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Within a multi-cultural society, it is important to understand the effect of 'when culture meets culture'. This study uses the British Chinese schools, where Chinese is taught as a heritage language, as an example to explore the culture of learning when there is a meeting of British and Chinese cultures. The study hypothesises that under the situation of learning heritage language the students are learning more than the heritage cultural content, they are also learning about the 'culture of learning'. The study attempts to present an integrated account of the complex factors which contribute to the development of distinctive cultures of teaching and learning in these schools. It applies multiple methods in data collection, including a teacher questionnaire, followed by classroom observations and interviews with the teachers and some of their students. The students' learning strategies were also explored, using the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning developed by Oxford, to add dimensions to the findings. To analyse elements in the research context, an Ecology Model of Learning Cultures is proposed which extends from the concept developed by Bronfenbrenner in his ecology model of cognitive development. The study identifies several distinctive issues from the research context, including particular types of activities used in the classrooms, mixed-age/ability groups of children, distinctive roles of texts and textbooks, of the teachers and students, of the community schools, and the Chinese families. By using the analogy of 'microcultures' for each of the identified issue, the study intends to provide a better reflection of the complex nature of the culture of the UK Chinese schools than can be provided by the idea of an encounter between monolithic cultures of learning.

The L2 acquisition of Chinese aspect markers has been investigated by many researchers (Sun, D. 1993; Zhao, L. 1996; Wen, X. 1997; Teng, S. 1999; Li, D. and Duff 1998, Duff and Li, D. 2002; Jin, L. and Hendriks 2005; Ma, L. 2006). Their studies show two main findings, one is the acquisition order of the aspect markers, and the other is the accuracy in using the aspect markers. Among those, only Duff and Li, D. (2002) mentioned the effect of teaching on the accuracy of using Chinese aspect. However, it is unknown what impacts teaching methods/approaches could have on learners’ use of the aspect markers. This thesis aims to contribute to filling that gap. It explores whether a specific teaching framework assists the learning of Chinese aspect markers by L2 learners. We designed a session of Chinese aspect following the acquisition order of the Chinese aspect markers suggested by previous studies. The session was delivered to two groups of beginner level learners in a UK university using different teaching approaches. One is the Grammar-Translation approach, which focuses on learning of aspectual forms, and the other is a communicative approach, which focuses on comprehension. The learners took a pre-test assessing their general knowledge of Chinese, an immediate test after the teaching session on aspect to compare the immediate impact of teaching approaches, and a post-test after two months to trace the lasting effect the teaching approaches. The results show that the Grammar-Translation approach leads to better accuracy levels than communicative approach in using aspects in grammatical tasks, whereas the communicative approach does not necessarily lead to learners’ better use of aspect than the grammar-translation approach in comprehension tasks.

Alphabetic Pinyin and morphosyllabic Hanzi are two different writing systems used in the Chinese language. Though Pinyin and Hanzi utilize different orthographies, the development of literacy skills in both writing systems depends on phonological processing skills. Becoming aware of the phonological structure in Chinese and the orthographic structure in Hanzi are crucial for the growth of literacy skills in Pinyin and Hanzi. The present study investigated the influence of L1 background and other meta-linguistic and background variables on Chinese phonological awareness, phonetic radical awareness, Pinyin spelling, Hanzi reading and Hanzi writing among adult Arabic and English CSL learners. There are five important findings from this study. First, L1 background influenced the performance in Chinese phonological awareness and Pinyin spelling, in which the English participants outperformed the Arabic participants arguably due to the greater similarities in phonology and orthography between English and Pinyin. Second, the Arabic participants’ better achievements in Hanzi writing compared to the English participants might originate from their experience in using the Arabic script and in learning two different scripts. Third, the two CSL groups did not differ in phonetic radical awareness or Hanzi reading, probably due to the unique characteristics of Hanzi orthography and the far distance between Arabic, English and Hanzi. Fourth, L1 background influenced the importance of phonological awareness and phonetic radical awareness in developing Chinese literacy skills, which might relate to the different orthographies used in English and Arabic, as well as the learning contexts. Fifth, Chinese language proficiency, the length of staying in China, the number of languages previously learnt, phonological working memory and phonetic coding ability significantly predicted the Arabic and English CSL learners’ performance in these measures. Theoretical implications for understanding the role of L1 transfer in L2 literacy acquisition, and educational implications for teaching Chinese as a second language were discussed.

This study focuses on identity and interculturality in the context of globalization. It explores the work and living experiences of Confucius Institute Chinese teachers (CICTs) in the UK through their accounts and reflection. Because of their betwixt and between situation, the CICTs’ stories differ from those of immigrants, international students and pre-service student teachers, who have been the main focus in L2 identity research. This Ph.D. research project was undertaken from August 2013 to July 2014 with a cohort of CICTs working in Britain. The focus is on exploring the way CICTs interpret and make sense of their sojourning experience, and how this context and the wider globalised social environment have impacted on their understandings and their personal growth. Underpinned by Bourdieu’s notions of habitus, field and capital, Byram’s notion of “intercultural mediator” and Kramsch’s “symbolic competence”, this study employs an explorative approach, and draws on interviews with four CI directors, two focus group discussions with eight CICTs and three longitudinal case studies of CICTs’ weblogs, to understand the emergence, formation and growth of CICTs’ identity. The findings indicate that the teaching abroad experience improved symbolic competence and had a positive impact on CICTs. Being uprooted to an Anglophone context and positioned as foreigners, with limited understanding of English language and culture, CICTs strived for successful professional adjustment. By actively exercising agency and resilience, they eventually stepped out of ethnocentrism to become educators with world perspectives. This study draws attention to some weaknesses of the CI program and offers suggestions for CI stakeholders as well as those responsible for future international exchange programmes. It highlights the complexity of identity and agency, shedding light on ways of improving cross-cultural communication competence in the classroom and beyond in the era of globalization.

Chinese measure words (CMW) are obligatorily used between numerals/demonstratives and nouns/verbs to count the items and actions. Comparing with Chinese, strictly speaking, there are no measure words in English. This cross lingual difference causes difficulties in the English native speakers’ application of CMW when learning Chinese as a second language according to Lado‘s (1957) Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH), i.e. the language elements that are different from learners’ native language will be difficult for them. This study adopted an empirical study to find out how L2 learners’ application of CMW is and what the problems are. Before the empirical study, a new categorisation was generated based on the existing studies on CMW categories, and a comparative study was carried out to underpin the study. A questionnaire and a proficiency test were adopted to gather information about the participants of the empirical study. A CMW test was designed to collect data on the English native speakers’ application of different CMW categories and usages. The results of the empirical study suggested that CMW are difficult for the English native speakers who are learning Chinese as a second language. The results also indicated that even though English native speakers have difficulties in the application of most of the CMW categories, some are easier than others. The English native speakers are better at weights and measures, collective nominal measure words and container measure words than standard verbal measure words, borrowed verbal measure words, individual nominal measure words and temporary nominal measure words. Although the cross lingual difference between Chinese and English count for the difficulties, the complexity of some CMW is also the reason. After revealing the difficulties in the English native speakers’ difficulties, some suggestions on teaching CMW in second language learning and application were tentatively proposed.

This study investigates how the two pragmatic markers 'I mean' and 'you know' are used by Chinese EFL learners as compared to British speakers. To describe how these two markers by used by the Chinese learners, this study first investigates how they are used in the British speakers’ data. To obtain a finer picture of how they are used by the native speakers, the interpretation of their pragmatic meanings is open to all plausible explanations instead of being confined to one single theory or framework. As a result, this study sets up its own categories and comes up with much longer function lists than previous studies. In addition, a new framework is proposed. Following the completion of a detailed description of the pragmatic functions of I mean and you know, a detailed and systemic comparison between them in terms of the specific functions they play and their positioning are carried out on the grounds that these two markers are analyzed by following the same approach in the same data set. By highlighting the similarities and differences between them and explaining why, the comparison improves our understanding how they relate to each other in conversation. Compared to the British speakers, the Chinese learners show different patterns of I mean and you know in their L2 English. The main features of the learners’ uses of I mean and you know are: firstly, I mean is markedly under-represented and less pragmatized while you know is markedly over-represented and more pragmatized; secondly, both I mean and you know are used in more restricted contexts; finally, the pragmatic functions of I mean are more evenly distributed while you know heavily depends on a very small number of functions. Since I mean and you know are very unlikely to be taught in the classroom, the accounting for the patterns of them in the learners’ data is approached from the perspective of second language acquisition. This study follows the assumption that learners’ L2 production can be seen as the result of the interaction of all potential factors and the importance of a certain factor varies from one L2 phenomenon to another. The analysis seems to suggest that the learners’ uses of I mean are greatly influenced by the congruence between the pragmatic meaning and semantic meaning of I mean while the learners’ uses of you know are mainly affected by L1 influence. Other factors that seem to have impact on the production of both markers include the tasks performed by the learners and the learners’ proficiency level.

This study investigated the beliefs of beginner learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) and also their teachers‘ beliefs, about the difficulties presented by Chinese learning and teaching, and how learners overcame the difficulties they encountered. The study compared beliefs of teachers and pupils who had different levels of experience in the context of English secondary schools. The relationship between beliefs and an individual‘s background and experience was also explored. The study was situated in a pragmatic paradigm, using a mixed method, including both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. 443 pupils and 42 teachers in over a dozen schools responded to a Likert-scale questionnaire. 68 pupils (34 individuals and 13 groups) and 13 teachers in seven schools shared their views in interviews. Many interesting findings were revealed in this study. Surprisingly, pupils thought tones and characters were ―tricky‖ to learn, but not impossible, whereas teachers thought pupils did not pay attention to tones and underestimated the difficulty of learning characters. Teachers tended to support communicative language teaching (CLT) orientations but showed somewhat inconsistent patterns between their beliefs about CLT and their teaching approaches. The learning of writing rules were concerns of teachers and pupils, indicating they believed there was some value in non-communicative learning orientation. Pupils also showed their enthusiasm for learning character, and overwhelmingly believed that, in order to make good progress in Chinese learning, they should put effort into learning characters. Some of these findings relate to particular aspects of Chinese learning such as tones and characters. However, other findings are unrelated to the language demands of Chinese and suggest that the practices of learning Chinese have a particular impact on the views of learners about who can learn Chinese and what it takes to be successful. In addition, with regard to language teaching, first language (L1) and second language (L2) Chinese teachers pointed out that the issue of students behaviour is a universal phenomenon regardless of culture or country. These findings challenge the stereotypical expectations of L1 Chinese teachers and pupils‘ performance in English schools. I suggest that these beliefs may be empowering for language learners in an English context.