Exploring The Classroom Leadership Of Chinese As A Second Language Teachers

With the deepening of globalization and the continuous development of China,the education of Chinese language is in full swing.Under the conditions of the new era,change and influence have become the theme of today's social development.In schools,teachers are becoming the main driver of the change.In recent years,teacher leadership research has gradually become a hot spot,teachers are not only passive recipients of change,but gradually become leaders and initiators.In order to promote the development of schools,teacher leadership has become a matter of major concern.This study takes teaching Chinese as a second language(CSL)teachers as the research object and explores the main characteristics of the classroom leadership of CSL teachers in Chinese universities and the major factors that influence their classroom leadership.In order to answer these research questions,this study adopts a qualitative research and follows the paradigm of interpretative research and bottom-up research path.This study selected three CSL teachers as research subject,data collection through in-depth interviews and classroom observations,and then transcribes,analyze,and reorganize the collected data.Questions are answered by in-depth discussion of the formation and the content of teachers' leadership beliefs,and classroom practices.The findings of the research study reveal three themes.Firstly,the CSL teachers' leadership beliefs are mainly concerned with the curriculum,the learners,the subject,teachers themselves,the technology,and the researches on teaching.Under the influence of the leadership beliefs,the classroom practice of the three participants demonstrates the striking features of “agreement,adaptation,generation and confliction”,highlighting the teachers' leadership and competence in reaching the agreement,making the adaptation,and meeting the learners' real needs flexibly.Secondly,the CSL teachers classroom leadership is mainly demonstrated in thefollowing four aspects: “empowering”,“sharing”,“leading” and “developing”.Among them,“empowering” includes the teachers' self-empowering as well as empowering the learners.“Sharing” covers the exchanges between teachers and students of their social cultural knowledge as well as the knowledge of Chinese as a second language.“Leading” enriches the teachers' experience in teaching,learning and researches,thus enhances the learners' competence and learning strategies.“Developing” refers to the autonomous and sustainable professional development as individuals of both the teachers and the students.Thirdly,the major factors that influence the CSL teachers' classroom leadership can be divided into internal factors and situational factors.Family background,schooling,and working experience are the main internal factors,while the physical environment,the assessment policies and the expectations from the community are the main situational factors.Based on the research study,a provisional theoretical model has been established for the classroom leadership of CSL teachers in universities,with the teachers' beliefs in creating classroom leadership,in a bottom-up way.This model has re-constructed the relationships between teaching and learning,teachers and learners,theories and practice,broadens the researches in the context of teaching Chinese as a second language,and provides valuable inferences for teacher professional development in Chinese international education.