A Study On Cultural Conflict And Avoidance Strategies Between Teachers And Students In Teaching Chinese As A Foreign Language

Nowadays, with an emerging "mandarin fever" in the world, the study of teaching Chinese as a second language expands from teaching Chinese as a foreign language to the research of Chinese international communication.With a larger number of Chinese volunteer teachers going out and overseas students coming in, the main work places of teaching Chinese as a foreign language can be divided into two types:the local teaching and teaching overseas. The difference of teaching environment decides the obvious difference of initiative status between teachers and students in cross-cultural communication.Many strategies about the cultural conflict of teaching Chinese as a foreign language are put forward when teacher with Chinese as mother tongue teach Chinese in overseas. The scholars usually only simply analyze the cultural encounters and countermeasure the overseas students meet with in China. There are few discussions about avoiding cultural conflict from the joint efforts of both teachers and students when they encounter the cultural barriers and conflicts in the target language countries.In this paper, the writer analyses the examples of barriers in intercultural communication and conflict between USA foreign students and the Chinese local teachers when the writer met in work for C.V. Starr-Middlebury School in China Kunming and CET academic programs in Kunming, and suggests that local Chinese teachers and overseas students should learn and pay attention to matters of adaptation strategies, at the same time, gives some comments on the compilation of Chinese Textbooks. Hoping that both sides of teachers and students make the joint efforts to reduce cultural barriers and avoid cultural conflict, so that both of them live together in peace, and make Chinese teaching go smoothly.