Negotiating Intracultural Teaching in Canada: Chinese-Heritage Language Teachers’ Cognition and Practices

• In Event: Bilingual/Heritage Language Education of Asian Languages

Abstract

Much existing research has focused on Chinese heritage language teachers’ intercultural competence, but little is known about how these teachers recognize, know, and negotiate with intracultural and linguistic differences among learners from similar cultural backgrounds. Informed by theory of language teacher cognition, this qualitative analysis uncovered 8 Chinese heritage language teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about students with diverse sub-Chinese linguistic and cultural backgrounds and how their cognition of these intracultural differences influenced their instructional practices. Findings indicated that CHL teachers showed a keen awareness of multifaceted intracultural differences among their students and actively adjusted their teaching practices to address these differences. Our study suggests that teacher cognition of intracultural differences among learners can significantly improve heritage language teachers’ pedagogical practices.

Authors

• Guofang Li, University of British Columbia

• Zhen Lin, University of British Columbia

• Senyao Shen, University of British Columbia