Examining Mandarin Chinese teachers’ cultural knowledge in relation to their capacity as successful teachers in the United States

Interest in providing Mandarin foreign language at K-12 schools in the United States has grown steadily since the language was identified as critical to the U.S. finance and social security. However, the shortage of qualified Mandarin teachers is widely recognized as the key bottleneck to building capacity in Mandarin education. Drawing from research on teacher learning and teaching as well as effective bilingual education, this paper highlights a specific challenge that might influence Mandarin teachers’ capacity to carry out effective and successful teaching in the US classroom, that is, their implicit cultural knowledge of teaching. Data from a case study that examined a Mandarin classroom taught by two teachers from Taiwan illustrated how their actual classroom practices were mediated by their understandings of the culture of teaching in Taiwan and the United States. Some fundamental differences between the two cultures embedded in education might account for these teachers’ frustration in teaching and limited language teaching in the classroom. The findings point to the need to engage Mandarin teachers with critical reflection of their own understanding of teaching in their countries of origin and the United States.