Internationalisation and Localisation of Chinese...
At the beginning of the 21st century，teaching of Chinese in universities in much of the world experienced a rapid expansion driven by economic growth in China.University Chinese courses have undergone some fundamental changes.A case in point is that Chinese studies used to train sinologists，students learned Chinese in order to study Chinese culture，politics and societies，and course contents were mostly literary texts created in various periods of history of Chinese literature.However，in the last two decades，many university Chinese courses have shifted their focus of teaching to practical functionality of Chinese used in communicative interactions，and they are now seeking to develop students’Chinese language skills so that their employability can be enhanced.
Chinese has also become a more internationalised language and it is used globally.Along with China’s economic growth，people from China travel to and live in various parts of the world to conduct business，pursue studies and settle permanently.Chinese diaspora populations away from their home country use Chinese to communicate among them and Chinese can be heard in virtually every corner of the world.
In terms of teaching materials and target language data，Putonghua，a variety of Mandarin，has always been the target variety of Chinese dialect to be modelled on，which has been regarded as authentic and standard and there has been an emphasis on this authenticity and standardness in teaching of Chinese，as if there is only one centre of the Chinese language as a target language.That is，students have to learn the standard pronunciation，the standard grammar and the standard expressions，using textbooks mostly compiled by academics and teachers in China.In other words，teaching of Chinese is largely about students learning to speak Putonghua in imaginary scenarios set in China.Students have few opportunities to learn to express themselves or communicate with Chinese speakers in their own environment.
More recently，there has been a realisation among scholars in the area of Chinese language education that multiple centres exist as far as target variety of Mandarin Chinese is concerned.Apart from China，Mandarin is also spoken in the Southeast Asia，North America，Europe，Australia，etc.Chinese has become a highly internationalised language that is used widely in the world.In the academic world，English，the most internationalised language，is seen to include several varieties which are collectively referred to as World Englishes.They include American English，Australian English，New Zealand English，and South African English，which are used as mother tongues;and Chinese English，Japanese English，Indian English etc.，which are used as a second language.In this vein，Chinese is also a language with multiple centres，including Mandarin of China，and Mandarin used in the Southeast Asia.If Chinese language education keeps expanding and more and more people learn and use the language，the possibility of Chinese being spoken as a common language in different parts of the world by people whose first language is not necessarily Chinese，and varieties of Chinese with local characteristics in terms of pronunciation，syntax，grammar and expressions will appear.Then，“World Chineses”may become a recognised phenomenon and an academic field of scholarship.
From the perspective of second language acquisition，effective and efficient language learning involves“here and now”.That is，contextualised language found in the present setting at the present time can be utilised to aid language learning(Ellis，2003;Cook，2008).Learners of Chinese need a target variety of Mandarin to focus on，and this centre should not be too far away from them.To learners in many parts of the world，Beijing is too divorced from their daily life，so it cannot be their centre of the target language.Learners should find their own centres of the target language.This calls for localisation of Chinese learning and teaching.
Another important aspect in internationalisation and localisation of Chinese teaching is textbooks.University programs in Australia by and large use Chinese textbooks complied overseas，mostly in China.Very few，if any，textbooks written by teachers of Chinese in Australia for use in university Chinese courses can be found.There is very little incentive for Australian academics to write textbooks for their Chinese courses，because textbooks are not regarded as research or scholarly output.Therefore，writing textbooks is not counted toward academics’workload，nor does it bring much other types of benefit to them.As has been mentioned earlier，textbooks produced overseas are an obstacle to internationalisation and localisation of Chinese teaching in Australia，because they teach the type of language which is largely disconnected from the daily life and use scenarios rarely found in international settings.