‘For Us Foreigners, Licking Your Fingers Clean is a Good Habit’: On Learning Chinese and Learning About Discourse from Chinese-language Textbooks.

Kehoe, S., Kendall, P. and Wielander, G. 2023. ‘For Us Foreigners, Licking Your Fingers Clean is a Good Habit’: On Learning Chinese and Learning About Discourse from Chinese-language Textbooks. in: Hird, D. (ed.) Critical Pedagogies for Modern Languages Education Bloomsbury. pp. 183-199

Chapter title‘For Us Foreigners, Licking Your Fingers Clean is a Good Habit’: On Learning Chinese and Learning About Discourse from Chinese-language Textbooks.
AuthorsKehoe, S., Kendall, P. and Wielander, G.
EditorsHird, D.
Abstract

Chinese-language textbooks have not typically served as sites of resistance to social injustice. Instead, they have frequently reproduced – and even heightened – various dominant discourses about China and its relationship with the wider world. In this chapter, we introduce critical pedagogic approaches adopted at the University of Westminster that combine the teaching of Chinese language and culture in the same module to productively interrogate some of the problematic discourses that arise across Chinese language textbooks. Building on the authors’ own teaching experience and focusing on discourses of PRC history, gender, and Chinese-foreigner relations, we show how Westminster has developed a uniquely structured curriculum that critically engages with – and tries to provide balance to – two popular Chinese language textbooks’ representations of China and the world. In doing so, we argue this approach provides a critical language pedagogy that encourages students to identify, examine and critique ideological underpinnings of linguistic-cultural texts.

KeywordsChinese studies
cultural studies
language textbooks
discourse
ideology
Book titleCritical Pedagogies for Modern Languages Education
Page range183-199
Year2023
PublisherBloomsbury
Publication dates
Published27 Jul 2023
ISBN9781350298767
9781350298774
9781350298781
9781350298798

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