A Narrative Study On China’s Image Cognitive Development Of An American Chinese Learner At Intermediate And Advanced Level

In recent years,Chinese has developed rapidly in foreign language programs of the United States.In 2005,there were 263 Chinese language programs in American colleges and universities,which increased to 450 in 2012 and 515 in 2014.The scope of Chinese teaching also has been extended from the east and west to the Midwest America(Lening Liu,2018).It is necessary to study China’s image cognition of Chinese learners of Middlebury In China since the essence of both US and Sino-US Chinese Language programs are intensively related to "Middlebury" model.Taking middle and advanced learners as an example,this paper explores the changes of China’s image cognition after the learner came to China and analyzes the impact of Middlebury In China through the narrative study of an individual case.The introduction part explains the value and methods of this study.The second chapter discusses the basic concepts of China’s image and its relevance to Middlebury In China.The third chapter refers to a narrative study of an individual case,which summarizes the development process of his China’s image cognition.Based on "five-questions model of communication" theory,the fourth chapter makes statistics on the communication elements of Middlebury In China,and analyzes the impact of this program on the development of learners’ cognition of China’s image by focusing on the communication channels.The last chapter proposes some thoughts and inspirations of Middlebury In China on the basis of the results mentioned above.The results of the study indicate that there is a positive cognition of China’s image has been formed on the American Chinese learner after he came to China,whose cognition of Chinese image and government image have changed into positive,and the cognition of China’s economic image and cultural image also become more positive while that of product image and environmental image are still quite negative.At the same time,through coding statistics,it shows that having experience in China,language courses learning and practical activities are three important ways for learners to obtain Chinese information,among which the teachers as well as the teaching materials in the Middlebury In China can provide emotional and linguistic support to help them shape a specific China’s image.Finally,the author believes that we should pay attention to learner’s Chinese learning experience,making full use of the three types of China’s image communication methods,giving full play to the advantages of teachers and teaching materials to spread the China’s image.