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McAloonPatrickOwenRobert2003 kc.pdf (3.82 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

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The Evolution of Institutional Definitions of Advanced Skills in Chinese Language Pedagogy

McAloon, Patrick Owen Robert
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392908597

Abstract Details

2003, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, East Asian Languages and Literatures.
Ever since Americans began to teach Chinese as a foreign language, the ultimate goal of language study changed with the needs of the time. In the 19th Century, missionaries learned Chinese in order to translate the Bible and spread the Word to the Chinese people. In the mid-20th Century, many Americans learned Chinese in order to fight alongside Chinese people against the Japanese. During the Cold War, with most of China off-limits to American travel, the study of Chinese turned to philology and literature. Since the opening of China in 1979, American Chinese language needs have grown dramatically, and in all fields of endeavor, including academia, business, and government. The question is, have our goals and standards changed to keep up with the times? For the past 15 years, the formal standards of ability in foreign language study have been the government’s Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scales and their academic cousin, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Proficiency Guidelines. Tracing their descriptions of advanced skills, we begin to see a discrepancy between these standards and a market-based definition of advanced Chinese skills in the 21st Century. Today’s end-users of language study need individuals with expert, domain-specific ability to perform in the target culture, something at which the ILR scales only hint and which the ACTFL Guidelines indicate is beyond the scope of American educators’ abilities to produce. By analyzing end users of language study, we find that professional-level foreign language use occurs in domains with their own subcultures and ways of communicating. Looking at the domain of business, we see how professional-level foreign language skill is composed of job-specific declarative and procedural knowledge of the target culture. In professions, the measure of an individual’s skill is whether or not the individual can successfully interact with his or her counterparts in the target culture. When we acknowledge that advanced foreign language skill is not composed of general linguistic knowledge, but job-specific performance ability in the target culture, we are forced to recognize that there is a fundamental difference between pre-advanced and truly advanced skills. As currently taught, Chinese tends to be generalized language study, with a leaning toward the literature and linguistics domains of those tasked with teaching Chinese. Achieving advanced skills in Chinese requires learning domain-specific knowledge, a task for which few American institutions are designed. Armed with this concept of advanced skills being described by domain knowledge, we can begin to theorize what institutions would be suited to consciously producing Americans with truly advanced skills in Chinese. To conclude this thesis, I describe some of possible programs and institutions that could satisfy this country’s critical need for advanced American learners of Chinese.
Galal Walker (Advisor)
Jianqi Wang (Committee Member)
118 p.
Asian Literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • McAloon, P. O. R. (2003). The Evolution of Institutional Definitions of Advanced Skills in Chinese Language Pedagogy [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392908597

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • McAloon, Patrick . The Evolution of Institutional Definitions of Advanced Skills in Chinese Language Pedagogy. 2003. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392908597.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • McAloon, Patrick . "The Evolution of Institutional Definitions of Advanced Skills in Chinese Language Pedagogy." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392908597

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1392908597
169
© 2003, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.