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Teaching Chinese to English-speaking bilinguals
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Type
Book chapter
Citation
Goh, Y. S., & Lim, S. L. (2016). Teaching Chinese to English-speaking bilinguals. In R. E. Silver & W. D. Bokhorst-Heng (Eds.), Quadrilingual education in Singapore: Pedagogical innovation in language education (pp. 291-304). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-967-7_17
Abstract
This chapter offers an in-depth discussion on the pedagogical challenges of and solutions to teaching Chinese to English-speaking bilinguals in Singapore in response to an evolving sociolinguistic profile of primary school students studying Chinese. An analysis of the positioning of Singapore within the paradigm of three concentric circles of global Chinese and the emergence of a gradual shift in learner profile from the Outer Circle to the Expanding Circle is offered, laying the ground for the need to develop a new pedagogical model, the bilingual approach (BA) to the teaching of Chinese, for teaching Chinese to a new generation of young beginning learners. The main features of BA are discussed, highlighting the important scaffolding role that the learners’ dominant language plays at the elementary stage of learning an additional language.
Date Issued
2016
ISBN
9789812879653 (print)
9789812879677 (online)
Publisher
Springer
Series
Education Innovation Series