Developing Teacher Cognition on Culture and Teaching Culture in a Chinese Class

Abstract

This study examined how Chinese language teachers, through profound reflective practice in a national professional workshop, developed their teacher cognition of culture and teaching culture in a Chinese language class. Results showed that despite the teacher participants’ varied teaching experiences and prior knowledge in this area, in-depth reflective practice compelled their perceptions of culture to be more dimensional, fluid and relative. They also planned to shift their pedagogy from imposing culture knowledge as an addition, to instilling culture in language classrooms through a collective inquiry. For less commonly taught languages such as Chinese, such research is scarce yet desirable as it not only explores connections between teachers’ personal experience with teaching practice, but also offers implications to future teacher training programs.

Keywords

• teacher cognition
• reflection
• chinese language and culture
• teacher education