Chinese Language Teachers' Cross-cultural Adaptation Issues And Strategies Research

Thanks to the rapid economic development and increasing national strength,the influence of the Chinese language and culture in the world goes up,which booms Chinese learning among foreigners.As response to the situation,Confucius Institute Headquarters(Hanban)launched the Government-sponsored TCSL Program.Serving as a prominent role in promoting Chinese language and culture overseas,teachers under this government-sponsored program undergo the cross-cultural adaptation during their work in an overseas country.The limited studies conducted with regard to the cross-cultural adaptation of the teachers concerned in recent years are confined to the southeastern Asian countries,with few focusing on teachers to America,even less on New Mexico.This paper,therefore,takes teachers under the program to New Mexico State University as research objects,and by means of questionnaire and in depth interview,explores their cross-cultural adaptation during their work there.This paper consists of six chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,introducing the topic selection,background,significance,objects,methodology and detailed implementing procedures.The second chapter introduces some relevant theories and studies on Cross-cultural Adaptation and Cross-cultural Adaptation Phases,and makes a literature review about the studies of the paper.Part one of chapter three formulates the questionnaire survey among teachers under the program to New Mexico and its analysis.Part two discussed the three stages of cross-cultural adaptation,namely,the preparation phase before departure and early work stage in the university,and that of returning home from New Mexico.Chapter Four specifies through interviews with teachers under the program regarding their cross-cultural adaptation,and the follow up analysis.The results show that teachers perform relatively well in terms of psychological and social life,while with a poor performance in terms of work and language adaptation.When it comes to the phases of cross-cultural adaptation,the difficulties facing the teachers in their early work are principally from social life,in the middle stage from language and work,and in the later stage from psychological challenges.Chapter Five identifies the factors influencing their adaptation at different stages and puts forward some countermeasures,which,hopefully,could serve as a guidance for Chinese language teachers and enhances their capability in dealing with the problems in this regard.In Chapter Six,the paper presents suggestions on the pre-service training and managerial work under the program to NOCFL,Confucius Institutes,foreign schools and schools where teachers are from.Finally,the paper comes to the conclusion and points out the limitations of the study as well as its deficiencies.