An exploration of student-centred approaches to making Chinese learnable for beginner learners in Australian schools : a bilingual teacher action research project

Abstract

This thesis reports an exploration into student-centred approaches to making Chinese learnable for beginning learners in Australian schools, specifically in the Western Sydney Region (WSR). The teacher-researcher was a bilingual volunteer teacher from mainland China who was a participant in the Research Oriented School Engaged Teacher Education (ROSETE) program whereby the students study their own teaching practice as the basis for their thesis. The research question devised to study the teaching assignment was: How can a bilingual volunteer teacher-researcher use action research to develop a student-centred teaching framework to make Chinese learnable to beginning learners in western Sydney schools? The three contributory questions were: 1. How can a bilingual volunteer teacher/ teacher-researcher develop a series of student-centred content, learning materials and resources to support the design of the lessons? 2. How can a bilingual volunteer teacher/ teacher-researcher develop a series of student-centred teaching strategies? 3. How can a bilingual volunteer teacher/ teacher-researcher develop a series of student-centred classroom management practices? The methodology chosen for this research was mixed methods, although the majority of the data collected was qualitative. The findings drawn from the data collected have provided a database of successful student-centred methods related to choosing lesson content, materials and resources, teaching pedagogies and behaviour management for implementation in a student-centred Chinese language classroom.

Date of Award	2016
Original language	English