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TEACHING AND LEARNING CHINESE AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE, Janet Zhiqun Xing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2007

Shaofeng Li
Shaofeng Li
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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TEACHING AND LEARNING CHINESE AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. Janet Zhiqun Xing. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006. Pp. x + 323. $49.50 cloth, $24.95 paper.

With the rapid increase in the number of people who are interested in learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL), the demand has grown for research and knowledge on how to effectively teach and learn a language that appears intimidating to speakers of alphabetic languages. Xing's volume is the first attempt in English to comprehensively address CFL pedagogical and acquisition issues. An experienced language teacher and researcher, the author makes her work a valuable resource for Chinese language professionals and learners by integrating theoretical principles into the practice of teaching and learning Chinese.

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Type
BOOK NOTICES
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 2007 , pp. 637 - 638
Copyright
© 2007 Cambridge University Press

With the rapid increase in the number of people who are interested in learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL), the demand has grown for research and knowledge on how to effectively teach and learn a language that appears intimidating to speakers of alphabetic languages. Xing's volume is the first attempt in English to comprehensively address CFL pedagogical and acquisition issues. An experienced language teacher and researcher, the author makes her work a valuable resource for Chinese language professionals and learners by integrating theoretical principles into the practice of teaching and learning Chinese.

Opening with a discussion of general issues, the author devotes the first chapter to an overview of current foreign language teaching and learning theories and explores how they relate to CFL. The second chapter considers the content of a pedagogical grammar of Chinese, and the third chapter discusses models of CFL teaching methodology. Chapters 4–8, which make up the bulk of the volume, investigate more specific issues, each focusing on one aspect of the Chinese language: pronunciation, characters, sentences, discourse, and culture. The final chapter informs the reader of resources for teaching and learning Chinese and points to directions for future research.

The most praiseworthy aspect of the volume is its comprehensiveness: It covers nearly everything that is needed for effective CFL teaching and learning. The author presents a holistic view of CFL teaching and learning at the outset and then splits the language into its constituent components. Each of the topic chapters provides the preliminary information about the area in question (e.g., about the evolution and structure of Chinese characters in chapter 5), reviews the related literature, analyzes typical difficulties and potential problems that might arise in teaching and learning, and makes concrete suggestions for corresponding teaching and learning strategies.

I recommend this work as an informative handbook for CFL educators and learners.