Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) education and global citizenship: pedagogical encounters and endangered spaces of possibility

ABSTRACT

Within the field of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) teaching, there has been limited engagement with Global Citizenship Education (GCE). The politicisation of CFL education in today’s diverse and multilingual Australian classroom remains a significant cause for concern as it endangers spaces of pedagogic possibility. Drawing upon data from an Australian primary CFL classroom we consider how pedagogic practices speak to Freire’s conceptualisation of ‘dialogic practice’ and ‘critical consciousness’ and how such approaches open up pedagogical encounters and opportunities for disadvantaged students to become informed global citizens. We explore how students came to recognise themselves as culturally sensitive learners and aware of the future demands of global citizenship through dialogues with their Chinese peers via video conferencing and letters. Through focusing on these pedagogic vignettes of integrating GCE into CFL teaching practice, we present an argument for a more dynamic view of CFL education where pedagogic approaches foreground interconnectedness and diversity.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) education
• global citizenship education (GCE)
• dialogic practices
• critical consciousness
• intercultural teaching and learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Peak Discipline Construction Project of Education at East China Normal University.