A Comparative Study on the Curriculum in the Community-Based Chinese Heritage Language (CHL) Schools and Dual Language Immersion (DLI) Program

This chapter compares and contrasts the curriculum, pedagogy, instructional materials, and extracurricular activities in a community-based CHL school and a Chinese-English DLI program in a southeast state of the US to discern how each is promoting Chinese immigrant children's heritage language and cultural learning. The author also explored how each school was supported by the local community. The result of this study indicates that the curriculum of the community-based CHL school was more focusing on teaching heritage culture as well as the reading and writing of Chinese words. In the Chinese-English DLI program, its cultural study curriculum in the social studies classes was more focused on the US citizenship education. However, in the social studies classes, teachers in the DLI program were able to integrate more Chinese literacy learning activities into the subject content instruction.

Attitudes of Chinese Immigrant Parents to the Heritage Language Maintenance Have Positively Affected Their Children’s Chinese Learning in the United States

This study explores the relationship between Chinese parents' language background and their children's performance of learning Chinese language in the United States. Since an increasing number of Chinese immigrant families brought their children to the Chinese language school, bilingual education in those kinds of families has raised specific notice recently. In this study, data collection included surveys, audio-taped interviews, observations, and students' Chinese language test scores. Those participants were divided into two groups, the students took the children's self-satisfaction questionnaire, and the parents took the demographic survey separately. Besides, the content of audio-taped interviews was transcribed as statistical variances to find and identify patterns of the results. Those three research questions need to be answered in this study: 1. What are the attitudes and actions of those Chinese immigrant parents who do have regard to their Children's Chinese language and literacy learning? 2. Why do some parents feel challenged to maintain Chinese in the home and face the intense pressure of English usage outside society? 3. Is there any connection between Chinese heritage language proficiency and self-efficacy in learning? After the study, the results showed a positive relationship between Chinese heritage language proficiency and students' self-esteem. Parents who were most insistent on using Chinese in the home were most successful in maintaining their children's Chinese, and they also got a better score on the Chinese language tests.

Chinese as a Cultural Capital: The Case Study of Chinese Heritage Language Learners

Chinese language education in Indonesia is closely related to the social, political, and cultural dimensions of the country. The change of power in the country in 1998 affected the development of Chinese language. Since the ban imposed on Chinese language and culture since 1965 was lifted, there have been an increasing number of Chinese language schools. Under the theoretical frameworks of Gardner’s motivational orientations and Bourdieu’s cultural capital, this study explored varied motivations of Chinese Indonesians to learn Chinese, and how their perception of China influenced their efforts in learning the language. Data were obtained through focus group discussions and interviews. The findings showed that integrative and instrumental orientations were found among participants, but due to the learners’ social milieu, instrumentality of Chinese dominated their orientations. The instrumentality of Chinese and the positive perception of China worked together to make Chinese language as a cultural capital for these CHL learners.

A Comparative Study on the Curriculum in the Community-Based Chinese Heritage Language (CHL) Schools and Dual Language Immersion (DLI) Program

This chapter compares and contrasts the curriculum, pedagogy, instructional materials, and extracurricular activities in a community-based CHL school and a Chinese-English DLI program in a southeast state of the US to discern how each is promoting Chinese immigrant children's heritage language and cultural learning. The author also explored how each school was supported by the local community. The result of this study indicates that the curriculum of the community-based CHL school was more focusing on teaching heritage culture as well as the reading and writing of Chinese words. In the Chinese-English DLI program, its cultural study curriculum in the social studies classes was more focused on the US citizenship education. However, in the social studies classes, teachers in the DLI program were able to integrate more Chinese literacy learning activities into the subject content instruction.