Classroom Chinese In American's K-12 Education System

The strategy "teaching with target language" has always been a constant objective of frontline teachers. However, there is a clear conflict between rationality and practicability when teachers attempt to apply this strategy in classroom, particularly in foreign teaching environment. Our research shows that 100% use of Chinese in early phase of teaching is impractical; however, uncontrolled use of mother tongue is definitely not the best choice, either. Therefore, enhancement of teachers'ability in classroom Chinese planning and application is a practical and promising means to improve the quality and quantity of understandable classroom Chinese input. This research makes an exploratory and comprehensive analysis to the use of classroom Chinese in US K-12 system after interviewing six Chinese teachers with various backgrounds. Based upon the analysis, a questionnaire about the usage of classroom Chinese in US K-12 system is prepared and answered by 33 Chinese teachers so that we can learn their opinions of the "teaching with target language" strategy and their actual usage of classroom Chinese. In order to acquire detail and unbiased information about the usage of classroom Chinese, we adopt the "Expert-Novice" pattern to conduct a two month investigation. After collecting lesson plans, teaching videos or tapes, class reflection, interview records, and feedbacks from students, our research indicates that:1) Teachers, especially novice teachers have insufficient expertise in using classroom Chinese.2) Teachers' confidence in classroom Chinese varies upon their experiences and the projects that they are involved in. Novice teachers usually have lower confidence.3) Usage of classroom Chinese lacks planning, regularity, and systematicness.4) Teachers' expectation about classroom Chinese is beyond its actual usage.5) The characteristics of K-12 level classroom Chinese are demonstration, selection, dynamics, and variety in instructing methods.6) Teachers'experiences and the projects that they participate have impact on their confidence and attitude towards using classroom Chinese.7) Experienced teachers differ from novice teachers in various aspects, including theoretical level, attitude, confidence in execution, excellence of planning, ability of prediction, instruction methods, performance in crisis management, and stability. Finally, this paper proposes some possible plans to improve the quality and quantity of classroom Chinese.