Researching Chinese Language Education: Functional Linguistic Perspectives

The culmination of more than a decade of research, this compelling volume offers a fresh approach for applying functional linguistics to assess student performance, to inform the teaching and learning of Chinese and to design curriculum and teaching materials. Documenting authentic systemic functional linguistics (SFL) studies in researching and teaching Chinese as a first or second language, this research is set in the multilingual settings of Hong Kong and Australia. The experiences of SFL and genre teaching in English have been well demonstrated as valid, viable and practical in different contexts; however this volume covers the relatively new domain of research into the applications of SFL to the teaching of Chinese. Using SFL as the research framework, the authors cover three major areas in Chinese language education: effective pedagogies, curriculum and material design, and text analysis. Covering major local curriculum reforms and the rapid growth of International Baccalaureate programmes worldwide, this book will be of interest to linguists, language teachers and teacher educators and those involved in the teaching and learning of Chinese around the world.

Dr. Mark Shiu-kee Shum is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, and was the Founding Head of the Division of Chinese Language and Literature (2009–2015) at The University of Hong Kong.

Dr. Peter Mickan is Visiting Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts, University of Adelaide, where he was Head of the Discipline of Linguistics, and established and directed the Postgraduate Applied Linguistics Programme.