tone through Tone 2 which is a rising tone and Tone Three, a falling-then-rising tone to Tone 4 which is a falling tone and finally Tone 5 which is a short and weak neutral tone used at the end of an interrogative sentence indicating a possessive or in the second word of a repeated or compound word phrase such as 哥哥 (gē ge) for elder brother, or 姐姐 (jiě jie) for elder sister. Table 1 illustrates the five tones with examples.

Table 1. Scale of five pitch levels

Tone English name Chinese name Example

1 High level 阴平 (Yin Ping) mā 妈 (mom)

2 Rising 阳平 (Yang Ping) mā 麻 (numbness)

3 Falling-then-rising 上声 (Shang Sheng) mā 马 (horse)

4 Falling 去声 (Qu Sheng) mā 骂 (curse)

5 Neutral (short and weak) 轻声 (Qing Sheng) mā 吗

60 Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57–69 Tone is one of the unique features of the Chinese language that differentiates it from Indo- European languages and it is also one of the most difficult aspects of in both acquisition and instruction of Chinese as an additional language. Some current research-based strategies for teaching tone in Mandarin as an additional language classes are presented in the additional strategy discussion section below.

3.2. Written Chinese Unlike Indo-European languages that are alphabetic and represent sounds, the Chinese writing system is logographic, meaning that the Chinese written language provides visual symbols representing words rather than the sounds that make up words. The written symbols or Chinese characters are known as Hanzi (汉字) and the characters comprise a symbolic system based on two basic orthographic structures: strokes, basic building materials for character forming and two components—a semantic component showing the meaning of the character and a phonetic component signifying the sound of the character (Ye, 2011). The earliest written Chinese extends back to the Shang Dynasty, which dates approximately from 1,600 -1,100 BC (Norman, 1988). Archeologists have found early Chinese texts written on metal (金文 jinwen) and unearthed what are known as the oracle-bone scriptures (甲骨文 jiaguwen) which were written on turtle bones and shells as the earliest examples of Chinese writing (Xiao 2011). Popular legend and mythology in China holds that Cang Jie (仓颉), a minister in the reign of Emperor Huang Di (黄帝), who lived 4,600 years ago was given the task of creating a writing system for China. The legend of Cang Jie says that he found his inspiration for Chinese symbolic characters in the lines and shapes of the footprints of birds and animals and that he believed that if he could capture the essence of things in a drawing that would be the truest and best form of representative writing. Chinese writing is therefore as ancient and as symbolic in its origins as the oldest writing samples of Western civilizations found in the hieroglyphs of Egypt and Mesopotamia from about 2,600 BC (Powell, 2009). Chinese writing characters have undergone several reformations over the years starting with Emperor Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇), of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.) who unified the various writing conventions across China into a consistent whole (Xing 2008) and extending through the 1950s and 1960s when the use of simplified characters was promoted in order to increase the literacy among general Chinese. Today, simplified Chinese characters 简体字( jiantizi) are officially used as standardized characters in mainland China, Singapore, and numerous Chinese societies around the world (The Central People’s Government of People’s Republic of China, 2006), while traditional Chinese characters (繁体字 Fantizi) are still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and many overseas Chinese communities. Traditional Chinese characters (繁体字 Fantizi) are the characters that were used before the simplification movement of Chinese characters, as one of the two standardized formats of current Chinese writing. With the growing number of the mainland Chinese emigrating all over the world and the increasing importance of China as an economic and political force, simplified Chinese characters are fast gaining ground in global Chinese media and in Chinese language education programs outside China. Even with a simplified character system however, there are tens of thousands of Chinese characters, in the Chinese character lexicon according to China’s National Linguistics Work Committee and China Educational Commission (1988). For foreign language learners, the daunting task of learning all of the characters in the written Chinese language is mediated somewhat by the finding that 2,500 Chinese characters cover 97.97% of common daily readings. In contrast, learning to read in English requires learning some 7,000 words to achieve the same 97% of common daily reading capacity (Schmitt, 2008). Learning to read in English therefore is probably just as difficult for a non-native speaker as learning to write in Chinese is for non-native speakers. What seems most important from an instructional perspective then is providing authentic practice and Differentiated Instruction based on what a learner needs to know to meet his or her specific language goals. The following section focuses on how Differentiated Instruction and authentic language practice can be applied to teaching and learning Mandarin as an additional language.

4. Additional language acquisition theories and methodologies of instruction Research on additional language acquisition has significantly advanced since it emerged as a field of inquiry in linguistics science in the 1960s. Noam Chomsky’s work helped move language

Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57–69 61 acquisition research beyond behaviourist theory which proposed that children learned their first language through stimulus, response, and reinforcement. Chomsky’s innatist theory, however, postulated that imitation and association were essential processes for learning language thereby moving language instruction from a transmission model base to a more constructivist and interaction oriented focus (Peregoy, Boyle, & Cadiero-Kaplan, 2008). Behaviourist teaching methods focused on sentence pattern recognition and grammar drilling, listening to tapes, memorizing content, and correcting mistakes immediately (Peregoy et al., 2008). However, Chomsky (1965) argued that people are born with a brain that is hard-wired to acquire language by listening and decoding the rules or grammar of the language. A key feature of Chomsky’s theory was that people can and do acquire their first language without direct instruction and drilling. He argued therefore that an additional language can be acquired in the same manner if appropriate instruction and learning environments are provided. From Chomsky’s work through that of Krashen in the 1980’s who argued that people learn additional languages through meaningful or authentic formal instruction and communicative practice and that learning grammar follows a logical sequence based on knowing the rules of language and learning when to apply them (Krashen, 1982), a more authentic and social constructivist approach to a more teaching and learning additional languages evolved and was widely adopted in additional language classrooms in the West in the 1990s. The interaction hypothesis is an extension of Krashen’s (1982) and Swain’s (1995) input/output models of language acquisition as well as Long’s (1996) Vygotskian view of language learning that suggests that additional language acquisition requires a social environment for learners to communicate with more skilled or fluent native speakers in learning to negotiate meaning. This interactive communication “facilitates acquisition because it connects input, internal learner capacities, particularly selective attention, and output in productive ways” (Long, 1996, pp. 451- 452). Long defines negotiation of meaning as a process whereby the conversation participants try to make each other understand by “adjustments to linguistic form, conversational structure, message content, or all three, until an acceptable level of understanding is achieved” (Long 1996, p. 418). The key recommendation from all of this early and seminal language acquisition research for learning Mandarin in non-native classrooms is that additional language classroom should be environments for authentic communication practice where learners experience and engage in natural discourse and negotiate understanding and meaning. The resulting evolution for additional language instruction in the 1990s was Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) which sought to help learners achieve additional language fluency by teaching the skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing as interdependent variables (Richards & Rogers 2001) and developing the task-based instructional strategies and activities that are used in today’s additional language classrooms (Brown, 2001). Additional language teaching “has gone from one methodological extreme to another over the past century and it has often been difficult for practitioners—teachers—to keep up with the latest developments” (Duff, 2008, p. 8), but the key strategies that appear to be best supported in the literature are those that are social-constructivist and interdependent in nature focusing on the needs of the learners such as Differentiated Instruction and Communicative Language Teaching. In the following section, we examine more closely strategies for Mandarin practice in the classroom.

5. Strategies of teaching mandarin for classroom practice The ability to engage students in the classroom is key to being an effective additional language teacher. Based on the research literature with respect to acquisition and instruction of additional languages, a number of strategies and suggestions are provide for teachers of Chinese as an additional language. A pedagogical guide is offered as a means of starting discussion of how to create an effective teaching environment and address some of the common issues teachers will encounter in their classrooms on a daily basis.

5.1. Corrective feedback One of the most popular and long standing strategies associated with additional language instruction is Corrective Feedback (CF) which can generally be defined as any indication to the learners that their use of a target language is incorrect and which may or may not include

62 Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57–69 metalinguistic or grammar information about the error (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). Views on the role of corrective feedback in additional language learning and instruction, have swung back and forth for the past 20 years between the view that language errors should be corrected immediately and the view that errors should not be corrected because such correction has a negative impact on classroom additional language learning by limiting learner participation or willingness to engage in authentic conversation in the classroom (Peregoy et al., 2008; Tatawy, 2002). This divergence of views is still seen in the field of teaching Chinese as an additional language where some teachers continue to expect students to speak with perfect pronunciation or zì zhèng qiāng yuán (字正腔圆). Li (2008) indicates that such expectations may crush some enthusiastic learners at the very beginning and it may result in high levels of attrition because few students could survive that kind of rigorous error-forbidding teaching. While the research literature may not agree on when corrective feedback should be given, there is agreement that teachers of additional language should provide feedback that helps learners identify and analyze communication errors (Ellis 1991, 1997, 2006) in order to develop fluency and that effective communicative teaching should not focus on delivery at the expense of accuracy (Ellis 2006; Lyster & Saito, 2010; Richards, 2006; Russell & Spada, 2006). Further, Wang and Sun (2011) suggest that in teaching Chinese as an additional language, corrective feedback should avoid over emphasis on correcting mistakes and providing no corrections at all. Corrective feedback should be provided at the appropriate time for learners to gain the knowledge of what is correct without limiting their excitement or efforts to authentically communicate. A recommendation that incorporates this approach to corrective feedback is that in task-based instruction, teachers can address common mistakes in a post-task whole class analysis where learners are invited to discuss and correct delivery or communication errors before another retry of the communication activity (Ellis, 2006).

5.2. Acquisition of tone and pinyin strategies Tone is one of the unique features of the Chinese language and one of the most difficult parts in the acquisition of Chinese as an additional language. For students who speak non-tonal languages, it is challenging for them to distinguish the variation of the 5 tones in Chinese and even harder for them to acquire the skills needed to create and use the tones in communication. At the beginning of tone instruction, teachers usually attempt to explain how a tone can affect the meaning of a word (see Table 1). Xing (2008) suggests that teachers of additional language should begin teaching tone by first helping students understand and accept the concept of pitch and tone in their first languages before moving to Chinese. Practice in being able to hear and imitate tones is vital and starting with a students’ primary language and then moving to Chinese is an important first step towards the larger goal of learning to hear and imitate the 5 tones in Chinese and feeling the difference for themselves. Pinyin, the Romanized Chinese Mandarin phonetic system which includes phonetic representation for 23 initials (starting sounds) and 34 finals (finishing sounds) is often difficult for English speakers to learn and relate to. English speakers generally find it challenging to distinguish finals such as ü and the 3 groups of initials: zh, ch, sh, j, q, x, and z, c, s all which have similar but different sounds. Learning to relate the phonetic pinyin characters with sounds requires practice and patience, but it helps when students are guided through activities and lessons that assist them to understand the characteristics of the sounds and tones and get a chance to compare those with sounds they are familiar with in their primary language (Sing 2008). For example, the initial z is similar to the pronunciation of dz in the word words and c to ts in the word students.

5.3. Differentiated instruction (DI) and the importance of social games and activities Differentiated Instruction is essentially described as a strategy or approach to teaching that focuses on providing individual pathways to learning for students in the same class. Individualization is provided in terms of content, teaching materials, assessment methods, modes of delivery, and how students make sense of what they are attempting to learn regardless of individual differences in ability or learning style (Santrock, Woloshyn, Gallagher, DiPetta, & Marini, 2007). With regard to learning Chinese as an additional language, differentiated instruction implies adapting lessons and instructional strategy to the needs and abilities of individual students in a classroom. One of the most useful approaches to incorporating differentiated instruction in language classrooms is

Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57–69 63 to employ social activities and games as vehicles for individual learning. For most learners of Chinese as an additional language whether children, youth, or adult, games and social interaction activities are effective strategies for teaching tone and pinyin. For example, one or two sets of pinyin cards and several sets of tone cards can be developed and used in group competition or individual challenge games that help learners practice as they learn. Each set includes four tone cards on which —， /， V, \ represent the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th tone. Before the activities, the teacher has to explain the tones and the sign for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th tone. Here are a few sample game activities that have been shown to be effective in teaching learners while they play:

• Activity 1: The teacher says a character or a phrase and the students who have the tones of them will hold up to show them to the class. For example, kàn, the student who holds the tone card of \ will hold up the card; zhōng guó, the students who hold the 1st and 2nd tone will hold up the cards.

• Activity 2: The teacher posts some pinyin cards of the characters and phrases with tones on the chalkboard. One student will pick up one of those words that matches with what the teacher says and show the students. The teacher can choose the words that are confusing to the students in tones and pronunciation to help them with better understanding of the tones and pronunciation.

• Activity 3: Distribute the pinyin cards to the students and ask students to hold up the cards that the teacher read and ask other students if they are right.

• Activity 4: Distribute the pinyin cards and tone cards to the students. The teacher read one character and the students who have the pinyin cards and tone cards that match the sound of the character go to the front and hold the cards up.

• Activity 5: Tone and pinyin cards can be put into PowerPoint style games for either in class or online application played by teams from the class or individually against a computer or put on mobile devices, smartphones, and tablets which make them available for practice at any time.

5.4. Oral pronunciation and character recognition Written Chinese is one of the hardest languages to acquire as an additional language because of its logographic and morphemic (versus alphabetic and phonemic) nature (Everson, 2008). However, most of the research literature on additional language acquisition supports the view that there is a strong connection between being able to speak a language like Chinese and being able to recognize the characters that make up the written language (Everson, 1998). Introducing character simultaneously to teaching pronunciation and language makes overall additional language learning less difficult and promotes greater fluency (Ye, 2011). Nevertheless, it would be unrealistic to expect students who are starting to learn Chinese as an additional language to be able to write Chinese characters from memory. For beginning additional language learners, the focus should be on character recognition rather than on character or word production (Allen, 2008; Everson, 2008). Pinyin can serve as an important link to and support for spoken Chinese and Chinese reading development. Teaching characters and learning how to write them is difficult, but Curtain and Dahlberg (2010) suggest the following to help classroom teachers and learners with character recognition and use generally:

• Label objects in the classroom. The label can be made by the teacher or students themselves.

• Label fun items in a picture.

• Match the written word with a picture.

• Make a grocery shopping list for a parent or for a party.

• Write or read a restaurant take-out order, choosing items from a list.

64 Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57–69 • Make a list of commonly used items in a picture and sort them according to category.

• Complete graphs, charts, and maps to give personal information.

• Make a words snake as long as possible (This is the same as the Chinese 接龙游戏 – say or write phrases in which the first character should be the same or the pronunciation is the same as the last character of the previous one, for example: 学生- 生活-活动…. This can be conducted as a group activity.

Another suggestion rising from the fact that many Chinese characters are pictographs is to use storytelling as a means of teaching characters. For example, when teaching 男 (man) and 女 (woman), the story of a Chinese idiom 男耕女织 (Man ploughing and woman weaving) in the ancient Chinese agriculture society could be illustrated, in which 田 meant field and 力 meant strength. Men worked in the field while the woman was weaving at home with the legs crossed. The character 女 looks like a woman sitting with two legs crossed in front of the weaving loom. Curtain and Dahlberg (2010) have rightly noted that today’s learners are often visual or graphic learners and so linking spoken language with the written form of the additional language allows learners to access visual stimulus which contributes a great deal to conveying word meaning and learning. The language acquisition literature strongly suggests that novices of Chinese as an additional language should learn to read authentically as soon as possible (Curtain & Dahlberg, 2010; Everson, 2008, 2009; Ning, 2009). Authentic reading materials include the kind of reading that is associated with everyday life in society such as reading maps, road signs, written announcements, newspapers, personal notes, weather forecasts, restaurant menus, etc. It is important, when developing authentic reading materials, to ensure that the reading materials are within the language capabilities of students and authentic in terms of their lives and needs (Everson, 2009). This requirement reminds teachers and additional language curriculum developers of the importance of developing context for communicative learning.

5.5. The importance of developing authentic context for communication To facilitate acquisition of an additional language, a key recommendation from the literature and from the authors’ teaching experience and practice is that teachers need to create and explain the context surrounding or associated with comprehensible language. This means that learners need to practice using and listening to authentic language as applied in real-world situations and not simply in textbooks or formal language lessons. It is important for teachers to use the additional or target language for regular learning activities, but they must also ensure that learners can understand it as it is intended. Slang, metaphor, idiom, and intention are all important aspects of context and teachers need to plan activities which provide students with concrete and hands-on experiences dealing with all of these culturally idiosyncratic language expressions and uses. In the Chinese language classroom, teaching students to make Chinese dumpling in a group can be an example of doing something that is culturally appropriate while at the same time providing situations that are rich with social conversation and experiences. The teacher explains in Chinese and demonstrates the steps in front of the whole class, or in other words, to provide colorful commentary or context on an authentic activity. During the process, the teacher speaks slowly in Chinese, repeats some important words, and invites students to ask questions and to provide elaboration. The teacher may also ask students to imitate some phrases when demonstrating the steps or ask students some questions when students are doing the work by themselves. The conversation for meaning negotiation occurs while doing something that is both fun and authentic to the culture or context of the target language. Depending on students’ prior knowledge and the language lesson focus, some words and sentences that might arise are listed below:

• 让我们开始做饺子 (Let’s start to make dumplings).

• 这是面粉 (This is flour).

• 这是水 (This is water).

• 把面粉和水混起来 (Mix up the flour and water).

Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57–69 65 • 这是盐，咸的 (This is salt; it is salty).

• 这是肉 (This is meat).

• 做饺子真好玩 (This is fun to make dumplings) !

• 这比看起来要难 (This is harder than it looks).

• 那些饺子不好看, 但会很好吃 (Those dumplings do not look good, but they will taste great).

• 你的饺子比我的好 (Your dumplings are better than mine).

• 你们做得真棒 (You have done a great job)！

• …….

Later, students prepare a presentation in Chinese to report their experiences of making dumplings in different formats (e.g., oral, written, group, whole class) that they like or have a discussion so that their word and language knowledge will be reviewed and strengthened through the presentation. Learning is always enhanced when the learner has to take on the role of teacher to other learners. The process of learning language in this way might take longer time than through drill and practice or learning by rote, but the context provided by the experience will help learners both internalize and value the learning and, “the students will have been fully absorbed and using auditory, visual, kinesthetic and cognitive faculties to process incoming information” (Ning, 2009, p. 43). The classroom of Chinese as an additional language should be an environment that is built upon and supports Chinese language learning with a climate that is appropriate to exploring and testing the development of language skills. Word walls, high frequency vocabulary and important grammar and delivery practices should be highlighted and displayed around the classroom so that learners can use and reuse these phrases and sentences in Chinese in recurring authentic situations in the classroom. Below are some suggestions of routine or common phrases that can be used in any Chinese classroom and practiced almost daily:

• 请坐 (Sit down please). • 告诉我一些新鲜的事情 (Tell me something new)。 • 我可以削一下我的铅笔吗 (May I sharpen my pencil)? • 中文…怎么说 (How do I say… in Chinese)? • 我不明白 (I don’t understand). • 我需要帮忙 (I need help). • 这是什么意思 (What does that mean)？ • 我可以去洗手间吗 (May I go to the washroom)? • 请给我… (Please give me…) • 轮到我了 (It is my turn). • 请讲个笑话 (Please tell a joke)。 • 你玩过这个游戏吗（Did you play the game before）? • 你觉得这节课怎么样（What do you like about this class）?

Choose the phrases or sentences that students, children, youth, or adults frequently use in their daily conversation or ask them which ones that they like to learn and teach them one a day or a week. Because these words and sentences are used every day in real life, it will be the most effective way to learn a new language (Curtain & Dahlberg, 2010).

66 Educational Policies and Current Practices 2015; 1(2): 57–69 6. Conclusion With the increased economic and political influence of China, Chinese Mandarin has become one of the fastest growing languages in the world. Demand for learning Chinese as an additional language is rapidly rising, but the need has outstripped the development, training, and certification of qualified professional teachers for Mandarin as an additional language. Moreover, the lack of appropriate training programs and resources for Mandarin instructors of an additional language has resulted in a general instructional approach that fails to adequately take into account the culturally specific language needs of Chinese as additional language learners in many countries or who live outside of China (Everson & Xiao, 2009). Further, even the text books and teaching materials developed in China have not been authentically connected to students’ lives and interests outside China. A variety of new programs and initiatives to address these concerns have been undertaken in recent years including teacher certification programs in Canada and the United States, and the research literature on additional language instruction is being gradually incorporated into new teaching strategies and approaches to teaching Mandarin as an additional language including strategies such as authentic discovery and Differentiated Instruction. Recommendations presented in this paper based on those strategies and incorporating context and individualization into authentic language instruction are all contributing to better and more effective teaching and learning for students of Mandarin as an additional language.

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