Catering for International Students from Chinese B...
In recent years，high school education and higher education have become a major commercial endeavour for Australian education providers.Since liberalisation of the higher education sector commenced in the early 1990s，education has been transformed into a substantial national export industry.The increasing purchasing power in regional Asian economies—especially China—has led to a dramatic increase in the number of international students from Chinese speaking countries and regions studying at universities in Australia.Many such international students take Chinese subjects as part of their degree course.
International students from the Chinese background usually have completed junior or senior high school education in a Chinese speaking country or region prior to entry into university courses in Australia.They possess advanced linguistic skills in academic Chinese.The presence of effectively native speaking Chinese students in Chinese language academic programs is a challenge for teachers of Chinese as much as it is for their student peers.The numerical and proportionate domination of Chinese language studies by international f luent speakers with temporary visa is transforming Chinese language teaching for all learners.In addition to their prior knowledge and skills，these international students also have distinctive academic and language needs in taking Chinese subjects in otherwise English medium institutions.Course design in Chinese subjects offered to these international students have had to accommodate much higher and complex academic content and de-contextualised high-level scholarly work，including research，to maintain students’academic challenge and study motivation.
These students speak Chinese as their first language and some have received education in Chinese up to senior high school years.However，they still need to maintain and enhance their first language while they are in Australia，so that they can further develop their academic，de-contextualised scholarly language skills including the genres of literacy appropriate for advanced academic work.These students overwhelmingly desire further development of their linguistic and cultural skills as part of their general English-medium academic development in an intercultural setting.Increasingly Chinese language university delivery then is addressing levels of bilingual medium delivery in a comparative perspective.
Students with Chinese as their first language also want to refine their linguistic skills in Chinese to assist with finding employment and enhancing their career prospects when they go back to their home country after they have complete their university courses in Australia.Students have identified several such practical skills:①practical writing in Chinese，including documents such as reports，research papers，business correspondence，official documents，etc.;②translating from English into Chinese and vice versa，with cross-cultural and intercultural training and contextualisation，in settings as diverse as community work，commerce and international business;③public speaking and presentation;and④interviewing to extract information and to provide information.
The impact of international students on Chinese programs at universities in Australia has been pervasive and deeply felt.It is leading to these programs becoming much more concerned with knowledge generation and contrastive rhetoric，with bilingualism and academic literacy.These concerns are greatly expanding the scope of what constitutes a foreign language course in universities，while at the same time continuing to deliver Chinese language instruction to beginners and post-secondary local students.New units，such as writing，Chinese as used in printed media and on the internet，business communication，Chinese literature，Chinese cinema，professional translating etc.，have been designed and offered as mainstream delivery to a student category increasingly becoming a significant and substantial segment of the learner cohort.