Managing Linguistic Diversity in the Tilburg Chinese School

Zihao Guo Master thesis Management of Cultural Diversity Tilburg University, School of Humanities Department of Culture Studies Supervisor: Prof. dr. J.W.M. (Sjaak) Kroon Second reader: Dr. M. Spotti

Tilburg, July 2018 Background Information

Details of student: - Name: Zihao Guo - ANR: 780796 -

Name of the Supervisor(s): - Name supervisor: Prof. dr. J.W.M. (Sjaak) Kroon - Name second reader: Dr. M. Spotti

Title of the Master Thesis Circle: Top-down policies and bottom-up practices

Title of the thesis: Managing Linguistic Diversity in the Tilburg Chinese School

Abstract This research deals with linguistic diversity management regarding both policies and practices in the Chinese School in Tilburg. Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands have a history of more than one century. Throughout the years, the linguistic background of the majority of Chinese immigrants has shifted from Cantonese to Mandarin, the same goes for the teaching policies in the Chinese schools in the Netherlands. Thus, the following research question is formulated: “What are possible discrepancies between top-down policies and bottom-up practices in terms of linguistic diversity in the Tilburg Chinese School and what recommendations for policy development can be formulated for the school in dealing with linguistic diversity issues among its students?” The research will first focus on the existing school policy by looking into the documents, then explore the current diversity issue within the school by conducting an ethnographic study with different policy actors including school management, teachers, students and parents. The data will be collected in the ways of reading archival data, observing educational practices and interviewing participants, and will be analyzed through key incident analysis. In the end, the research will provide the school with recommendations for policy development concerning the diversity issues that have been found when comparing existing policies and classroom practices.

Keywords language policy, complementary education, Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands, Chinese school, heritage language, ethnography, top-down policies – bottom-up practices Preface

This Master’s thesis is the destination of my two-year study in the field of management of cultural diversity at Tilburg University. During the journey of study, I was impressed by the possibilities of diversity management, language policy and ethnography. Through my research in the Tilburg Chinese School, not only did I review the knowledge that I have learned, but I also got the chance to use this knowledge by myself. As I went deeper in my research, I got to understand how a school is functioning and how it is managed. The diversity in the school is what intrigues me the most as students from different backgrounds come together learning a “new” language that may or may not connect with their roots.

I hereby would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my supervisor Prof. dr. S. Kroon. Without his inspiring guidance and encouragement, I could not have finished this thesis. I would also like to thank my contact person Ms. Li and Mrs. Zhou as they helped me to get familiar with the Tilburg Chinese School. Moreover, I am grateful to all my participants involved in the interviews and observations. Their cooperation and contribution is the foundation of my research.

Tilburg, July 2018

Zihao Guo

Table of Contents

1 Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Problem statement ...... 1 1.2 Research aim and research questions ...... 1 1.3 Structure of the thesis ...... 2 2 Theoretical framework ...... 3 2.1 Migration and language ...... 3 2.2 Globalization, superdiversity and languaging ...... 4 2.3 Language teaching in complementary schools ...... 5 2.4 School language policy ...... 6 3 Methodology ...... 8 3.1 Epistemology ...... 8 3.2 Research Design ...... 8 3.3 Sample Strategy and participants ...... 8 3.4 Data Collection ...... 9 3.5 Data analysis ...... 10 3.6 Research Quality Indicators ...... 10 4 Context ...... 12 4.1 The Chinese diaspora in the Netherlands and in Tilburg ...... 12 4.2 The history of the Chinese School in Tilburg ...... 13 4.3 The development of the Chinese School in Tilburg ...... 13 5 The language policy of the Tilburg Chinese School ...... 18 5.1 Perceived language policy from the interviews ...... 18 5.2 Perceived language policy from other sources...... 19 6 Classroom observations ...... 23 6.1 Language of instruction ...... 23 6.1.1 The fourth-grade class ...... 23 6.1.2 The adult class ...... 26 6.1.3 The first-grade class ...... 29 6.1.4 Conclusion ...... 33 6.2 Teaching Materials ...... 34 6.2.1 The fourth-grade class ...... 34 6.2.2 The first-grade class ...... 39 6.2.3 The adult class ...... 43 6.2.4 Conclusion ...... 46 6.3 Culture Education ...... 46 6.3.1 The fourth-grade class ...... 47 6.3.2 The first-grade class ...... 48 6.3.3 The adult class ...... 49 6.3.4 Conclusion ...... 51 7 Conclusions, discussion and recommendations ...... 53 7.1 Conclusions ...... 53 7.2 Discussion ...... 54 7.3 Recommendations ...... 54 References ...... 56 Appendix ...... 59 1 Introduction

In the following introduction I will first present my problem statement to give a brief insight into what the research is about. Then I will display the main research question and several sub questions of my research. Finally I will introduce the structure of my thesis.

1.1 Problem statement

This research focuses on linguistic diversity policy in the Chinese School in Tilburg, the Netherlands. This is a complementary school teaching Mandarin Chinese to learners who are interested in this language regardless of their age or Chinese proficiency. More specifically, the research will first study and explore the existing school policy on different levels and then investigate the necessity of formulating a (new) policy in the field of linguistic diversity by conducting ethnographic research. My research will ultimately provide the school’s management with recommendations concerning discrepancies between top-down policies and bottom-up practices in the field of language and if necessary, help them to develop a new language diversity policy.

Looking at different levels of the school’s policy means that the research will be conducted with different policy actors in the school. This refers to the policy maker which is the school management, the policy implementers which are the teachers and the target group which are the students and parents. The concept linguistic diversity in this research deals with the diversity in languages in the school and the diversity in Chinese (Mandarin) proficiency among both students and teachers. The former relates to the fact that students might have different language background such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Dutch or other languages and how that affects teaching-learning processes in the classroom. The latter indicates that they might have different levels of Chinese (Mandarin) proficiency before they are enrolled in the school, and this factor might also have an influence on overall class performance since for now their class division is mainly based on age groups.

The newness of my study is that it contributes to the further study of Chinese schools in the Netherlands and that it not only aims at investigating the language and language teaching situation at one specific school but also at providing the school’s management with recommendations for formulating a policy for the management of linguistic diversity.

The research involves actors from three different levels. From the institutional level, the school management is involved. Including the chairman, who founded the school, the principal and the head teacher who is in charge of school teaching management. From the classroom level, teachers from different classes are involved. From the individual level, students from different age groups and their parents are involved.

1.2 Research aim and research questions

1 The aim of my research is to find out possible discrepancies between top-down language policies and bottom-up classroom practices in the Tilburg Chinese School. If there are any discrepancies, I will aim at explaining possible reasons and providing solutions to these issues. This can include contributing to exploring the desirability and feasibility of formulating a (new) linguistic diversity policy and contributing to this policy.

The main research question is:

What are possible discrepancies between top-down policies and bottom-up practices in terms of linguistic diversity in the Tilburg Chinese School, how can these discrepancies be understood and what recommendations for policy development can be formulated for the school in dealing with linguistic diversity issues among its students?

The sub questions are divided into three sections:

Policy  What are the existing top-down linguistic diversity policies in the Tilburg Chinese School according to written documents?  What are the existing top-down linguistic diversity policies in the Tilburg Chinese School according to the school’s management? Perception  What are the management’s perspectives on linguistic diversity issues within the Tilburg Chinese School?  What are the teachers’ perspectives on linguistic diversity issues within the Tilburg Chinese School?  What are the students’ perspectives on linguistic diversity issues within the Tilburg Chinese School?  What are the parents’ perspectives on linguistic diversity issues within the Tilburg Chinese School? Practice  What are the bottom-up practices regarding teachers’ practices in class?  What are the bottom-up practices regarding students’ practices in class?

1.3 Structure of the thesis

Apart from this introductory chapter the thesis has six chapters. Chapter 2 is about the theoretical foundations that relate to this research. In Chapter 3 I will explain the methodology and the reasons why I opt for these specific research methods. Chapter 4 displays the context of this research, i.e. the Tilburg Chinese School and its surrounding environment. Chapter 5 presents the perceived language policy that I reconstructed by studying documents and interviewing participants. Chapter 6 presents the results of my observations in a number of classrooms at the Tilburg Chinese School. Finally, the overall conclusion and discussion along with the recommendations for the school will be presented in Chapter 7.

2 Theoretical framework

This chapter presents theories and concepts that are related to my research. These theories together form a framework that is crucial to my study in the complementary Chinese School in Tilburg. It will first describe migration and language since the students are mostly second-generation immigrants. Then it will focus on the globalized and superdiverse society where language is no longer a fixed concept. Next it will explain language teaching especially in complementary schools because it is a totally different case compared to regular schools. At last, it will lay eyes on school language policy by going into the concepts of top-down policy and bottom-up practice.

2.1 Migration and language

This section is about migration flows all over the world. With advanced technologies, people are more mobile than ever before. Migration, as defined by Boyle et al. (1998: 34), is “a move within or across the boundary of an areal unit.” This study focuses on the latter one, which is transnational migration. In order to seek a better life, people move from home to host countries. This kind of migration is not only geographically defined, it also shows in the shift migrants experience in their communication practices. According to Fasold (1984; as cited in Kamwangamalu, 2013), this is a gradual process in which an individual or a group, for one reason or another, in communicative exchanges gives up its language (consciously or unconsciously) and adopts a new one. As Bradshaw (2006) indicates, immigration frequently leads to language shift and loss, accelerating across succeeding generations.

Language shift can be motivated “internal” (i.e. intra-systemic), “external” (i.e. through contact) and “extra-linguistic” (i.e. sociopolitical and economic reasons) (Farrar & Jones, 2002). According to Kerswill (2006), migration is a key extra-linguistic factor leading to externally-motivated change, which means migrants shift from their language of origin to their host country’s language in order to contact the society of destination. The language shift, according to Sofu (2009), is considered at both the societal level and individual level. For the societal level, it mostly refers to economic factors, demographic factors, institutional support factors and environmental factors. As for the individual level, it is about whether the heritage language is maintained or shifted by an individual member of a speech community. Sofu also remarks that the language use within the family is one of the most important factors in the shift or maintenance of a community language. Kamwangamalu (2013) states that the reasons of language shift in migrant families include but are not limited to the parents’ attitude towards their heritage language, the ethnolinguistic vitality of the migrant community and the opportunity and cost of acquiring their heritage language in the host society. Pauwels (2005) also states that the maintenance of heritage languages depends on the proficiency in the language, the amount of effort invested in language maintenance, the community attitudes towards it and the degree of experience with bilingual environments.

The language shift and loss in Chinese communities worldwide in particular is a rather complicated case. Wang (2018) remarks that the lingua franca of the Chinese people all over the world is defined as global Mandarin, which represents the standard Chinese language Putonghua as its core. However, the internal diversity of Chinese language such as Cantonese, Wenzhounese etc. also exists in these communities. The

Chinese language, as defined by Li (2016: 7), is a polycentric language which has “multiple, more or less powerful centers that compete with each other.” Therefore, language shift and loss within the global Chinese communities is not only a shift to the language of host nations such as English or Dutch, but also a shift to standard Mandarin Putonghua as their community language, and the loss of their mother tongues which are the Chinese dialects.

2.2 Globalization, superdiversity and languaging

This part is about globalization processes and superdiversity that people are facing in contemporary society. According to Vertovec (2010: 83), we are shifting into a “post-multiculturalist world,” which means that in society there is a strong common identity and values coupled with the recognition of cultural differences. Vertovec (2010: 87) uses the term superdiversity to “capture a level and kind of complexity surpassing anything many migrant-receiving countries have previously experienced.” In a superdiverse society, Harris and Rampton (2009) discuss the notion of “ethnicities without guarantees,” which means people are extremely hard to anticipate in their (language) behavior without close empirical observation.

The notion of superdiversity also works with languages. According to Jørgensen et al. (2011), the traditional concept of language which is being seen as a separate entity, excluding other languages is no longer sufficient to explain the real-life language situation in times of superdiversity. As Heller (2007) remarks, languages are challenged as a bounded system, and the speakers make use of linguistic resources which are organized in ways that make sense under specific social conditions. In a diverse society shaped by the migration flows, speech is no longer considered as an output of a unitary speaker, rather individuals are seen as bringing very different levels of personal commitment to the styles they speak (Arnaut et al., 2016). Jørgensen (2008) proposes the concept of “languaging,” as he states “language users employ whatever linguistic features are at their disposal with the intention of achieving their communicative aims.” The linguistic interaction between people with diversified knowledge of various languages shows that they adjust their behavior according to their assumptions about the interlocutor (Jørgensen, 2008). Languaging as a term is accompanied by the concepts of linguistic features and language repertoires. Languages are socioculturally or ideologically defined but not defined by observable criteria, which means that people are likely to use a choice of linguistic features from their language repertoire under given circumstances rather than using a “pure” language (Jørgensen et al., 2011). Speakers use linguistic features as semiotic resources, not languages, varieties, or dialects to communicate (Jørgensen, 2008).

Also Blommaert and Backus (2011: 1) use the concept “language repertories” to describe this kind of behavior where people utilize all of their knowledge of language, in their words “from very elaborate structural and pragmatic knowledge to elementary ‘recognizing’ languages” to guarantee smooth communication. Li (2011: 1223) defines the term “translanguaging” as the creation of “a social space for the multilingual language user by bringing together different dimensions of their personal history, experience and environment, their attitude, belief and ideology, their cognitive and physical capacity into one coordinated and meaningful performance, and making it into a lived experience.” All these concepts point to one destination where people make use of every bit of their language competence to convey their

4 meanings to others who are also familiar with these languages or language features in a superdiverse world.

Superdiverse culture, as another representation of superdiversity, is discussed in my research as an important characteristic of Chinese migrants. These migrants, especially members of the second generation, have a multi-layered cultural background and identity. According to Li (2016: 9), the dynamics of identity in the era of superdiversity have shifted from fairly stable identities to more complex repertoires of identity. In the case of Chinese school, students have both part of Chinese and Dutch cultural background. The teaching-learning process in this school then leads to the concepts of “culturing” which is defined by Kroon (2015: 168) as “participate in a variety of national and international cultural encounters in a globalized world.”

2.3 Language teaching in complementary schools

This section is about the models of language teaching and different kinds of bilingualism in complementary schools. In order to understand the forms of education in bilingualism, four basic models as Kroon (2000) indicates need to be presented. Two monolingual approaches: Segregation in which the minority language serves as the medium of instruction and as a school subject. Assimilation in which the majority language is taught completely as a subject and is used a language of instruction. Two multilingual approaches. A transitional approach in which the minority language is used as a medium in the early years, while the majority language is introduced simultaneously or later and eventually replaces the minority language. Finally a maintenance approach in which both majority and minority language serve as the language of instruction in a bilingual program. However, the case of complementary schools is different since they are voluntary institutions set up by linguistic minority communities themselves and their aim is mostly to teach the target heritage language to the minority ethnic children (Creese & Martin, 2006). The official bilingual education system does not apply for these schools. According to Creese and Blackledge (2011: 1197), two constructions of bilingualism are described:

‘Separate bilingualism’ is associated with powerful and pervasive political and academic discourses which view languages as discrete and tied to nation and culture in simplified and coherent ways. ‘Flexible bilingualism’ represents a view of language as a social resource without clear boundaries, which places the speaker at the heart of the interaction.

Separate bilingualism performed in schools indicates an essentialist view of culture and puts culture features into categories. Teachers use simplified cultural narratives as the representation of the target language. Flexible bilingualism on the other hand focuses on individual agency and makes use of all available signs in teaching practice. It displays the heteroglossic nature of communication (Creese & Blackledge, 2011). In their findings, flexible bilingualism is considered preferable and is widely used by students in complementary schools.

Li and Wu (2009) did a research on British Chinese complementary schools and found the teaching policy of (most) complementary schools being ‘One Language Only’ or ‘One Language at a Time’. Their results

5 show that although the complementary schools have an implicit One Language Only policy, codeswitching frequently occurs among students and teachers in and out of class.

However, the distinction between flexible bilingualism as discussed by Creese and Blackledge (2011) and the findings of Li and Wu’s (2009) research lies in the difference of heteroglossia and codeswitching in complementary schools. According to Gutiérrez et al. (2001; as cited in Creese and Blackledge, 2011: 1206), “hybrid language use is more than simple code-switching as the alternation between two codes. It is more a systematic, strategic, affiliative and sense-making process.” The perceived flexible bilingualism in Creese and Blackledge’s (2011) research is viewed as heteroglossia because the complementary school considered the speaker rather than the language to be placed at the heart of interaction. While Li and Wu’s research (2009) focuses more on the language and language policy in complementary schools.

2.4 School language policy

This part is about language diversity management. It discusses top-down language policy and bottom-up practices in schools, especially in superdiverse societies. In a broader concept, bottom-up is a form of inductive processing starting with smaller and/or lower-ranked units and moving upwards through larger and/or higher-ranked units. Top-down is a form of deductive processing working in the opposite direction: from higher-to lower-ranked units (Jay, 2003; as cited in Moskovsky et al., 2015: 257). In the context of my study in the Tilburg Chinese School, top-down policies are made by the school management including the founder, the principal, and the head teacher, while the bottom-up practices refer to the teaching- learning processes in every class performed by the teachers as well as the students. It is a well-known fact from research that in teaching often rather big discrepancies exist between top-down policies and bottom- up practices in the field of language policy (Johnson, 2013).

Language policy, as defined by Spolsky (2007), has three interrelated but independently describable components: practice, ideology, and planning. In which language practice indicates the observable behaviors and choices of participants. Language ideology refers to the values assigned by participants to the language varieties and linguistic features. Language planning, finally, is “the explicit and observable effort by someone or some group that has or claims to have authority over the participants in the domain to modify their practices or beliefs” (Spolsky, 2007: 4).

In the case of Chinese complementary schools, as stated by Li and Wu (2009: 196), the initial top-down language policy is mostly One Language Only:

With regards to pedagogy and classroom management, it is obvious and understandable that the complementary schools want to insist on using specific community languages in this particular domain. Nevertheless, the long-term consequence of such compartmentalization of community languages is an issue of concern, apart from the practical difficulty of maintaining a strict ‘no English’ policy in the schools.

One important notion in my study in the Tilburg Chinese School is that it contains classes not only for second-generation immigrants, but also opens to local Dutch people who are interested in Mandarin. This

6 indicates that the language policy in the Tilburg Chinese School might differ between classes since the student group is not homogeneous as they hold various language backgrounds and that different bottom- up practices might occur in the teaching-learning process.

Based on the theoretical observation above, I will engage in investigating linguistic and cultural diversity management in the Tilburg Chinese School.

3 Methodology

This chapter deals with the methodological approaches that I have used in my research. First I will explain the ethnographic nature of my study, followed by the research design. Then I will present the data collection and data analysis for this study. Finally the research quality indicators that ensure and improve the validity and reliability of this study will be discussed.

3.1 Epistemology

The epistemology of this research is to reveal the inner knowledge of the Tilburg Chinese School participants in terms of language policy and practice by conducting ethnographic fieldwork. According to Blommaert and Dong (2010: 6), ethnography is popularly perceived as a technique and a series of propositions in the field of language since it is related to ‘context’. The study in the Tilburg Chinese School on language policy is also context-related, referring to time, space, object and ideology. Moreover, ethnography is an inductive approach which means that it gathers empirical data first and then works towards theoretical issues (Blommaert & Dong, 2010:14). This applies to my study in the Chinese school as well because only through fieldwork can I apply the appropriate theoretical models to the data itself. Therefore, the ethnographic method fits best for this study.

3.2 Research Design

The research design that I opt for in my research is a case study. According to Yin (1984), the case study research method is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident, and multiple sources of evidence are used (Yin, 1984: 23). In this research, through a case study I will explore the teaching and learning of Chinese language within the classrooms of the Tilburg Chinese School. Multiple data are collected from the management, teachers, students and parents by using different ethnographic methods.

3.3 Sample Strategy and participants

The sampling strategy in this research is selective sampling which means that the researcher selects participants according to the aims of the research. In the case of this research, student and parent interviewees are selected based on their language background and language proficiency to make sure that they can provide sufficient information to this research. Teachers are selected based on different levels of the class they are teaching. The management of the school is also interviewed. The students are interviewed in focus groups containing three or four students. An overview of the participants is presented in Table 3.1.

Table 3.1: Overview of case study participants Name Position in school Class

Mr. Deng Director & Founder Mr. Xue Principal Ms. Chu Head teacher First-grade Ms. Zhang Teacher Adult class Ms. Zhou Teacher Adult class Ms. Yin Teacher Fourth grade Ms. Hou Teacher Sixth grade Xinyi Student Fourth grade Hong Student Fourth grade Winnie Student Adult class Maria Student Adult class Parent 1 Parent Parent 2 Parent

3.4 Data Collection

The data of this research are collected by using ethnographic methods. These include observations, interviews and document analysis. In doing so data triangulation has been applied.

The first step is document analysis in which I read and analyzed written-down policies including but not limited to official policy papers, school websites, and leaflets for parents.

The second step is observations, which were conducted in selected classrooms, while taking field notes and pictures and making audio recordings. Here I simply wrote down what I saw and heard for later analysis. I also took pictures of some notes written on the blackboard by teacher or teaching handouts for the students. I collected and studied curriculum materials and students’ work (with the permission of the school).

The third step is to conduct semi-structured interviews with management, teachers, students and parents to obtain a full picture of the (language) diversity issues within the school. For the management, all three members (chairman, principal, head teacher) have been interviewed. Teachers from the chosen classes are also interviewed. Based on the school’s website, there are three class levels in the Tilburg Chinese School: a beginners’ class (4-15 years old), a middle class (13-18 years old) and an adult class. Students are interviewed by ways of focus group interviews for younger students, and individual interviews for adult students. During the interviews, basic information that is necessary for the research such as age, gender, ethnic background, language background, parents’ language background and language used at home were collected along with other interview questions (see Appendix). In case the students cannot express themselves thoroughly in Chinese, Dutch or English were used and were translated by other students who have enough proficiency in both languages. Parents were interviewed as well; the interviews were conducted before the class is dismissed or during the breaks. The interviews with all interviewees were conducted in Mandarin Chinese and were translated by myself after being transcribed. These data will only be used in this research and with absolute confidentiality.

3.5 Data analysis

The data collected for document analysis which are mainly policy documents, will be analyzed by using the policy making cycle (Kroon, 2000). The policy making cycle consists of eight consecutive steps: (1) ideology formation, (2) agenda formation, (3) policy preparation, (4) policy formation, (5) policy implementation, (6) policy evaluation, (7) feedback, and (8) policy termination. It is a basic tool for analyzing existing (language) policies as well as developing new ones. Therefore this method is in accordance with my research aim since it focuses on policy development. The data collected from the observation in this research are of a qualitative nature and especially focus on human behavior and interaction, they will be analyzed by using key incident analysis (Kroon & Sturm, 2007). According to Erickson (1977; as cited in Kroon & Sturm, 2007), “the key incident approach involves the analysis of qualitative data in which incidents or events have been recorded in extensive descriptive detail.” The key incident approach involves different kinds of data from different sources, including field notes, documents, demographic information, unstructured interviews etc. (Wilcox, 1980:9; as cited in Kroon & Sturm, 2007). Since I have multiple sources of data during my field work, I choose to use key incident analysis. The interviews conducted with various interviewees will be first transcribed and then the useful parts for the research will be translated into English by myself and analyzed through content analysis because this method “goes beyond merely counting words to examining language intensely for the purpose of classifying large amounts of text into an efficient number of categories that represent similar meanings” (Weber, 1990; as cited in Hsieh & Shannon, 2005).

3.6 Research Quality Indicators

The quality indicators in this research are internal/external validity and reliability. According to Maughan (2009), validity refers to how well an instrument measures what it should be measuring and reliability refers to the accuracy or dependability of the instrument in measuring what you are trying to measure.

Internal validity is about the design of the study as the best way to find what the researcher wants to find. In this research, this validity is proved by applying empirical-interpretative methods which include observations and semi-structured interviews. According to Bernard (2011), semi-structured interviewing is best used when the interviewer does not get more than one chance to interview someone. It is open- ended with an interview guide to collect reliable, comparable qualitative data (Bernard, 2011). Semi- structured interviews can secure this validity because they provides valuable information from the context of the interviewees’ experiences.

External validity means that the outcomes of the research are generalizable. While in this research, the circumstance of the school are constantly changing, the findings of the study cannot be generalized. Although the research results are not generalizable, they might be still useful for other complementary schools that are facing the same situation and give them a clearer insight of how to cope with (language) diversity issues. The recognizability of the findings is what makes this research useful.

Reliability is about good measurement. As mentioned above, if a measurement is reliable, a next measurement under the same circumstances would lead to the same outcome. However, it cannot be applied in this research because the context and circumstances of the Tilburg Chinese School are changing through time. Therefore, the reliability can only be guaranteed in this specific case. While there are also ways to enhance the reliability within this research, one way is to ensure the anonymity, so that interviewees would be more open to talk about the ‘real’ situation rather than avoiding the critical issues. Another method is to ask the same questions in different ways during the research, thus through triangulation, the consistency of the answers can be examined and then the useful data will be derived carefully.

4 Context

This chapter will present the context and background of my research and the research site itself. Starting off by describing the Chinese diaspora in the Netherlands, this chapter will then present a brief history of the Tilburg Chinese School, in particular introducing the founding process and initial goals of the school. Finally the chapter will give detailed information of the school’s structure and its development.

4.1 The Chinese diaspora in the Netherlands and in Tilburg

The Chinese are one of the oldest immigrant communities in the Netherlands with more than 100 years of history and they are also one of the largest overseas Chinese communities in continental Europe (Li, 2016). By the year of 2017, there are in total 71,229 people with a Chinese migration background in the Netherlands according to the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS, 2017). The early Chinese immigrants that arrived in the country were mainly sailors from southern China who worked for Dutch shipping companies. During the economic recession between the 1920s and 1930s, many Chinese returned home due to poverty and the Chinese community shrank (Pieke & Benton, 1998). Then after World War II, the Chinese found a way to make a living by starting their restaurant and catering business all over the Netherlands. At that time most of the immigrants were Hong Kong citizens since mainland China was restricting emigration due to an ongoing political turbulence. Therefore Cantonese, i.e. the mother tongue of Hong Kong people, was the dominant language within the Chinese community back then. However, this situation has changed in the 1990s as a result of Chinese economic reform. From then on a large number of people from mainland China, especially Zhejiang province, came to the Netherlands seeking for jobs (Li, 2016). Up to 2017, there are only 18,357 immigrants with a Hong Kong background compared to the 71,229 people coming from Mainland China (CBS, 2017). Consequently, the main language used in this community has changed as new blood comes in. Cantonese, the once dominant language in this diaspora diminished and now exists in the community next to dominant Mandarin and possibly other (Chinese) languages and dialects.

This is also confirmed by the school director himself as he is a first generation immigrant from Hong Kong. The following quote illustrates his thoughts on the ongoing changes inside the Chinese community:

“… more Wenzhounese I would say … recently more and more students in our school are coming from mainland China. Their parents speak Mandarin at home. And also some Wenzhounese from Zhejiang province, they might speak Wenzhounese at home. There are hardly any Hong Kong people nowadays.” (Interview Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

The Chinese diaspora in Tilburg is a rather traditional case according to the school director who already lives here for more than 30 years. Unlike its “modern” neighbor Eindhoven that attracts immigrants by its high-tech corporations and campus, the Chinese community in Tilburg mostly work in catering or retailing businesses. As a search result demonstrated by Google Maps (2018), there are in total three Chinese supermarkets and 20 Chinese restaurants in Tilburg. Despite the large number of restaurants, the Chinese community in Tilburg does not stick together and form a China Town like in Amsterdam or

Rotterdam. This shows that the Chinese community in Tilburg still lacks historical background. The numbers of Chinese immigrants in Tilburg is not to be found on the municipality’s website. As the statistics only present the “non-western” immigrants but do not categorize them into countries.

4.2 The history of the Chinese School in Tilburg

The Chinese School in Tilburg was founded in 2005. It was founded jointly by six people and the current director Mr. Deng was one of them. By now, he is the only founder who remained in the school. The Chinese school, according to him, had its ups and downs through these twelve and a half years. This is illustrated by the following quotes from the school director.

“We are a non-profit organization from the beginning, we used to have six co-founders and all of us have put in some money to maintain the school. The reason is that there are so few students in Tilburg. Until now basically every year I still put in a little amount of money in the school.” (Interview Mr. Deng, 3 March 2018)

“We used to have strict requirements in recruiting teachers. Although the salary is not much, we would like them to put their heart in teaching … What we are doing now is voluntary education, thus it is hard for us to seek teachers. I’ve met some teachers who say ‘I require this amount of money to teach here’, but we cannot fulfill them because we are not making any profit.” (Interview Mr. Deng, 3 March 2018)

“I expect to have more students, to promote Chinese culture, it is not easy to have a Chinese school in Tilburg, I hope the teachers to cherish the opportunity ... that’s my expectation… after all, it is all about resources, back in the times when we got the resources, we used to arrange school trips and all kinds of events.” (Interview Mr. Deng, 3 March 2018)

The director also mentioned that Tilburg cannot compare with the big cities in the Netherlands where they have a much larger Chinese community. The economic recession, according to him, is also a crucial issue for the school, since some Chinese parents do not think learning Mandarin is going to help their kids “make more money”.

4.3 The development of the Chinese School in Tilburg

The Chinese school provides Mandarin education to beginners and advanced learners. According to their official website, the school was originally set up for second and third generation Chinese children to become familiar with the Chinese language and Chinese cultural background. The school works as a complementary school which means that it teaches an extracurricular program. They only have classes on Saturdays from 10 am to 12:30 pm. The school was originally located in the city center of Tilburg. When student numbers increased, it started to cooperate with a local secondary school, Theresialyceum, and moved to their premises since 2013.

The school has eight classes. Six of them are for children (aged from 3 to 18) and two for adults. The classes for the children range from class 1 to class 6, with the children’s level of Mandarin proficiency used as a division criteria. At the end of every school year, there is a final exam to decide whether a student is capable of proceeding to the next level. In order to manage the school’s teaching progress, the management and all the teachers have a monthly meeting to discuss and share teaching methods.

The official teaching material they are now using for children is a series of textbooks called “Zhongwen” (meaning Chinese) published by Jinan University in 1997 (see Figure 4.1). According to the website of Overseas Chinese Language and Culture Education Online (2007), this textbook is aiming for the Chinese students who study in weekend Chinese schools located in Europe and America. There are 12 books in the series for students with different levels. Textbook 1-6 contain Mandarin characters and Pinyin (i.e. the Romanized writing system for Mandarin Chinese) as well as English translations for chapter titles and practice instructions. All terminologies in the textbooks also are translated in English. The teachers in the Tilburg Chinese School are distributed with different textbooks that fit the level of the classes they are teaching. The students, however, do not have their own textbooks since the teacher will make copies of specific chapters and hand out to them every class.

Figure 4.1: Zhongwen cover page (retrieved from http://www.hwjyw.com/textbooks/)

Apart from the textbook, self-made slides and internet learning resources are also applied in class. For example, the teacher in class 1 chooses to use videos from Pinkfong’s YouTube channel for her students. Pinkfong is a worldwide children education brand, providing preschool learning material ranging from short songs to long animation stories, as well as toys and books (see https://about.pinkfong.com/en/). Self-made slides by teachers are also applied in every class since there are no official slides from the

14 textbook. The slides usually contain the text itself and new vocabulary from the current chapter they are going through (see Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2: Self-made slides (© Zihao Guo)

From the above examples of the self-made slides from the first-grade class and the fourth-grade class, overall, it can be seen that both Mandarin characters and Pinyin are used in every slide. But there are some differences in the slides between these two classes. The upper left picture, which is from the fourth- grade class gives additional Latin alphabet explanation for the chapter title, while the lower right picture has Dutch translations for the word. This is in accordance with the school’s language policy as mentioned in the policy chapter that the teachers are required to understand and speak Dutch in the first-grade class (see Chapter 5).

For the adults’ class, another textbook named “New Practical Chinese Reader” is used (see Figure 4.3). This series of textbooks is published by Beijing Language and Culture University in 2015 (third edition) and it is aimed for the overseas adult starters in learning Chinese. This book contains detailed grammar usage and situational dialogues comparable to “Zhongwen”. More English translations for the instructions and new words are used as well.

Figure 4.3: Content page from “New Practical Chinese Reader” (© Zihao Guo)

The school now has approximately 70 students in total. For the children’s class, most of the students’ parents are both Chinese; some of the students have one parent of Chinese background. The age of the children ranges from 3 to 18, most of the students’ ages correspond to the class they are in (i.e. class 1 is mainly 3-6 years old, class 6 is 12-18 years old). From what I observed and from my interviews, I can conclude that the students’ language backgrounds differ. Although all of the students have Dutch as their

16 main language, their home language varies from Mandarin, Cantonese, Wenzhounese as well as some other dialects (e.g. Northeastern dialect). For the students whose parents speak Mandarin, their listening skills are better than their reading and writing skills. Some of the students speak Wenzhounese and Cantonese at home and their Mandarin proficiency is lower than their proficiency in other languages. In the adults’ class, students vary from having Chinese parents who understand little Mandarin to a Dutch businessman who wants to learn Chinese to expand the Chinese market. The language background of the Chinese are mainly Cantonese as their first language with Dutch as their second language. Their Dutch classmates are native speakers of Dutch and have little knowledge in Mandarin.

The school now has 8 teachers in total; each teacher is responsible for one class. All of the teachers were born in China and hold at least a bachelor’s degree from a Chinese university, three teachers majored in teaching Chinese as a foreign language. They all speak Mandarin as their first language and English as their second language. Dutch proficiency is required in class 1 and 2, since the students in these classes are beginners in both Mandarin and English. Two teachers speak Dutch and the rest of the teachers at least know some Dutch words for explaining in class.

5 The language policy of the Tilburg Chinese School

This chapter will present the language policy of the Tilburg Chinese School by using written policy documents of the school and interview quotes from the management. Although the language policy in the Tilburg Chinese School is not a solid written-down policy, it can be summarized from all kinds of sources that I have consulted and observed.

5.1 Perceived language policy from the interviews

As a weekend complementary school, the Tilburg Chinese School does not have a specific language policy at the moment according to the school director and the principal. This can be illustrated by the following quotes:

“The policy documents? They are hard to be found right now. We had a detailed policy when there were a lot of people in the school, but now we do not have that anymore. It’s more spoken than written.” (Interview Mr. Deng, 3 March 2018)

“We had the policy documents long time ago, but they are no longer up to date.” (Interview Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

Although general policy documents are not available, the school still has a regular meeting every month to discuss about teaching issues. The head teacher, Ms. Chu, is in charge of the school’s overall schedule. One could say that in these meetings informal school policies are developed. This is illustrated by the following quotes:

“At the end of every month, the teachers and I will have a meeting together discussing the feedbacks from the students as well as parents. Every teacher will report the issues they encountered during the class.” (Interview Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

“(The policy documents) are not handed to me since we had several principals that quit half way before. So, I made some documents by myself to manage the teachers. For instance, each teacher has to hand it their syllabus every semester about how many chapters they are planning to teach and their assignment planning. I will then schedule the mid-term and final exams. … we have a monthly meeting about the teaching issues and upcoming events in the school. We also have a group chat on mobile phone to discuss other minor issues.” (Interview Ms. Chu, 28 May, 2018)

On the basis of the interviews, it can be concluded that there are no specific policy documents in the school, instead, there is a regular meeting every month to discuss school issues.

Since the students have various language backgrounds, it can be indicated that the underlying language policy of each class in the Tilburg Chinese School is different as well. According to the school management, Dutch proficiency is required for the teachers among the first to third-grade classes and

English is used in the adult class. Other Chinese languages such as Cantonese or Wenzhounese are out of consideration for the teacher’s requirement as is illustrated by the following quotes.

“Teachers in the first, second and third grade classes must know some Dutch at least, because the students might not speak and understand Mandarin that well. From the fourth-grade and on, there will be only Mandarin teaching.” (Interview Mr. Deng, 3 March 2018)

“First of all, the teacher is required to speak fluent Mandarin without accent. For the lower grade classes, Dutch is also needed. After fourth-grade, the students’ Mandarin proficiency is capable for communication.” (Interview Ms. Chu, 28 May, 2018)

“For the adult class you can see that they are all Dutch people, most of them started learning Mandarin from the very beginning. Our teacher will use some Dutch and English as an aid for teaching since they cannot understand if there is only Mandarin. … We do not really consider English proficiency as the teacher’s requirement, since we already assume that it is not a problem for people with at least a bachelor’s degree. … We definitely do not consider the proficiency in dialects, for us Chinese schools, we hope to promote only standard Mandarin.” (Interview Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

Although the teachers are required to speak Dutch in lower grade classes, the management’s attitude towards language diversity in school is more monolingual. As a Mandarin complementary school, the biggest issue they are facing is that they only have classes on Saturdays. Therefore, they are trying to create a Mandarin-only teaching environment for the students as much as possible. This is illustrated by the following quotes with the principal:

“We certainly do not encourage our teachers to use Dutch or English as languages of instruction. Even if for the starter’s class, we ask our teachers to use Mandarin about 90% of the class, and only use 10% of Dutch to explain a little bit. We do not give students something to rely on, if they rely on another language, they will loose their nerves and this will eventually effect their learning efficiency.” (Interview Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

“The students’ learning motivation is all about the coordination between school and family. If students only come here for three hours every Saturday but do not practice what they have learned during the week, we cannot make any promises for their language proficiency. What we are trying to do here is to make them talk as much Mandarin as possible during the class.” (Interview Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

5.2 Perceived language policy from other sources

Figure 5.1 shows the school calendar made by the head teacher.

Figure 5.1: The school calendar © Zihao Guo

Form the calendar it can be seen that both Mandarin and Dutch are being used. Therefore, the calendar is not only for the teachers who speak Mandarin, but also for the students and parents whose main language is Dutch. The multilingual environment inside the school is also presented on the school’s website (see Figure 5.2), as it includes Mandarin, Dutch and English. Both examples, the calendar and the website, can be considered implicit examples of language policy, reflecting the school’s (positive) vision on multilingualism.

Figure 5.2: School website in three languages (retrieved from http://tilburgsechineseschool.nl)

The website indicates that the Tilburg Chinese School is not a monolingual school because it teaches Mandarin to all kinds of students. This is illustrated by the following quotes on their website:

“Chinese School Tilburg was originally set up for the second and third generation familiar with the Chinese language and Chinese culture background. Chinese language education is not only for travelers and business man, but also for parents who have adopted children in China.” (Retrieved from http://tilburgsechineseschool.nl/en/sample-page/)

From the interview quotes and other sources, it can be concluded that the language policy in Tilburg Chinese School is using Mandarin as the main language while Dutch and English are included in the documents for students, parents and the public. While in the teaching process, languages other than Mandarin are not preferred to be used by the students, and are only used by the teachers for additional explanation.

6 Classroom observations

In this chapter, I will present the results of my classroom observations. The first section is about the language of instruction in the class, the second section presents the teaching materials used by the teacher and the third section will discuss the perceived cultural education. All the observations were divided into three classes that I attended, namely the fourth-grade class, the adult class and the first-grade class.

6.1 Language of instruction

This section presents the analysis of key incidents dealing with the language of instruction inside the Tilburg Chinese School. As mentioned above, the Tilburg Chinese School is a complementary school that teaches Mandarin Chinese to students with diverse backgrounds and from different age groups. One of the main and most interesting aspects in this diversity is their language background. Not only are the students proficient in a number of different languages, including Mandarin, Dutch and English, also the teachers utilize the languages they know to make the class go on smoothly. This section will have a closer look at teaching processes in the classroom in order to find out about the language of instruction used by the teachers. It will first describe what the class looks like and report some key episodes concerning the choice of languages of instruction by the teachers. Then it will present the teachers’ and students’ perspectives on this topic by looking at the interviews I conducted with them. Finally, I will analyze and interpret these key incidents using concepts from the literature dealing with language education in terms of globalization and superdiversity.

For my observations, I chose the following classes based on different languages of instruction used there: 1. The fourth-grade class where the main language of instruction is Mandarin with little Dutch used. 2. The adult class where the main language of instruction is English. 3. The first-grade class where the language of instruction is mainly Mandarin with more Dutch and also some Cantonese.

6.1.1 The fourth-grade class

The fourth-grade class contains students aged from 8 to 10. There are in total 11 students (2 boys, 9 girls) in this class. According to the teacher, Ms. Yin, all of the students in her class are second generation Chinese immigrant children, except for one student whose father is Dutch and whose mother is Chinese. This is illustrated by the following quote:

“About half of my students’ parents are from Wenzhou, Zhejiang (a province in China, ZG), there are also some students from Guangzhou and one student from Taiwan.” (Interview Ms. Yin, 29 March 2018)

The students’ overall Mandarin proficiency in this class is good in listening and speaking, according to her.

“In my class, I think most of the time, they understand what the word means without using Dutch. They are capable of using Mandarin to explain the words. They speak Mandarin at home with their parents, so they have no problem in listening and speaking basic Mandarin.” (Interview Ms. Yin, 29 March 2018)

One of the classes that I have observed was on Saturday, 7 April 2018, from 10 am until 12:30 pm. After two weeks of scheduled holidays, Ms. Yin starts the lesson by reviewing the text that they have studied before. The text is an ancient Chinese tale about a smart boy named Sima Guang who saved a child that was stuck in a giant water pot by striking and breaking it with a rock (see Figure 4.2). In the beginning of the class, Ms. Yin plays the cartoon video of this story on the screen for the students, the video is in Mandarin and there are also Mandarin subtitles that show the vocabulary. After watching the cartoon, she points out some words that they have learned and explains them to the students.

In the following transcript the Mandarin parts are all translated in English, the Dutch parts are in italics; my remarks are in brackets.

Transcript 6.1: Mandarin lesson, fourth grade, 7 April, 2018

The teacher points at a word on the screen.

Teacher: Let’s have a look at the words that we have learned two weeks ago. What is this word? Students: Ancient. Teacher: Ancient! Hong: What does this mean? Teacher: Just long long ago. Xinyi: Ancient, oudheid. Teacher: Oudheid, yes. A long time ago. Student: Oh, oudheid.

After having dealt with some more new words, Ms. Yin points at another word.

Teacher: What does this mean? Students: Panic! Xinyi: It’s afraid. Teacher: Afraid, right? Like Xinyi just said. Look at his face (pointing at the slide), he is scared, shaking his body, with his mouth opened. Panic.

Students do not seem to fully understand what it means.

Teacher: That is paniek. Students: Oh… Teacher: Next one. But Sima Guang is not panicked. (Panic and panicked are the same word in Mandarin) He came up with a… Students: Solution!

Xinyi: Oplossing, oplossing. Teacher: What is that? Xinyi: Is solution oplossing? Teacher: Um…Idee. Hong: Zie’t, ja, idee. Students: Idee.

At the end of the class, Ms. Yin concludes the text by reading it sentence by sentence in Mandarin. The students are following the teacher while two of the students chat in Dutch privately. She notices that and says in Chinese: “Try to use Mandarin, let’s use Dutch as little as possible.”

From the observations, it can first of all be concluded that Mandarin is the main language of instruction as intended in this class. Furthermore, it becomes clear that the teacher is trying to use some Dutch words to explain difficult Mandarin vocabulary for her students. Some students also use Dutch in class to help their classmates understand better. The usage of Dutch is efficient for the teaching and learning process from what I have observed; all the students immediately understand the text after the Dutch words are mentioned. While when the teacher uses only Mandarin to explain the text, some students show their uncertainty and confirm with each other in Dutch.

The top-down policy of the school requests the teachers to use only Mandarin as a language of instruction, because there is only one class every week and they are trying to make the students immerse into the Mandarin environment as much as possible. But apparently it is impractical to avoid using Dutch in class all together, since although the student’s home language may be Mandarin, Dutch is their main language and they only use Dutch when chatting with each other.

While the top-down policy according to the management prefers to use Mandarin-only as a language of instruction, the bottom-up practices from what I observed in the class show that both students and teachers sometimes also opt for Dutch to explain things that are difficult to understand when only Mandarin is used in the teacher’s explanations. In order to understand the teacher’s and students’ opinions on the choice of using Dutch, I will present some of the interview quotes that can illustrate this. I start with a quote from the fourth-grade teacher Ms. Yin:

“I think it’s better for them to speak less Dutch during the class, but sometimes maybe it’s easier for them to understand what the word means if they speak Dutch with each other. Well, generally I encourage them to speak Mandarin more but I don’t prohibit them from speaking Dutch. The school advises us teachers to speak Mandarin only in class, but it’s hard to follow sometimes, especially for younger students.” (Interview Ms. Yin, 29 March 2018)

Ms. Yin uses Dutch in teaching Mandarin to make her students follow the class. Unlike the principal, she thinks explaining in Dutch is easier for the students to understand. This situation is true among the young students and it is also illustrated by the quotes of the students themselves.

“We speak Dutch with each other when we don’t understand the words, but when speaking with the teacher we use Mandarin only.” (Interview student Hong, 7 April 2018)

“I think it’s good for the teacher to use Dutch for explaining, but our teacher’s Dutch is not very good…” (Interview student Xinyi, 7 April 2018)

The students are aware of the Mandarin-only rule in class, but when some difficult word appears, they will shift to Dutch and discuss with each other in Dutch.

From the above it can be seen that both teacher and students in the fourth-grade class choose to use Dutch as a means for reaching confirmation of understanding. And from students’ reactions that I observed, it has been accepted and effective. What the teacher does is not sticking to the top-down policy but adjusting her behavior to the reality of the classroom.

What also needs to be mentioned here is that the use of Dutch as a language of instruction is still only limited to a small part of the whole class. During my two-and-a-half-hour observation, a Dutch word is only mentioned two times as shown in the key episodes. When the teacher gives basic instructions or reviews the already learnt words, Mandarin is the only language that is spoken in class, and students can understand it without any problem. To conclude, overall, the language of instruction in the fourth-grade class of the Chinese school is mostly Mandarin with some additional Dutch words for explanatory use.

6.1.2 The adult class

The adult class in the Tilburg Chinese School contains six students aged from 28 to 55. All of the students have been studying in this class for two years. According to the teacher, they already have a good knowledge of Mandarin in terms of listening and speaking. The class contents now are focusing more on reading and practical usage such as making conversations. Recently they started practicing the sample questions of HSK, a standardized test of standard Chinese language proficiency for non-native speakers abroad.

Among all the students, two of them are Chinese immigrants from the Cantonese speaking province o Guangdong. The rest are all from the Netherlands. The language of instruction in the adult class is English. Unlike the fourth grade in which parents’ choice matters most, the students from the adult class all come to the school for their own reasons, this is illustrated by the following quotes from the principal.

“As for the adult class, you can see that there are a lot of Dutch people, they come here basically for three reasons, one of them is that they are doing business with Chinese people or will work in China in the future, so that they need to acquire some level of Mandarin to communicate, another reason is that their spouse is from China, and one last reason is that they are interested in Chinese culture.” (Interview Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

The class contents of the adult class is tailor-made according to the principal; they do not always follow the textbooks but have more freedom in teaching practical usage. This is also illustrated by the following quote.

“For the business-type, we will focus on the social communication and negotiation, for example how to order food, how to bargain etc. We will also teach them how to associate with Chinese businesspersons. For the culture-type, we will tell them more about China’s famous scenery and folklore.” (Interview Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

In the following I will present a class observation that relates to the choice of the language of instruction. The class that I observed was on Saturday, 21 April 2018 from 10 am to 12:30 pm. There are four students attending the class. The teacher, Ms. Zhou starts the class by discussing the upcoming King’s Day with the students. In the following transcript, the Mandarin parts are all translated in English, the Dutch parts are in italics, the English parts are underlined, and my remarks are in brackets.

Transcript 6.2: Mandarin lesson, adult class, 21 April 2018

Teacher: What’s your plan for Guo Wang Jie (King’s day in Mandarin)? (Writes on the whiteboard 6.1, 1) Teacher: Guo, country. Wang, the king of the country. Jie, festival. Winnie: Oh, Koningsdag. Teacher: Yes. What’s your plan on King’s day? Winnie: Slapen. Teacher: Haha, how to speak slapen in Mandarin? Winnie: Sleep. Teacher: Correct, and how about Stephen? Stephen: Moving my house. (Followed by a Dutch word I cannot recognize) Teacher: Is that English? Stephen: No, it’s uhh… Polly: To renovate. Teacher: But in which way, is it decoration or renovate? Stephen: Renovate. Teacher: We would say repair the house. Repair the house. (Writes on the board 6.1, 2) Teacher: You may say repair the bicycle, repair the table. Anything that is broken you can use “repair”. How about you, Polly? Polly: I have no plans yet. I’m still thinking. Teacher: Haven’t had any thoughts about it yet. King’s day’s plan. (Writes on the board 6.1, 3)

In order to give some clarifying context information to Transcript 6.2, I hereby present in Figure 6.1 the class notes on the whiteboard to point out the language of instruction that is being used.

Figure 6.1: Whiteboard notes in the adult class © Zihao Guo

The notes in the red circle were used and written during the class observation. It can be seen that the teacher combines three components together to make the teaching process clear to her students. The Chinese character for basic recognition, the Pinyin (official romanization system of Mandarin) for reading, and the English phrases for understanding. Although the teacher understands some Dutch words, the instruction language spoken in class is mainly English. The students sometimes also respond in English with the teacher. This is illustrated by the following quote from Ms. Zhou.

“I studied Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language in my bachelor’s years, and English is basically the language for explaining since it’s the international language. Students here understand English well so I use more English alongside Mandarin to communicate with them. It is also more efficient.” (Interview Ms. Zhou, 28 April 2018)

In the key episode during the class, Ms. Zhou makes a distinction between “decorate” and “renovate” in English to continue to explain the word “repair”. She teaches in that way to make the teaching process go smoothly and also provide more usage examples of the word “repair”. Unlike the fourth-grade class in which the teacher uses Mandarin to explain Mandarin, Ms. Zhou uses solely English to her students to convey and reiterate meanings.

The students show positive attitudes towards their teacher using English as the instruction language. This is illustrated by the following quotes from students.

“Sometimes I cannot recall the Chinese words that we have learned in class, English explanations help me to remember faster.” (Interview student Winnie, 21 April 2018)

“The grammar in Mandarin differs a lot from Dutch. The sentences make more sense to me if our teacher explain that in English” (Interview student Maria, 21 April 2018)

Based on the student’s language proficiency in English and the teacher’s education background, the instruction language in the adult class is English. Mandarin, as the target language, is used less for explaining but more for reading.

6.1.3 The first-grade class

The first-grade class in the Tilburg Chinese School contains preschool children aged from three to six. All students have been studying in this class since September 2017. There are ten students (3 boys, 7 girls) in this class. Nine students are second-generation immigrants, and only one student is Dutch. Interestingly, unlike the fourth-grade class, Ms. Chu claims that all the Chinese students have a Hong Kong background which means their parents speak Cantonese with them. This situation is illustrated by the following quote.

“They (the second-generation children) are basically all kids of Hong Kong immigrants, only one girl is Dutch, she studies here because her mother is a teacher in Thersialyceum (the local secondary school that provides classrooms for the Chinese school; Chapter 4).” (Interview Ms. Chu, 28 May, 2018)

According to the teacher, the students in this class are learning basic Mandarin words in reading and writing, the initial aim of this class is to arouse their interests in learning Chinese. Therefore the class contains a lot of singing and dancing. This can be illustrated by the following quotes of Ms. Chu, their teacher.

“There are many kinds of teaching activities in class, sometimes I’ll use online source, such as children’s song videos, or some interesting pictures from the internet, and sometimes we will play games. I also use a website to manage students in class, raffle for their turns to answer the question. Children love it because it has cute avatars.” (Interview Ms. Chu, 28 May, 2018)

For the teaching methods, Ms. Chu talked about her own way of attract the students’ attention. Unlike older students who sit in chairs with pencils in their hands, first-grade students sit on the floor in a circle. The students start the class by queuing in line and greet with Ms. Chu one by one. During the class, many repetitive reading combined with body movements are included to help these young students remember firmly. Moreover, students who answer the questions in class correctly will receive a sticker in their notebook that can be exchanged for gifts at the end of the semester.

In order to find out the language of instruction in this class, two key episodes during my observation will be presented below. The class was observed on 26 May 2018, it starts at 10 am and ends at 12:45 pm. The class contains learning of a new text and a game.

In the following transcript, the Mandarin parts are all translated in English by me, the Dutch parts are in italics, the English parts are underlined and my remarks are in brackets.

Transcript 6.3 Mandarin lesson, first grade, 26 May 2018

Teacher: We will learn some new words today. Friends. (Points at the slide) Levi and I are friends. Students: Friends! Teacher: Melody and I are friends! Students: Friends! Teacher: Hug your nearby friends! Students: (Hugging each other and laughing) Teacher: Okay! Friends! Next word, where is it? (Points at the slide) Students: Where is it? Teacher: Where is Jiajia? Students: Jiajia is there! Teacher: Where is Lucas? Where is Lucas? Students: Lucas is there. Teacher: Where is Isabella? Students: Isabella is over there!

The two slides shown to the students are presented in Figures 6.2 and 6.3.

Figure 6.2: Vrienden. © Zihao Guo

Figure 6.3: Waar ben je? © Zihao Guo

As can be seen in Transcript 6.3, the language of instruction during teaching of new words is completely in Mandarin. The teacher reads out the new words first and the students follow. Then after she repeats the word several times with the students, they continue to the next word. Basically the repetitive reading helps students to remember new words, while the slides tell the student what they mean by providing a large picture that refers to the words and also the Dutch translation. According to Ms. Chu, although Dutch translation is used in the class, the key for the younger students to learn new words is repetition.

“They all speak Dutch, but I told them try not to use Dutch during the class, because it is immersive learning in my opinion. The students in my class are too young, even if you speak Dutch, they cannot fully understand. So the learning of new words for them is repetition, if you continuously teach them how to read it, they will eventually remember it.” (Interview Ms. Chu, 28 May 2018)

After learning some new words, the class goes on with dancing and singing about some other new words. At the end of the class, Ms. Chu proposes a game with the students and the language of instruction is no longer only Mandarin.

Transcript 6.3, continued

Teacher: Okay, how about we play a game now? When the music starts, you will start walking around. One~two~three~four~five~six~seven, where is my friend~ (singing). When the music stops, you have to hug in pairs, if one of you did not find a partner, he or she will be eliminated.

Students: What? What is eliminated? Teacher: Eliminated means out of the game, uh… out of the spelen. Jij kan niet spelen, alleen, twee vrienden in een groep. Ok? Students: Twee vrienden in een groep? Teacher: Ja. Alleen twee vrienden. Only two people, ok? (Music starts and the game begins)

From the key episode above we can see that the language of instruction is both Mandarin and Dutch. When the teacher says something that cannot be understood by the students, she will shift to Dutch to explain. This is also illustrated by the following quotes from her interview.

“It (use Dutch as language of instruction) always happens when we play games, I will therefore use Dutch to explain the rules, because sometimes it contains some difficult words that is not part of the course and you cannot simply explain it by using a picture, then I will use Dutch to explain to them directly.”

Except for Dutch, Ms. Chu also uses Cantonese in class since most of the students have a Hong Kong background. Although this scene is not captured during my observation, it is illustrated by the following quote.

“Since there are a numbers of Hong Kong immigrants’ children, they speak Cantonese at home, and if they know you can speak Cantonese as well, they will be close with you and willing to learn. The students in my class are too young, if you keep speaking a language that they do not understand, they will feel isolated and reluctant to learn. Using their home language will build close relationships with the students.” (Interview Ms. Chu, 28 May 2018)

From above we can conclude that the language of instruction in the first-grade class is much different than in the other two classes. Limited by the students’ young age, the teacher in class maintains Mandarin as the main language of instruction for reading simple words repetitively. Unlike the fourth-grade class where Dutch is used to explain new words, the first-grade class use Dutch to explain difficult words that do not belong to the curriculum. Cantonese, as the former dominant language in the Dutch Chinese community, is still used in class as a bridge for teacher-students relations and intrigue their interest in learning a “new” Chinese language.

6.1.4 Conclusion

From the results above, it can be seen that the Tilburg Chinese School as a complementary school, has different languages of instruction in different classes based on the students’ main language and their Mandarin proficiency. It is obvious from both the school policy and the observations that teaching Mandarin as a target language is the fundamental goal of every class. However, the situation is not always the same as students and their parents hold various language backgrounds. For example, students from the fourth-grade class have Dutch as their main language while their parents speak Mandarin or Wenzhounese at home to them. Students from the first-grade class also have Dutch as their main language while their parents use Dutch, Cantonese and Mandarin. For the adult class students, Mandarin is a

33 foreign language for most of them since they are local Dutch people. Thus, the teachers in each class have to opt for several languages of instruction based on their student’s language background despite the school’s language policy.

In the fourth-grade class, the top-down policy requires the teacher to use only Mandarin as the language of instruction. While the bottom-up practice shows that both Mandarin and Dutch are used for teaching. In the first-grade class, the language policy is to use both Mandarin and Dutch, while the observation and interview results show that the teacher is using Mandarin, Dutch, English and Cantonese in class. The adult class’s language policy is English and Mandarin, but the practice shows that Dutch is used by the teacher as well.

In conclusion, teachers and students in the Tilburg Chinese School are using their full language repertoire which includes a variety of languages such as Dutch, Mandarin, English, and Cantonese to communicate and convey the knowledge of the target language in actual practices since it is much more efficient for them. Languaging is used as a way to teach Mandarin in a globalized and linguistically superdiverse classroom.

6.2 Teaching Materials

This section presents the analysis of the teaching materials used in different classroom in the Chinese School. Teaching materials refer to textbooks, teaching slides and additional teaching resources such as online materials, exercise books etc. As mentioned in the Context chapter, the Chinese school has its prescribed textbooks: ‘Zhongwen’ for the children’s class and ‘New Practical Chinese Reader’ for the adult class. However, based on my observations in three classes of the Chinese school, other kinds of materials found or made by the teachers themselves are also widely used to facilitate the teaching process. Since students in different classes have diverse backgrounds and aims in learning Chinese, these teaching materials presented by their teachers are also varied.

The three classes that I chose for observation are: 1. The fourth-grade class where only textbooks and slides are used. 2. The first-grade class where textbooks, slides, online videos, and teacher-made homework and sticker books are used. 3. The adult class where textbooks, slides, online resources, and exercise books for HSK (see chapter 6.1.2) are used.

This section will first describe some selected key episodes and teaching materials being used, followed by some interview quotes from the management, teachers, and students. Finally, I will interpret the different perspectives on the usage of teaching materials and draw some conclusions.

6.2.1 The fourth-grade class

The basic information of this class has already been mentioned in the previous section. The class took place on Saturday, 7 April 2018, from 10 am to 12:30 pm. The class is about a folk’s tale in China where

34 a boy named Sima Guang saved his friend who trapped in a huge water pot. This chapter is from the designated textbook ‘Zhongwen’ (see Figure 6.4), the content of the whole chapter is presented by the teacher, Ms. Yin, on her self-made slides (see Figure 6.5).

Figure 6.4: The textbook of the chapter Sima Guang (Retrieved from http://www.hwjyw.com/fj/jcxz/zhongwen/4/8.pdf)

Figure 6.5: Slides Sima Guang by Ms. Yin (© Zihao Guo)

As can be seen from Figures 6.4 and 6.5, the title and the contents are the same while there are only some minor layout differences between the original textbooks and the slides. Although the chapter is from the textbook itself, it is not necessary to follow the order of the textbook. This is illustrated by the following quote from Ms. Yin:

“We can make adjustments based on our students’ current progress. If one chapter is slightly difficult for the students, I will use another way to teach it or skip it first and come back to it later. We have a fixed textbook, but we can determine the order of the chapters that we are going to teach. We can also add or remove something from it.” (Interview Ms. Yin, 29 March 2018)

This statement of Ms. Yin can be further confirmed by the self-made slides showed in class. In figure 6.6, we can see that the teacher uses another picture instead of the one from the textbook to illustrate the tale of Sima Guang.

Figure 6.6: Picture Sima Guang by Ms. Yin (© Zihao Guo)

Apart from that, Ms. Yin also adds some expanded knowledge to the course while teaching the new words the story contains. This is illustrated by the following transcript that I captured in class. In the transcript, the Mandarin parts are all translated in English, my remarks are in brackets.

Transcript 6.4 Mandarin lesson, fourth grade, 7 April, 2018

Teacher points at the slide (see Figure 6.7). Teacher: What is this? Students: Water pot! Teacher: And there is something else that we have seen last time. (Points at Figure 6.8) Students: Beer! Teacher: Is this beer? Students: (laughing) Xinyi: This is wine not beer. Teacher: No, not wine. It’s liquor, Chinese liquor. Xinyi: Is this for drinking or cooking? Teacher: Drinking. Remember, beer has beer barrel, but it’s different. This is used in ancient China to make liquor.

Figure 6.7: Water pot by Ms. Yin (© Zihao Guo)

Figure 6.8: Liquor pot by Ms. Yin (© Zihao Guo)

The liquor pot, as an extracurricular word related to the ongoing teaching process, is taught by the teacher in class. Although the class follows the chapter in the textbook, there is still some additional knowledge presented by the teacher. Moreover, the new knowledge caught students’ attention and they showed their curiosity towards it. According to the teacher Mr. Hou from the sixth-grade class which also use the same textbook as the fourth-grade, the textbook is far from attractive for her students to learn.

“I think the textbook is too childish for them, it does not match their mental age. For example, the textbook tells some stories that are outdated and even naïve. I don’t think it suits children from 12 to 18 years old. So, I will add some extracurricular contents, something practical, in my teaching.” (Interview Ms. Hou, 25 April 2018)

“The students sometimes get bored with the textbooks, I try my best to include something new and attractive. But still, the textbook takes most part of the class since it is the guide assigned by the school.” (Interview Ms. Yin, 29 March 2018)

It can be seen that teachers from upper grade classes (four and six) are willing to use additional contents apart from the textbooks to attract students’ attention. The textbooks, published in 1997, are no longer up- to-date and know what these (older) children want. Thus, teachers in these classes take initiative and add something that would be closer to their age and knowledge.

6.2.2 The first-grade class

In the first-grade class, the teacher uses a more vivid way of teaching. Combined with singing, dancing, and playing, every student is participating in the class. Moreover, the teacher also gives them self- designed homework to have them review what they have learned every week.

The observation took place on 26 May 2018, the class starts at 10 am and ends at 12:45 pm. Basic information about the student composition is already mentioned in 6.1.3. The following transcript describes the teaching activities that happened during the class with additional online resources provided by the teacher, Ms Chu. In the following transcript, the Mandarin part are all translated in English, my remarks are in brackets.

Transcript 6.5 Mandarin lesson, first grade, 26 May 2018

Teacher plays the video of a children’s song themed “Week”. (Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE6F3syefjI) Teacher: Now let’s watch this video about week and try to sing along with it! Students: (Sing along with the song) (Song ends) Teacher: How many days are there in a week? Students: Seven! Teacher: All right, let’s count it. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Students: (Repeat after the teacher) Teacher: There are seven days in a week!

The transcript above shows that the teacher uses online music videos to make the students remember the new words rather than read and repeat them. In addition to singing, Ms. Chu also plays games with the students to draw their attention to learning. This is illustrated by the following quote:

“Sometimes I will make some vocabulary cards to play card games with them. If combined with computer programs, there will be more new forms of games. During teaching, I will not tell them where to sit or what it is, I always mix them with singing and dancing, which is the TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) method. For example if I teach them the word “walk”, I will walk in front of them and ask them to walk around. Through this way there will be a connection between the word and its meaning, they will remember it firmly and vividly.” (Interview Ms. Chu, 28 May, 2018)

Through the TPRS method applied in class, the students are more active and deeply participating in class. It works better in the first-grade class since most of the students do not have enough Mandarin proficiency to understand the whole chapter from the textbook, curiosity is their first learning motivation. This is also illustrated by the following quote from Ms Chu:

“The students in my class are too young (3-6 years old), some of them can’t even draw straightly. It is all about motivation at their age, they show curiosity to all the things you provide, and they are willing to mimic, to repeat what you said and done.” (Interview Ms. Chu, 28 May, 2018)

Homework in the first-grade class is also different from the other children’s classes. Their homework contains match making of words and pictures (see Figure 6.9).

Figure 6.9: Homework (© Zihao Guo)

Each student also has a teacher-made hand book which contains their award stickers for each correctly answered question in class (see Figure 6.10).

Figure 6.10: Sticker page (© Zihao Guo)

From all the teaching materials shown above, it can be concluded that teacher in the first-grade class puts more activities and creative components into teaching to bring up the younger students’ motivation in learning Mandarin since they are more active and curious. It is also connected with the students’ diverse Mandarin proficiency. In this class, there are students brought up in a Mandarin family, but also students whose parents speak Cantonese only and have little knowledge in Mandarin, moreover, there is one student who is a local Dutch child and had zero access to Mandarin before. Therefore, the diversity in Mandarin proficiency request the teacher to use simple and more active teaching materials (dancing,

42 singing) to help her students participate in the class, otherwise the students with less Mandarin proficiency will be left behind.

6.2.3 The adult class

In the adult class, not only textbooks and slides are used, exercise materials from HSK are also added since they are practical for the students. The textbook, however, is not used as much as the slides made by the teacher due to its level of difficulty.

This observation took place on 21 April 2018 from 10 am to 12:45 pm. The basic information of the class has already been mentioned in 6.1.2. In the following transcript I will present part of the second class which is about the listening exercise from the HSK sample questions. The Mandarin parts are all translated in English, the English part are in italics, and my remarks are in brackets.

Transcript 6.6: Mandarin lesson, adult class, 21 April 2018

Teacher: Let’s listen to it one more time. When did she take the picture? (Teacher plays the audio of an HSK listening question.) Audio: No. 22. A: When did you take this picture? You look different now. B: I took it last summer. Teacher: Did you hear? When did she take the picture? Students: Last summer. Teacher: Yes, last summer. So that’s the answer. Which one is last summer? (Continues the audio) Audio: I was thin and my hair was short at that time. C: When did she take the picture? Teacher: Which one is correct? Students: A. Teacher: Correct, you want to listen one more time? Students: Yes.

In transcript 6.6 above, the teacher uses HSK questions to test her students, she also offers the students to listen three times to fully understand the meaning of the question and give correct answers. The reason of choosing HSK questions is illustrated in the following quote with Ms. Zhou.

“The HSK listening exercise is a very good example for them to practice. The speed is just right and it’s all standardized. The difficulty is optional, I can choose specific questions based on the teaching progress and students’ proficiency. And with repeated times of listening, it can be easily understood by the students.” (Interview Ms. Zhou, 28 April 2018)

The advantage of using HSK exercise is about its standard form and large range of questions. However, the teachers seldom use the textbook due to its difficulties in reading. The textbook appointed by the school is ‘New Practical Chinese Reader’ as mentioned in the Context chapter. The biggest problem in this textbook is that it has no Pinyin in Book 2, which the students are currently learning. Without Pinyin, it is hard for the students to study on their own since their Mandarin proficiency is not enough to read all the characters in the text. The teacher therefore must mark the tones of each character to make it easier (see Figure 6.11).

Figure 6.11: New Practical Chinese Reader book two (© Zihao Guo)

The concern of difficulties in reading Mandarin among the adult students is illustrated by the following quote from Ms. Zhang who is another teacher in the adult class.

“After two years of learning, there are still many Chinese characters that they cannot read. Even the simplest sentence, they may not know the pronunciation of every characters. I have to use Pinyin as a support, or else they won’t know how to read. Basically, what I do is to write a character and its Pinyin on the whiteboard, and ask them to read and correct each other, and I will give the final answer. Only by this way can they have a deeper impression of the character itself.” (Interview Ms. Zhang, 27 May 2018)

Almost all the adult students do not have a language background in Mandarin. With only one class each week, it is a challenge for them to recall everything learned in class.

“They are not full-time students, and they are different from the second generation students in the children’s classes. Although they are interested in learning a new language, they do not seems to remember a lot at the end of a semester. I talked to some of them, they know where their problems at but it’s just not enough time.” (Interview Ms. Zhang, 27 May 2018)

Since the textbook is too difficult for them, plus there is no sufficient time given, the teachers opt for the HSK exercise to at least teach the students something practical by repeating. Apart from HSK, the teachers also use the new words from the fixed textbook but combined with their self-made slides with different themes. This is illustrated by the following quote with Ms. Zhang:

“Every week I will take twenty or more new characters from the textbook and HSK1. I will chose a scene for example, in school or at work, and make some sentences out of these twenty characters. I will send it to them via email before every class and review it during the class. The assignments are also making sentences with the words that we have learned.” (Interview Ms. Zhang, 27 May 2018)

The homework developed by the teachers is also not following the textbook but based on the chosen characters. The main form of homework for adult students is to make sentences and small conversations (see Figure 6.12). The Mandarin in assignment 3 means “What did you do this weekend?” and “What are you planning to do this weekend?”

Figure 6.12: Email of the homework (© Ms. Zhang)

From the above it can be concluded that adult students fall short in reading Chinese characters without Pinyin. Therefore, the teachers chose another way to teach them by listening to HSK and chose easier characters for them to make simple sentences rather than follow the textbook which has no Pinyin to read.

6.2.4 Conclusion

From the results above, it can be seen that different levels of Mandarin proficiency lead to adaptations in the teaching materials that are used. The diversity in proficiency exists not only between classes but also within every class, and teachers have to consider both the overall teaching progress and the students’ competence. For the fourth-grade class, the prescribed textbook for them is seen as dull and naïve. The teachers’ adaption in this class is rather limited, while the students ask for more interesting topics that are close to their real life.

6.3 Culture Education

This section presents the analysis of cultural education in different classes inside the Chinese school. Cultural education refers to the teaching of Chinese culture such as traditional customs, arts and values. As the school’s website states,

“Every language is formed based on their customs and traditions. The communication will get a bit more depth when you also understand their culture.”

It can be seen that the Tilburg Chinese School is not only about teaching a language, but also tries to convey Chinese culture to its students. Based on my observations, this cultural education is implemented in all three classes that I have observed (the fourth-grade class, the first-grade class and the adult class).

However, the perspective of culture education varies between classes based on their different age groups and backgrounds.

This section will first describe the key episodes of perceived cultural education in three classes. Some interview quotes from school management, teachers, students, and parents will be presented as well. Then it will come to a conclusion of the perceived culture education in the Tilburg Chinese School.

6.3.1 The fourth-grade class

The class was on Saturday, 7 April 2018, from 11:45 am to 12:30 pm. It is about a review of the words that the students have learned before. During the class, the teacher Ms. Yin teaches the students the meaning of each word and answers some questions raised by them. The following key episode presents a conversation between the teacher and her students about the Chinese New Year Celebration and some customs during that day.

In the following transcript, the Mandarin parts are all translated in English, some additional remarks are in brackets.

Transcript 6.7: Chinese New Year, fourth grade, 7 April 2018

(Teacher points at the word “paper-cutting”) Teacher: Do you still remember what we did on the Chinese Spring Festival Celebration? Student: We made dumplings and …… Teacher: What’s this? Student: Paper…paper cutting! And we also wrote something. Teacher: What did we use to write? Student: Brush… Teacher: Brush pen! We use brush pen to practice calligraphy. Teacher: Did you also do Tai-Chi during the celebration? Student: Yes! Teacher: The Spring Festival is the New Year in China, remember? The Chinatown in the Netherlands also celebrates it. And what do we do on that day? We paste spring couplets (Spring Festival poetry written on two pieces of paper). Did you do that at home this year? Student: No… but we paste that in the home in China.

The transcript shows that during the teaching process, the teacher gives some additional explanations and asks her students about the Chinese culture activities that they have experienced. The Chinese school has a Chinese New Year Celebration and students participated in it by learning some traditional customs and artworks (see Figure 6.13). The Mandarin characters in the figure mean “Spring Festival Celebration”.

Figure 6.13 Chinese New Year Celebration (retrieved from http://tilburgsechineseschool.nl/en/)

The celebration is not only during the annual celebration, it is also implemented in each class according to the principal. In his words, the third lesson of each class is culture teaching. This is illustrated by the following quote. However, during my observations in the three classes, the third lesson is not about culture teaching specifically.

“Our school is not only about education, but also presents what China now looks like to them. We have three lessons every Saturday, in the last lesson, our teacher will show them some videos about China. For example, the development in China, the festival atmosphere, the customs and some Chinese cartoons with singing and dancing. These little things will tell the next generation that China can be colorful. It’s not like what they have seen before in the TV where Chinese people all wearing blue hats and coats.” (Interview Principal, Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

Since most of the students in this class were born in the Netherlands, they have little knowledge about Chinese culture. The Chinese complementary school provides them another way to experience in-depth Chinese culture from a new perspective that they seldom get at home. This is mostly because their parents have little time to spend with their children, not to mention to teach them traditional Chinese culture in their spare time. The only time they are faced with Chinese culture is when they have time to go back to China. This is illustrated by the following quotes from the parents.

“We have to work very late and do not have enough time to care for these extra things on culture. The Chinese school, I think it is a good way for them to get familiar with our root. Apart from this, they get to know more about China when we go back and visit their grandparents back in China.” (Interview parent 1, 26 May 2018)

6.3.2 The first-grade class

Although explicit culture education was not found during the limited observations in the first grade class, it can still be concluded to exist from interviews with teacher and management.

“For the first-grade class, we will present more contents with Chinese culture in it. We will teach them paper-cutting, writing calligraphy or painting.” (Interview Principal, Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

“Teaching culture is a part of our teaching activities, but for these young students we try not to teach them directly. I will provide them with some stories with Chinese traditional culture in it and see if they are interested. After all, it is all about motivation … And sometimes I will add some simple new words about Chinese culture if the chapter they are learning matches it.” (Interview Ms. Chu, 28 May, 2018)

It can be seen that although the management provides a brief and straight-to-the point answer on culture teaching, the teacher in the first-grade class makes adaptions on it which suits best for her class. Parents of this class also have different views on culture teaching. One of them agrees that some symbolic traditional culture such as calligraphy is too difficult for the children. This is illustrated by the following quote from a parent.

“As long as the children are interested in the culture learning, it is fine. If they have no interests in it and are forced to learn it word by word, they it’s not helping at all. The traditional culture like calligraphy and papercutting is also depends on their own interests. But I think calligraphy is for older children, it’s too hard for younger kids, they can’t even write properly. Handcraft might be better. ” (Interview parent 2, 26 May 2018)

One thing they have in common is that both teacher and parents agree that the level of interest is the first and foremost factor to consider for the first-grade students in culture teaching. And that is why in the section of teaching materials, the teacher uses multiple teaching resources to attract her students.

6.3.3 The adult class

Cultural education in the adult class is more diverse based on student’s interest. The students are mostly curious about the difference between Dutch and Chinese culture. From my observations, it is less related with traditional customs but more connected with the cultural shock which means they would like to learn culture that are completely unfamiliar with their life.

This observation took place on 21 April 2018 from 10 am to 12:45 pm. The basic information of the class has already been mentioned in 6.1.2. The following transcript is about the culture difference on the word “marry” that was taught by the teacher during the class. Since the Language of instruction in this observation is all in English, it will not be in italics, and my remarks are in brackets.

Transcript 6.8: Mandarin lesson, adult class, 21 April 2018

(After reviewing and reading the HSK sample questions, teacher points out some words for the students to remember.) Teacher: “Jie Hun” (the Pinyin of “get married”), as you all know, means get married (see Figure 6.14, 1). But I have a questions for you. In Chinese we use different verbs, when a woman marries a man and when

49 a man marries a woman we use different words to describe it. Do you remember? I mentioned it long long ago. Students: No… Teacher: So when a woman marries a man, we use this: “Jia”. (writes on the whiteboard, see Figure 6.14, 2). It looks like a female and a family (the left and right part of the Mandarin character “嫁” Jia.) It’s a verb, first of all, it means a woman marries a man. Students: (interested and langhing) Teacher: But if a man who marries a woman, we say… Student1: What’s the difference? Teacher: Direction, if I must say. We say Qu (writes on the whiteboard, see Figure 6.14, 3). Student2: But they marry each other, right? Student1: Yes, I… What’s the difference? Teacher: In your language it doesn’t make any sense, but for us it make a difference. Student2: Is the difference who asks the other person into marriage? Teacher: No, the only difference is about from whose side. If it’s from my side, as a woman, you go to a new home. And for the man, you took the woman home. So that’s the difference, it’s about direction. As you can see Qu, on the top it is the Chinese character Qu (The top part of “娶” Qu also pronounces Qu), it means to get or take something. So if a man asks a woman, will you marry me? He should use Jia. And if a woman asks a man, are you willing to marry me? She should use Qu. That’s the difference.

From transcript 6.8 above, it can be seen that the cultural difference in marriage is taught in class as an example of extracurricular knowledge to the students. The Dutch students think marrying is between each other and do not understand the difference between the two verbs as they are unfamiliar with Chinese culture. The teacher then explains to them about the directions of marriage; she uses the parts of the character (the right part of “Jia” means home, the top part of Qu means take) to further explain the cultural implications that are embedded in these two words. The reason why she mentioned the words and culture of marriage is illustrated in the following quote from Ms. Zhou.

“The students shows their interests in learning when I elaborate on something different between eastern and western culture. I think it also helps them remember better because the culture difference will give them a deeper impression.” (Interview Ms. Zhou, 28 April 2018)

The other teacher in the adult class, Ms. Zhang, also mentions that the students are curious and attracted by the cultural differences between China and the Netherlands.

“They are interested in something really different between the two cultures. Culture shock is their favorite. For example, in Dutch when people greet each other they might say “Hi” or “Have you had coffee?” But for Chinese people, we greet each other by saying “Have you eaten yet?” And the students will find it interesting and ask why, I will tell them in Chinese culture eating is important.” (Interview Ms. Zhang, 27 May 2018)

Apart from the cultural difference, according to the principal, teachers will also provide practical usage of Chinese culture such as negotiation strategies and business etiquette for those who do business with Chinese people though I did not observe any of these during my fieldwork.

“For different adult students, we will focus on different directions in cultural teaching. For example some are interested in business and negotiation. If you do business with Chinese, you’ll have to go to the restaurant, and we will teach them how to order food, the etiquettes, etc. We aren’t professionals but we can teach them some basic skills.” (Interview Mr. Xue, 10 March 2018)

6.3.4 Conclusion

As the results indicate above, it can be concluded that teachers in Tilburg Chinese School focus on different perspectives of culture teaching for different groups of students. For the fourth-grade class, they focus on the more traditional aspect of Chinese culture along with some celebrations that reminds the students of their roots to teach culture in a more direct way. For the first-grade class, the teacher emphasize the importance of motivation and combine culture teaching with stories, handcrafts that draw younger students’ attention. The adult class, since the students are all Dutch people, they show interests in learning the culture differences. Some adult students with specific aims like business are taught with practical skills of Chinese culture.

In short, Tilburg Chinese School gives different types of cultural education to its diverse range of students, and the actual teaching process are also adapted by the teachers themselves to suit their students.

7 Conclusions, discussion and recommendations

In this chapter I will first give a summary of the three chapters of results above. Then I will discuss my findings in light of what have already known about this research question and state limitations of my research. At last, some recommendations for Tilburg Chinese School will be provided as an answer of my initial research question.

7.1 Conclusions

In order to understand the discrepancies between top-down policies and bottom-up practices in the Tilburg Chinese School, an ethnographic study has been conducted in the school. From the results presented above, the language policy of the school can be concluded to be using Mandarin as the main language while English and Dutch as auxiliary languages used in documents only. The actual practice through my observations however shows a different interpretation of the policy.

First of all, the language of instruction in the school is different among the three classes that I have observed. In the fourth-grade class, the instruction language is mostly Mandarin with additional Dutch words for explanation. In the first-grade class, the teacher use Mandarin, along with Dutch and Cantonese as additional languages to help with understanding and intrigue the students’ motivation. In the adult class, however, English is used as the main language of instruction. Using Mandarin as the main language policy is not followed by the actual practice in different classes.

Secondly, the teaching materials used in the school are appointed by the policy. However, the specified textbooks are not used by all the teachers. The fourth-grade class uses the textbooks as their main teaching material, but the teacher also provide some additional contents that are related to the Dutch- background students. The first-grade class uses creative activities (singing, dancing, and gaming) and extracurricular materials made by the teacher instead of only following the textbooks. For the adult class, the textbooks are seldom used due to their difficulty level and the teachers create a new way of teaching by using HSK practices and Pinyin.

Lastly, the culture teaching policy in the school has some discrepancies with the practice in my observations. The third lesson, which should be culture education according to the policy, is not perceived as such. The fourth-grade class focuses on traditional culture and has a Chinese New Year celebration to learn customs and arts. The first-grade class teacher does not teach culture specifically but combines culture with other teaching contents. The adult class finally tends to show its students cultural differences and also give them more practical skills of Chinese culture.

Overall, the results show discrepancies between policy and practices in three perspectives: language of instruction, teaching materials and culture teaching. Adaptions were made by the teachers since students have diverse backgrounds, the policy cannot always be followed due to the students’ (lack of) Mandarin proficiency, language background and culture background. These discrepancies fit the theoretical framework in Chapter 2 and reflect the diversity of the students, the use of “languaging” and the complex linguistic situation in complementary schools.

7.2 Discussion

The central research problem is about the discrepancies between top-down policies and bottom-up practices in terms of linguistic diversity within the Tilburg Chinese School. Through the observations, it can be seen that the linguistic diversity among students affects the language of instruction and the teaching materials. The results on culture teaching are unexpected during my observations, but they are also connected with the diversity of students’ background. From these three perspectives, the results from the Tilburg Chinese School provide a comprehensive look on the policy-practice discrepancy of what the students speak (language of instruction), what they read (teaching materials) and what they think (culture education).

The only study I know of that is comparable to my study of the Tilburg Chinese School is Li’s (2016) study of the Chinese School in Eindhoven. In het study she focuses on contemporary identity making process of Chinese-Dutch youth. She describes the object of learning and teaching in the Chinese schools as moving targets – unstable and changing sociolinguistic configurations. The identities and languages are changing constantly in her classrooms. This also applies to Tilburg Chinese School since “languaging” exist in my observations and adaptions were made to convey the knowledge efficiently. For teaching materials, the fourth-grade class or teenage students are bored by the outdated, traditional sense of Chinese contents in the textbooks. This is also mentioned in Li’s study as a clash between Chinese and Dutch values.

The main limitation of my research is the scale of my data collection. The complementary school only has classes on Saturdays, and in view of time constraints I could only observe classes instead of the whole school. The results then may not be applicable for all classes. The second limitation is that the interviews with students are not very detailed. Due to the age of the students in the children’s class, formal interviews like with teachers and management are not available. Therefore I could only ask some very general and simple questions in focus groups. In future research, in-depth interviews with the students and their family members could provide more detailed information.

7.3 Recommendations

Based on the results of my study, there are several recommendations for the Tilburg Chinese School.

First of all I would recommend to develop a written down policy document. The school used to have a policy document but at the time of my observation the existing policies are mainly present in oral form from the management. A policy document will help the school to manage itself in a more consistent way. It will also help new teachers, students and parents to understand how the school works. A linguistic diversity policy would be helpful as the practices from my observations show that a ‘one language only’ policy is not followed by the teacher since students may not fully comprehend the class contents, especially in the adult class. The policy should consider students’ language background and their Mandarin proficiency.

Secondly, a change in the choice of the textbooks is recommended. As teachers mentioned, fourth-grade students find the textbooks boring and obsolete and the adult students find them (too) difficult. It is better for the school to consult with its teachers to choose for better and more up-to-date textbooks that fits the students’ diverse language proficiency and their interests. For example, I suggest the textbook for adult students to have more Dutch and/or English explanations.

Finally, the culture teaching part of the curriculum should consider both traditional and contemporary aspects. For different target groups, a different way of culture teaching should be applied to fit the student’s interest. I therefore suggest the school to listen to the students’ opinions and find out what they think about Chinese culture rather than give them fixed definitions and representations.

It goes without saying that written down policies are never made for eternity. In times of globalization and superdiversity policies will have to be updated on a regular basis in order to prevent them from becoming outdated. On the basis of my research findings, I am convinced however that it is better to have a written down diversity policy than to have none. It gives direction to the school, its management and its teachers and it makes clear to parents and students what to expect.

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Appendix

Interview Script

Interview questions for management members In this part, I ask questions mainly around policy cycle, along with questions concerning diversity issues within the school. For example:  Basic background information such as: gender, age, position in school, first language, home language, generation of immigration, place of origin, etc.

 How would you describe the starting point and aims of this school?

 Have the school met any problems or difficulties regarding language policy-making?

 How are the school policies made and decided? (choosing textbooks, language of instruction, culture teaching, etc.)

 How are the classes divided into different levels and based on what criteria?

 Is there any feedback or evaluation on the language policies once being implemented?

 How would you describe the overall linguistic diversity within this school?

Interview questions for teachers This section focuses on the bottom-up practices of the teachers of how they interpret and realize the policies in their own ways. For example:  Basic background information such as: gender, age, class level, first language, home language, generation of immigration, place of origin, teaching experience, etc.

 Have you participated in the language policy-making process in school?

 What is your opinion on the overall ongoing language policies within this school?

 Have you noticed (encountered with) any issues concerning linguistic diversity within this school?

 How do you handle students with different backgrounds?

 What is your opinion on (choosing textbooks, language of instruction, culture teaching, etc.)?

Interview questions for students This section aims at collecting background information of the students, learning their perspectives on the implemented practices and their opinions on diversity. For example:  Basic background information such as: gender, age, first language, home language, years of learning Chinese, generation of immigration, (grand) parents’ place of origin, etc.

 Why do you choose to learn Chinese? Do you think learning Chinese would be useful for you in the future?

 What do you think of your teacher’s teaching activities?

 Have you noticed any issues concerning linguistic diversity within your class?

Interview questions for parents This part focuses on the opinions of the parents on the Chinese school in general. For example:  Basic background information such as: gender, age, first language, home language, generation of immigration (years living in the Netherlands), place of origin, etc.

 What does it mean to your children to learn Chinese in this school?

 Do you think linguistic diversity in class will help/hinder your children from learning?

 Do you have any advices or recommendations for the school?

 What do you think of culture teaching in Chinese school?