Chinese teachers or teachers of Chinese? A qualitative case study on the construction of the identity of native and non-native speaker teachers of Chinese as a foreign language in Malta

Abstract

The terms native and non-native speaker are widely used in the field of foreign language teaching practice and in scholarly literature even though the meaning of such terms is unclear and debatable. This thesis considers nativeness from the point of view of identity, that is fluid and whose construction is generally thought to be influenced by several factors such as the language or languages one acquires naturally during childhood and place of birth among others. Since this thesis is about the construction of the identity of native and non-native speaker teachers of Chinese, this thesis also discusses the term ‘Chinese’. The term Chinese encompasses a vast linguistic diversity of dialects, some of which are even classified by some linguists as distinct languages due to a lack of mutual intelligibility. In view of the linguistic diversity that the term Chinese entails and theory on identity as fluid and socially constructed, this thesis finds out how the participants within the boundary of this case study perceive the identity of native and non-native speaker teachers of Chinese in Malta to be constructed.
This thesis presents a case study conducted in academic year 2020/2021 and qualitative data is collected through two research instruments, interview and lesson observations. The aim of this case study research is to present a particular instance within a particular boundary, the boundary of the case study presented in this thesis is the bachelor’s programme in Chinese at the University of Malta
iii
in 2020/2021, a very particular time when all teaching was held online due to the Covid-19 pandemic, making this study a contribution to literature on teaching during the pandemic.
After analysing the data collected from the interviews, it could be concluded that the general perception of the participants is that a native speaker is one who acquired Chinese (or any other language) within one’s immediate family since birth and throughout early childhood. While the participants’ perceptions are quite common and at face value could be a contribution to a definition of the term ‘native’ speaker, upon closer consideration and in view of the literature reviewed, such perceptions are just common simplistic perceptions and do not lead to any clear definitions of the term ‘native speaker’ as the matter is far more complex. In view of this, the thesis presents the participants’ perceptions and concludes that while such perceptions might be common, they are just perceptions and cannot be generalised to lead to any definitions.
After the findings on the participants’ perceptions on factors that contribute to the construction of the identity of the so-called ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ speaker teachers of Chinese, the thesis moves on to describe and to analyse how the identity of the so-called ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ speaker teachers are manifested in their classroom practice. Several differences were noticed, mainly resulting from the teachers’ cultural backgrounds, training, expectations and experience. Several similarities in classroom practice were also observed in the teaching methods used by teachers. Even though the communicative approach is the official approach that language teachers in Malta are required to use, both the so-called ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ teachers deviate from this approach at times and employ a mix of other approaches. This suggests that for the case of Chinese in Malta, the prescription of only the communicative approach might not be as effective, but rather a mix of approaches is used.
This thesis is a contribution to the teaching of Chinese in Malta as it describes how it was being taught within the boundaries of the case. It concludes that a more localised approach that takes into consideration several methods is needed. Also, this thesis concludes that while there are general perceptions of factors that contribute to the construction of the identity of the so-called ‘native’ speaker, a clear definition of the term is not needed as terms that refer to a person’s level of proficiency in a language (irrelevant of when and how it was acquired) are more reflective of a person’s proficiency as they are very often a result of measurable examination and certification.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Ying Zheng: orcid.org/0000-0003-2574-0358

Catalogue record

Export record