Teaching Chinese in the Anglophone World: Perspectives from New Zealand (Multilingual Education, 44)

Danping Wang is a Senior Lecturer of Chinese at the University of Auckland in New Zealand with nearly 20 years of experience teaching Chinese as a second language. She has developed new courses and teaching resources for learners of Chinese at all levels at prestigious universities such as Renmin University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, the University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Vocational Training Council. Dr Wang's dedication to Chinese language teaching has been recognised with the Teaching Excellence Award in Hong Kong. Her research interests lie in integrating pluriversal epistemologies in Chinese language teaching, as well as exploring innovative teaching approaches through the theoretical perspectives of translanguaging and multimodality. She has secured major research grants funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and is currently leading a Marsden Fund project supported by the Royal Society of New Zealand. In recognition of her contributions to promoting multiculturalism and Asian language education, the Faculty of Arts has awarded her an Early Career Research Excellence Award. 

Martin East is Professor of Language Education and current Head of the School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, the University of Auckland, New Zealand.  Prior to this, he was for ten years a language teacher educator in the University’s Faculty of Education and Social Work. Before settling in New Zealand at the turn of the century, he was a high school teacher and Head of Languages in the UK. His practical experiences over many years have informed his research interests, which include innovative practices in language pedagogy and challenges for additional language learning in English-dominant contexts.  He is the author of numerous publications in the field of language pedagogy and assessment.  Two books, Task-Based Language Teaching from the Teachers’ Perspective (John Benjamins, 2012) and Assessing Foreign Language Students’ Spoken Proficiency (Springer, 2016) focus on stakeholder perspectives on significant curriculum and assessment reforms in New Zealand’s high schools.