UC Riverside

In the field of foreign language learning, a leading concern is with political and ideological messages that might be communicated through teaching and learning a foreign language. Worries about possible ideological indoctrination via Chinese language programs on Chinese language learners is a fundamental concern for both the United States of America and The People’s Republic of China. This research project involved a case study that investigated the representations of China in the curriculum and pedagogy of an intermediate level Chinese language course offered at an American university. Data gathered included the textbook, observer field notes of instruction taken over a 16-week period, and interviews with two language instructors and all eight students who were enrolled in the course. Through data analysis the research uncovered how China was represented in the formal curriculum, enacted curriculum, and how the enacted curriculum influenced students’ understanding of China and their attitudes toward China. Analysis indicated that, by utilizing comparisons between “New China vs. Old China” and “China vs. the U.S.,” the textbook provided a pro-China ideology that communicated positive images of a new China, and encouraged a positive attitude towards China. China was depicted in the textbook as a country that has been making tremendous social and economic progress since the Chinese economic reform the 1970’s. The textbook also advocated for Westerners to hold a more tolerant and understanding attitude towards China. Due to the instructors’ traditional audio-lingo pedagogy, which was highly teacher-centered and textbook-centered, the positive representations of China and positive attitudes towards China provided in the formal curriculum were consistently privileged in the classroom. Additional supplementary materials also conveyed a similar pro-China ideology to students. This pro-China ideology was taught, practiced, and reviewed repeatedly, alongside the Chinese language teaching. Thus, the ideology of this second-year Chinese language course provided pro-China cultural resources to students, outfitting them with positive representations of China and its people, culture, and society. However, how students responded to these positive representations of China and the extent to which they utilized these in thinking about China depended on the students’ previous experiences and knowledge of China, with the enacted curriculum being a more important resource for students who had few alternative sources of information about China or who had not visited China prior to taking the course.