Study Into Professional Development Of Ethnic Minority Mandarin Chinese Teachers In A Bilingual Context

I graduated from a university Chinese Department with a bachelor degree and have been engaged in teaching Mandarin Chinese to ethnic minority nationalities for nearly twenty years and thereby have trained many young Mandarin Chinese primary school teachers for the pastoral areas of Northern China. Teaching Mandarin Chinese is a career that I could never give up and many of my good friends now are Mandarin Chinese teachers. This thesis is about Mandarin Chinese teaching and the professional development of ethnic minority Mandarin Chinese teachers.My research focuses first on the classrooms of ethnic Mongolian primary schools in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. This is done by analysing examples of the teacher's methods and investigation of the student's actual Mandarin Chinese proficiency to fully reveal the situation of Mongolian Chinese teaching in primary schools, especially existing shortcomings, or deficiencies in the Chinese teaching within the senior section of primary schools. An overview of the above, including explanation of reasons behind the findings and a description of the role and position of the teacher and their responsibilities is provided. It should be noted that the ethnic minority Mandarin Chinese teachers under study operate in a unique Mongolian-Mandarin bilingual setting that brings its own set of difficulties and often places Mandarin Chinese teaching in a difficult position. To improve this scenario, several issues need to be addressed. Among the most important of such issues is provision of appropriate teacher coaching, especially on how to go about teaching a second language and how to efficiently train students in this second language. In addition, it is important that Mandarin Chinese teachers find a way to not only provide for the unique needs of their students, but take part in long-term research and adjustment of teaching methods, including continuous introspection and learning as they work, thereby improving their performance as they learn and allow successful Mandarin Chinese teaching to become their life-long career goals.Key highlights of this thesis follow:1. This is the first time ethnic minority Mandarin Chinese teachers operating in a bilingual environment have been studied independently. Related issues have only been addressed in the past as a part of bilingual education theory;2. This is the first time the professional development of ethnic minority Mandarin Chinese teachers has been examined, especially their continuing professional development. Such issues have only been looked at in the past from a pre-employment training perspective;3. This is the first time to delve deeply into the classrooms where Mandarin Chinese is taught as a second language and to make recommendations on the primary level curriculum and specific ways to improve the teaching material.