英文摘要 |
The purpose of this sociolinguistic study is to explore social, cultural, and linguistic factors that may contribute to the bilingual maintenance and bicultural identity development among the second-generation Chinese Americans who currently teach Chinese at the US main-stream schools and the overseas Chinese schools in southern California. This study examines Chinese and English language proficiency levels of the second-generation Chinese-American teachers in a bicultural context. The study also seeks to determine which influences led these individuals to their particular successful or unsuccessful teaching outcomes. The overseas-Chinese education (僑民教育) has been promoted for decades. While there are still many hot topics about the learning of the younger-generation overseas-Chinese, some of them already grew up and devoted themselves to bilingual teaching. What are their backgrounds? What kinds of learning experience did they have? What kinds of teaching issues are they facing? The researcher develops questionnaires and conducts multiple interviews to elicit qualitative data from seven teachers. In addition to exploring perceptions of adult decision-makers, two parents and one principal are also interviewed in this study. Through case studies, we see how these second-generation Chinese Americans present themselves and produce versions and identities to support themselves as English-Chinese bilingual teachers. This study brings up some new discussions about overseas Chinese education and international language education. It shows that these Chinese American teachers have been developing new considerations regarding bi-cultural identity, language shift, pro-English learning environment, social preference, and Chinese-teaching experience. Meanwhile however they are facing challenges brought by the changes of the American educational policies, the inconsistency of performance assessment, and the different expectations from the parents. |