Learning and Teaching Chinese - A Global Language Training Perspective
Abstract :
This writing attempts as a case study focusing on the Global Language Training Chinese program with Mr. and Mrs. Banerjee of Caterpillar Shanghai Remanufacturing who started to learn Chinese since April, 2010, not long after they moved to Shanghai from their six year tenure in Japan. To facilitate in their process of adopting a new language and culture, we have employed the proficiency model of Global LT as our primary instructive methodology aimed at developing essential linguistic and communicative proficiency. We start with Global LT assessment? to identify and determine learner proficiency level range before introducing a staged-learning strategy and fitting in the between a dedicated transitional/orientational training to foster a break-in into the target language. We argue that while proficiency-based instruction is a proven and pivotal method for language training, it doesn’t readily and necessarily work well unless some interfacing of transitional training is implemented between different stages of learning and teaching. In so doing, we recognize the value of self-styled problem-based counseling-learning for often time-locked students and we’re convinced that this strategy works very well for rightfully motivated and committed students. Furthermore we are aware that differences that exist in linguistic conventions and culture may extend beyond the linguistic domain and believe that the gap in perception and understanding can expected to be bridged through efforts in cross-cultural communication, or by means of cultural immersion and assimilation. And finally we appreciate Global LT as a highly valuable and effective system for language training and cultural orientation.
Keywords: Global LT, Learning and Teaching Chinese, Proficiency-based teaching, Learning and Teaching Strategies
Global LT Guidelines and Philosophy
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Global Language Training is a US-based multi-lingual and multi-cultural corporate paraphernalia that provides customized learning and teaching of 60 languages in over 300 locations worldwide since 1979, for global corporations, employees and expatriate assignees who are to adopt the target language for essential communicative purposes.
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Global LT operates under auspices of foreign language instructional guidelines that have been developed based on the Interagency Language Roundtable Language Skill Level Descriptions, an official paper of the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR), a multi-governmental-organization formed by numerous governmental agencies, including the Departments of Education, Defense, Agriculture, the Interior, and State; the Central Intelligence Agency; the National Security Agency; and the Library of Congress, in a task force to establish standards of language proficiency to be used by U.S. government employees, military and civilian, whose job assignments demand knowledge of a foreign language.? And consequently the ILR’s language proficiency guidelines have been adopted by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), as well as by other academic organizations and institutions of higher learning.
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To concretely implement this agenda and mission, Global LT has conducted thorough research on the theories of language learning and teaching and has adopted the newest and most innovative method of foreign language instruction in use:? proficiency-based instruction, emphasizing personalized, student-directed instruction with the teacher as facilitator, and stressing the importance of communicative competence and the ability to perform task-based activities in the target language, rather than letting the instruction and discussion of grammar rules to be in the way.? The grammatical features of a language are introduced through an inductive approach, which encourages learners to draw conclusions about the underlying rules of the language from the many examples they see and practice.?Global LT promotes efficiency-based instruction as: where many older instructional methods teach students to talk about the language, a proficiency-based approach teaches students to talk in the language. Furthermore, Global LT in practice allows a variety of learning and teaching styles, accommodating a flexible and purpose-driven approach to learning/teaching depended on “ students’ availability .”
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Global LT’s Chinese Training program in this case study performs exactly according to the prototype of Global LT policy and philosophy, through supervision from its headquarters in the US, via its office in Hong Kong and language coordinators in China.?
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Strategic Thinking in Implementing Global LT Chinese Program
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Mr. and Mrs Banerjee and family moved to Shanghai in March 2010 after their six year tenure in Japan, when they started to adopt another foreign land, its language and culture, for an international entrepreneurial mission at Shanghai Caterpillar, a joint venture of US, China and Australia.
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Both Mr. and Mrs Banerjee are on the Management of Caterpillar Shanghai where Mr. Banerjee as the General Manager, Mrs. Banerjee a program manager, working with an administration whose working language ( or business language ) is dominantly English, either for inter-departmental communication, daily encounters, regular business meetings, or occasional teleconferences.
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Their professional life style is typically busy, having seen both of them global trotting between business trips or on the run between conferences, let alone their daily commute shuttling, back and forth, between their home at Tiziano villa in the exurb of Shanghai, the British International School in Pudong where their two sons go to school, and their office with Caterpillar Shanghai in the coastal South East of the cosmpolitan. To facilitate their process in adopting an entirely new language and culture, and in an effort to make a mission possible, both Mr. and Mrs Banerjee have registered with Global LT for the Chinese Training program.
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Global LT Assessment and Staged Teaching Strategy
Global LT uses a unique assessment/evaluation system to identify students’ proficiency level range for correct placement of students for learning/teaching. The assessment/evaluation identifies and determines five level ranges of Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Superior and Distinguished, based on students’ responses to designated tasks in speaking, listening, reading and writing.
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Our assessment/evaluation in April, 2010, found Mr. and Ms Banerjee to be at NL ( Novice Low ) level in Chinese proficiency, in the components of speaking, listening, reading and writing, despite their reasonably significant proficiency in Japanese that includes reading and writing the Japanese characters called kanji.??
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And consequently we have therefore chosen New Practical Chinese Reader (? Beijing Language and Culture University Press ) as our main textbook that starts with pinyin, the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet.
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This reality amid some initial excitement and commotions in adopting another foreign language and culture, however, hardly justified Mr. Banerjee’s genuine and profound interest in Chinese and culture, and Mrs. Banerjee’s sincere attitude of “ going back to school “, neither, the “ proficiency-based approach “ advocated by the Global Language Training and enthusiasm on the end of the instructor.
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And indeed how would we ever be able to go about learning and teaching Chinese, proficiency based and from the very start, without ending up either in random pinyin jabbers and drills, or some piece-meal and counter-productive talks?
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To effectively cope with this obvious lack and gap in preliminary language exposure necessary for developing phonetic schemata that builds essential Chinese proficiency, we took a step ahead and adopted a two-pronged staged learning/teaching strategy in our class syllabus, with stage one targeted as a run-start with “ Let’s Learn Chinese the E-way! ” ( URL: https://www.chinesenow.biz ), the author’s web resource, at presenting the most common life situations and encounters that prompt for natural and meaningful verbal responses intended to stimulate or solicit learner participation to initiate preliminary language sense and proficiency in listening and speaking by using the Chinese speech patterns transliterated in Pinyin, the Chinese Phonetic System. To complete this process, a selection of relevant notes and tidbits of Chinese linguistic culture are introduced and discussed to foster learner cross-cultural awareness and develop patterns of basic Chinese syntax.
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By design “ Let’s Learn Chinese the E-way! ” performs interfacing of some sort, between minimal preliminary proficiency at stage one, and developing proficiency with stage two where the proficiency-oriented learning continues with “ New Practical Chinese Reader “ ( Book 1 ) through text material in the form of dialog and text, with a focus in the first 60 hours on introducing and training the Chinese Sound System of Pinyin ( for listening and speaking ) and basic writing skills of Chinese characters Hanzi ( for reading and writing ), and very often through specific learning tasks and communication-oriented extended exercises. As part of an integral proficiency-developing process, grammar is to be systematically introduced as training moves on through virtual or real-time communication sessions in the remaining 40 class hours.
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In the process of this transitional, or orientational training, we recognized the importance of Global LT assessment/evaluation system as a useful tool for indentifying students’ level range before defining and choosing a strategy to kick off the proficiency-based learning. We considered meaningful communication a paramount kernel to language acquisition, from which a variety of speech materials are projected. And we therefore advocate that interfacing ( transitional/orientational training ) between stages as a fundamental instrument to jump-start the systematic proficiency-based learning that aims to develop linguistic and communicative proficiency.
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Problem-based Spontaneous Counseling-Learning Strategy
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Global LT accommodates a flexible approach to learning/teaching, according to “ the availability of the students. “ This seemingly rather liberal and even paradoxical approach, instead of allowing students’ infinite liberty, has in fact conjured up in them conscience and spontaneity for some self-styled learning, through interactions with people, among whom, their two sons, their nannies, the drivers, the janitors, the workers, people from the call station, the table attendants at the restaurant, people on the market, their managers and the instructor, prompted by numerous situations and along with shift of locations and settings. To work around sometimes erratic nature of study, some of our classes fit in on between their business schedules and on the weekends during their quality hours, sometimes with their two sons battling away in their play room while waiting to be picked up and sent to some swimming sessions.??
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This is where the text-based classroom instruction ends and the self-styled spontaneous counseling-learning starts, with the advantage of serving a purpose and churning a solution to problems that are not covered by the standard textbook, not even during the transitional/orientational training.??????
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Sometimes we were amazed at how much both Mr. and Mrs Banerjee have learned outside of our scheduled classes, and recognized the fact that they are developing what is more than the lingual proficiency from their daily encounters and interactions wherever they might be. And we are convinced by the experiences of Mr. and Mrs. Banerjee that problem-based counseling-learning works most effectively for genuinely interested and committed students.
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Cross-cultural Communication Strategy
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With many years of living and working, on a global scale, in a number of countries like India, the United States and Japan, Mr. and Mrs Banerjee are multi-lingual and multi-cultural, and as a result China didn’t pose a culture-shock even at the outset, despite being an entirely new place, a new people and a new culture. Mr. Banerjee expressed that he was impressed by the managers’ English and he felt comfortable in the business language. Yet however, while they didn’t experience any significant communication breakdown with the management and employment due to the language barrier, they did experience moments of difficulty sometimes in communicating with their Chinese counterparts. A typical example in the point as cited by Mr. Banerjee, is “ I know “, a perfect reply from the Chinese in however perfect English that more often than not would turn out a non-response without any manifestation or indication of understanding. This apparent lack of meaning of a verbal expression, or a verbal expression divorced from its sementic idea, has baffled and struck Mr. Banerjee who is accustomed to open and direct business communication in English, as a puzzling piece of Chinese linguistic culture.
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If this piece of Chinese linguistic culture is only a tip of the iceberg, a multitude of cultural differences do occur, interculturally, in and beyond the linguistic domain. We feel that truthful perception and understanding of such differences arrive only when a moderate proficiency has become available and efforts have been made in reaching across their linguistic and cultural barriers.?
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To this end, Mr. and Mrs Banerjee have made great efforts to stay culturally informed by going out of their way to talk to their Chinese colleagues and friends, and keep updated by reading Shanghai Daily on the trends and developments in the way of life. From the buzzwords of Shanghai Expo 2010, to the relaxation of birth-control policy have all been parts and parcels that the cosmopolitan media has to offer and feed into their consciousness in a kind of cross-cultural immersion.
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In the spirit of celebration and for better communication, we spent a significant amount of time with Mr. Banerjee, the General Manager, for a media campaign during the Chinese New Year Dinner Party in an effort to talk cross-culturally and promote entrepreneurial unity and strength.
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In a five minute video, by telling the story of the red-painting workers at the Shanghai Expo 2010, from his story-board, Mr. Banerjee delivered his first Chinese New Year’s speech in pitch-perfect Chinese, communicating a message that the General Manager wants to share with his colleagues: no matter how seemingly isolated and tedious their job tasks might be, their commitment and industriousness is highly recognized and appreciated as a great ordeal in pursuing Caterpillar’s mission of re-inventing tomorrow.
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Our Conclusions
Over a span of 30 plus years, Global LT has established itself as a successful and valuable system of language training and cultural orientation, for serving the international business community. It’s proficiency-based methodology and the flexible approach to instruction according to the “ students’ availability “ have been a proven and pivotal philosophy in delivering language training and cultural orientation to the often highly-engaged and sometimes time-locked business administrators. We consider Global LT’s assessment/evaluation system a highly valuable and effective tool as well as a crucial process for a number of learning and teaching strategies to be deployed and implemented. We recommend staged-learning/teaching as a strategy to implement a dedicated transitional/orientational training to pave the way for proficiency-based instructions. We recognize self-styled learning, counseling and problem-solving as of high value for the business administrators who, while rightfully motivated and committed, are often accustomed to working and studying on hectic and sometimes erratic schedules. We agree that differences exist not only in linguistic culture, but also beyond the domain of language and believe they can be resolved or bridged through mutual efforts in cultural dialogs or any other forms of cross-cultural communication.???
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