Background of the study

This section focuses on the theoretical background of this study and discusses three points: 1) globalisation and the significance of foreign language (FL) teaching and learning; 2) the global spread of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) and the challenges thereof; 3) learner motivation and the teaching and learning method.

1.1.1. GLOBALISATION AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

FL teaching and learning has new meaning and significance in this globalised age.

In our current era, increasing globalisation is changing the world by shrinking space and time and eliminating borders (The United Nations Development Programme, 1999). The economic and cultural lives of people from all over the world are more intensely and more instantly linked than ever before. This has created a significant need for intercultural communication in multiple languages (Kumaravadivelu, 2008). As a result, the uses of common languages has become more and more important in areas such as international trade, tourism, international relations, technology, media and science.

Consequently, more and more people have perceived the need to learn FLs for work/study purposes, international communication in different areas, integrating oneself into a new culture, strengthening one’s own cultural identity or simply for self-improvement. Additionally, many regions or countries have also realised the significance of FL education and have thus developed FL teaching and learning for social, economic and political purposes (Kramsch, 1991; Byram, 2008). In Europe, the European Commission has recommended that European citizens communicate in at least two other languages (mother tongue plus two FLs) used by countries in the European Union in order to guarantee social cohesion and integration among its members (Council of Europe, 1982, 1998, 2006). In Denmark, where this study was conducted, the role of FL is highlighted as a key factor for becoming more international and producing globally competent professionals (The Taskforce for Foreign Languages, 2011). In the US, FL skills are considered a critical need for national security and competitiveness in the globalised world (U.S. Department of Education, 2006). In Asia, FL learning, especially English as FL teaching and learning, has been promoted with great effort by Japan, China, South Korea, etc., in order to ensure that their people can take part in international communities and in

the economic activities of an increasingly globalised world (Chan, Chin, &

Suthiwan, 2011). Thus, there are now more and more opportunities for people to learn FLs in formal education than ever.

1.1.2. THE GLOBAL SPREAD OF CHINESE AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND THE CHALLENGES THEREOF

Globalisation has also influenced the way FLs are viewed and valued by learners or institutions. There is no denying that English is the single most important FL in many countries today. Six other languages (English, German, French, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish) are often ranked among the top languages according to their relative economic strength (Graddol, 2000). Along with China’s rapid economic growth and increasing international influence, Chinese, as one of these languages, is assuming an increasingly powerful role in the world (Svartvik & Leech, 2006). A growing number of people around the world are beginning to acquire CFL (Wang, 2014), and the teaching of Chinese has been rapidly expanded and promoted in many countries (Tsung & Cruickshank, 2011). The process of CFL teaching and learning has also been actively promoted by the Chinese government via the establishment of Confucius Institutes all over the world, the primary objective of which is to teach CFL and promote Chinese culture.

Despite the increasing number of CFL students and curricula, the teaching and learning of CFL faces challenges such as difficulty in sustaining learner motivation (Du & Kirkebæk, 2012) and low student retention or high attrition rates (Wen, 1997; Orton, 2011). These challenges may be related to the fact that Chinese is a less commonly taught language (Wen, 1997), to the difficulties of learning the Chinese language for speakers of Indo-European languages (Wen, 1997; Wang, 2014) or to the comparatively underdeveloped pedagogy for Chinese (Orton, 2011).

First, Chinese has been regarded as a less commonly taught language in the United States and many other Indo-European language countries (e.g., Denmark) compared to widely taught FLs like English, French and Spanish (Wen, 1997; Wang, 2014).

According to Samimy and Tabuse (1992), learning such a language can produce strong negative affective reactions from students, which may hinder their learning motivation. Second, the difficulty level of learning the Chinese language may decrease learner motivation, thus leading to low student retention in institutions.

This is mainly because students have to face new challenges in mastering the four tones, the complicated scripts and the different syntactic structure when learning Chinese (Wen, 1997; Wang, 2014). Thirdly, the comparatively underdeveloped pedagogy for Chinese has become one of the main factors relating to high attrition rates (Orton, 2008, 2011). According to Orton, theoretically sound and innovative approaches are still not available, particularly for the learning challenges of the Chinese language and culture for the speakers of Indo-European languages.

Without the support of sound pedagogy, students may be discouraged by their lack of progress and decide to quit.

Orton has mainly used the word pedagogy to refer to the detailed techniques teachers use to teach specific Chinese language elements, such as tones or Chinese characters (scripts). However, in my understanding, pedagogy can also refer to general teaching approaches. I agree with Orton’s assertion that it is important to promote “concerted, sound and innovative development in pedagogy for Chinese and in education of teachers of Chinese” (Orton, 2008, p. 6). Besides this, I also consider it important to explore and develop culturally attuned/accepted teaching methods for the teaching and learning of the Chinese language and culture in various contexts, especially when more and more Chinese teachers are beginning to teach Chinese in various foreign (i.e., Western) contexts, and when the prevalent style in the field of CFL teaching and learning remains conservative (teacher-centred and grammar-oriented) (Ning, 2001; Zhao, 2010) in spite of student-(teacher-centred approaches being more commonly used in Western contexts. All of these challenges have strengthened the call for a research agenda focused on learner motivation and pedagogy development in CFL teaching and learning.

1.1.3. LEARNER MOTIVATION AND THE TEACHING AND LEARNING METHOD

In the studies by Orton (2011), learner motivation is not directly related to the pedagogical weakness in Chinese teaching and learning. However, through the descriptions of student dissatisfaction with their progress/achievement, and their subsequent decisions to quit Chinese learning, it can be easily observed that there is a connection between pedagogical weakness and decreased learner motivation. In practice, teachers seldom directly relate learners’ lack of motivation to their teaching methods/styles (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011), but they should, as it has been demonstrated that teaching and learning methods can indeed influence learner motivation in a classroom setting (Gardner, 2010; Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011), and learner motivation may be negatively impacted when teachers’ teaching methods/styles are different from learners’ preferred learning methods/styles (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011; Kirkebæk, 2012; Paper 1, 2012, see Appendix A).

Highlighting the context issue, Lu and Zhao (2011) suggest developing appropriate pedagogies, curricula and assessments for the range of contexts in which the teaching occurs. In a Danish context, where group and project work are widely used in the educational system (Egekvist, 2012), Kirkebæk (2012) and I (Paper 1, 2012) have each found that the uses of a traditional PPP approach (presentation, practice, production: see details in section 3.3.2.) coupled with lectures may have lowered students’ motivation to learn Chinese language and culture in some teaching units.

Thus, it is important to look into how teaching methods influence learner motivation and how we can use that knowledge to motivate the students to learn, especially in a context where motivating students is of paramount importance, as is the case in this study.

It has been widely acknowledged that learner motivation plays an important role in FL teaching, and in learning in general. Research on learner motivation has mainly focused on second language acquisition in the teaching and learning of Western languages. Only recently has the range of research broadened to the teaching and learning of non-Western languages as FLs, including CFL (Wen, 1997; Yu &

Watkins, 2008; Cai & Zhu, 2012). Through the process of investigating learner motivation, several researchers have studied the connection between teaching activities (e.g., an online learning project, learning tasks or the use of motivational strategies) and learner motivation (Cai & Zhu, 2012; Julkunen, 2001; Cheng &

Dörnyei, 2007). However, only a limited number of studies have addressed the issue of the influence of specific teaching and learning methods (e.g., student-centred methods) on learner motivation in an intercultural context (the teacher and the students are from different cultures), and how students are motivated by course designs that use these methods. This is what this study will explore.

1.2. RESEARCH PURPOSES AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS