Teaching Chinese at American charter schools: Identity and classroom teaching

This chapter reports on a two-year case study of three Chinese language teachers working in K-12 schools in the U.S. With the rapid increase in the number of Chinese programs in American K-12 schools, researchers are beginning to examine Chinese language teachers in these contexts. Drawing from the framework proposed by the Douglas Fir Group (2016) that incorporates the institutional context to researching classroom learning, this chapter focuses on one specific type of school context-the charters-and examines how Chinese language teachers perceive, negotiate, and construct their professional identities and teaching approaches within the charter school context. The findings illustrate how these teachers viewed teaching at charters as a source of their professionalism and authority, which resonates with the educational research on charter school teachers in general. Moreover, unique themes related to the teaching of Chinese language also emerged, as the teachers struggled with the marginalization of foreign language subjects and relied heavily on the AP Chinese curriculum to justify the existence of the Chinese programs. These results shed light on the school context in future research on Chinese language teachers and have implications for the preparation and training of Chinese language teachers.