Moving beyond ‘intercultural competence’: interculturality in the learning of Mandarin in UK universities

Abstract

is the founding president of the Chinese Educational Research Association in the UK. She was a Chinese language teacher for four years in China after she obtained her first degree in Chinese language and literature. She pursued her MA in International Education at the University of Leicester. She completed her PhD as a Centenary Scholar at UCL Institute of Education. Her research specialises in intercultural education, specifically in relation to the teaching and learning of Chinese. She has published several articles and book chapters on Chinese language education and teachers' professional development, and has co-edited books and a journal special issue which address issues and developments in Chinese educational research.

Chinese Self, Australian Other: Chinese as a Foreign Language Teacher Identity Construction in Australian Contexts

“…T1 and T3 target class teachers’ fluency and accent, which cause them distress and hopelessness. T1 wonders how he can be as “native” as class teachers with “perfect English,” while T3 thinks she “just cannot do it.” T2 focuses on what he needs for particular purposes and improves his English through “copying what they say and adapting to what I need.” He finds the class teachers’ English was “not hard in vocabulary or grammar,” so he takes notes and prepares his Chinese lessons with them, and “it helped a lot.” This reflects CFL teachers’ growth-mindset for improvement and intercultural sensitivity to discern where and how to improve ( Jin, 2017 ; Dweck and Yeager, 2019 ). Therefore, it is safe to say that setting an achievable target in “me” is important for the establishment of the teacher identity of CFL teachers.…”

“…He finds the class teachers' English was "not hard in vocabulary or grammar, " so he takes notes and prepares his Chinese lessons with them, and "it helped a lot." This reflects CFL teachers' growth-mindset for improvement and intercultural sensitivity to discern where and how to improve (Jin, 2017;Dweck and Yeager, 2019). Therefore, it is safe to say that setting an achievable target in "me" is important for the establishment of the teacher identity of CFL teachers.…”

An Investigation of the Experiences of Working with Multilingual International Students among Local Students and Faculty Members in Chinese Universities

“…Cultural adaptation theories focus on how international students reorient themselves to the cultures of host countries to achieve acculturation, while intercultural competence theories stress the roles of cognitive, affective and behavioral skills in effectively and appropriately communicating with host nationals. Some recent studies [19,28] have placed a greater focus on interculturality, i.e., international students' sensitivity and understanding in cultural encounters, rather than merely on adapting to other cultures.…”

“…For these reasons, this paper adopts a socio-constructivist perspective and has focused on the experiences, perceptions and viewpoints of the local students and supervisors that international students meet and learn alongside, rather than merely stressing the primary roles of the defined and distinct cultures existing in their working environment. In doing this, local students and supervisors are viewed from the perspective of interculturality, as "a fluid process of being and becoming as well as describing an existing context and situation" [19] (pp. 309).…”

Identifying and Contextualising the Key Issues

“…In her study, the researchers themselves were the research participants and their (auto)biographical accounts of learning Chinese and issues about identities, ideology, and narrativity were discussed. Although there exists a limited number of studies focusing on the 'intercultural' approach in teaching and learning Chinese, andJin (2014) have shed light on the intercultural competence of university leaners Jin (2016). argues that approaches to teaching and learning Mandarin need to be more rooted in biographical, social and cultural understandings of learners' identities.…”