Lecturers
Undoubtedly，lecturers in Australian universities are aware of the changing composition of learners of Chinese since they are facing a most challenging task which they have never experienced before，namely，teaching the two different cohorts of learners in one classroom.The in-depth interviews revealed three crucial issues which they felt anxious，frustrated and helplessness about:
In the first place，the learning motivations of NCBS differ from those of CHBS.Although NCBS and CHBS in this study expressed both integrative motivation and instrumental motivation(Gardner，1985)of learning Chinese language，CHBS were more driven by integrative orientation.CHBS seemed very keen to learn more about their ethnic culture while NCBS showed their desire to advance their future career even though they were also interested in learning a new language and its culture.It was noted that CHBS tends to enrol into the course with a desire to accomplish some non-interpersonal purpose such as to pass an exam or get a higher score.Next in importance，CHBSand NCBS showed different interests in learning contents.NCBS participants expected to have more detailed explanation of language features and focused language practice based on what they learn in class，while CHBS wish to learn more historical and contemporary culture on the basis of supplementary language knowledge beyond the planned texts.These differences caused difficulties to their lecturers of CLT.One participating lecturer’s points that addressed the key difference between these two groups:
The local students could not understand some words，sentence structures or other grammar knowledge，so they would ask the teacher to provide more examples for a further explanation，and they need more exercises to consolidate their understanding.While the same content might be too easy to the Chinese background students，then they would show less interest.(L10，27/11/2018)
Due to the difference in motivations and interests，the performance and achievement of learning Chinese by the two cohorts are not the same as one lecturer described:
Those Chinese learners who were born and grew up locally[in Australia]may not be stronger in reading and writing，but their listening and speaking proficiency are generally higher than those of local Australians without Chinese background.In particular，Chinese background students seem to have better language intuition and often react quickly in responding questions.(L9，25/11/2018)
The motivation difference also led to the preference of learning various language skills by the two cohorts.NCBS seemed to pay more attention to listening and speaking while CHBS made great efforts to improve their reading and writing.According to the course information shown on websites of most Australian universities which offer Chinese language program，less than five universities separate CHBSand NCBS in teaching.With regards to the mixture of NCBS and CHBS in the same Chinese classrooms，one common critical viewpoint is noticable:
It is obviously not appropriate to have both CHBSand NCBSin the same classroom and do the same activities，because they demonstrate different levels of enthusiasm to learning focuses.(L3，27/11/2017)
Another lecturer told his frustration on the teaching method he has used:
Comparing with CHBS，NCBS are less sensitive to visual cues when they learn characters.For instance，when a new Chinese character is demonstrated in class，CHBS can always quickly found out a shape in that character which indicates an object in real life，but NCBS cannot.This is because English speakers are used to get a cue from its pronunciation when they learn the spelling of a new word.So，one teaching strategy sometimes doesn’t work on both groups.(L1，27/11/2018)
Obviously，in dealing with two cohorts of students，these lecturers need a variety of appoaches.One is the motivation strategy which may not equally effective to the two cohorts of learners of Chinese.The other is the teaching methods which may not be appropriate and accepted by both CHBS and NCBS.Since the pedagogy and curriculum are two sides of one coin，teaching content is closely linked with teaching process.The lecturers in the participating universities have realised that the existing curricula are problematic.In many cases，it was the teaching materials that determined the content of curricula rather than vice versa.This could be seen from one lecturer’s comments:
Our textbooks are chosen by our teachers after discussion.But they often change or add content based on their own teaching and students’circumstance in order to help student to better learn and practice.(L6，4/3/2019)
However，it seemed not acceptable that the two cohorts of students use two different textbooks.In terms of teachers’perspectives on teaching CHBS and NCBSin the same class，those who teach elementary level classes have different concerns.They reported that CHBS often achieved the expected outcomes according to the objectives set at the beginning of class because they are already very familiar with the language and cultural knowledge，but it is difficult to say the NGBSachieved all the goals of that class.One lecturer stated:
Chinese background students in my elementary level class often found that it was easy to complete most tasks and receive an ideal feedback，but the same task sometime was felt difficult by non-Chinese background students.So，when spend same amount of time to learn same content in the same class，CHBS most of time react quicker and do better than NCBS.(L7，6/11/2017)
Conversely lecturers who instruct advanced level students reported that learners with or without Chinese background are not distinguishable from learning interests，performances，or achievements in their classes，but background learners do show an efficient understanding on idiomatic linguistic features of Chinese as well as culture due to their intuition and sensiblity in Chinese language.Here is a citation by another lecturer:
There is no obvious difference between CHBSand NCBSin our advanced classes.Sometime CHBScould quickly provide a response to a culture-related content，but NCBS sometime do better job in various aspects including reading comprehension and character writing.(L8，27/11/2018)
By considering the distinguishing features of these two groups，lecturers in participating universities advocate an action of streaming CHBS and NCBS in certain level and teaching them according to their backgrounds and needs.The investigation exposed that some universities have already started the effective implementation of streaming those two cohorts of students learning Chinese such as U-M and U-D，and more intend to do so to achieve a better teaching and learning outcomes and to meet the various needs of different learners as indicated by the lecturers in U-A and U-B.Nevertheless，problems are still existing in both streaming and mixed classes.In other words，the existing curricula of CLT in all universities need to be evaluated and innovated.
Moreover，the lecturers in the participating university were not only frustrated by the“diversity”of the cultural backgrounds of learners of Chinese，but also by the request of“unity”of the curricula which must be consistent with other languages such as French and German in their universities.In most Australian universities，Chinese curricula have followed other predominant European languages such as French and German.And the distinctiveness of Chinese languages was not taken seriously.This study found out that almost all existing Chinese courses offered in Australian universities were still taken in a traditional form of lecture，tutorial or combined structure，despite onlineteaching and learning has been introduced and promoted recently.And each course is only allocated between two to four contact hours in total each week for a semester of 12 to 14 weeks.Both participating students and teachers agreed that the contact hours allocated to Chinese language courses frankly is tokenistic.As one lecturer complained:
It is insufficient because Chinese is quite different from other European languages to English speakers.For example，it is almost impossible to achieve the same level of proficiency in the same time frame when you learn Chinese and French.(L7，6/11/2017)
According to a US government research report，it was recommended that an average of 840 hours of study of European languages in comparison with 2 400 hours for Chinese，Korean and Japanese to achieve a basic proficiency(Smith et al.，1993).But the current Chinese curricula in Australian universities seem not to take into the unique features of CTL into consideration.The limited teaching hours caused more difficulties to NCBS than CHBS.Lecturers found that they could do little about it.
Apart from that，one thing related to curriculum is the teaching materials.Today，incalculable textbooks have been published in English speaking countries for Chinese language teaching in the market.Various textbooks are employed for Chinese language courses in Australian universities based on the preference of course coordinators.The two most popular textbooks selected and used in seven participating universities are American published Integrated Chinese（《中文听说读写》）and New Practical Chinese Reader（《新实用汉语课本》）in China.However，all participating universities added self-designed/selected teaching materials and exercises，which indicated that the existing materials could not satisfy the need of their teaching.A lecturer made the following comment：
Integrated Chinese is expensive and designed based on American cultural background，which is not very interesting or attractive to Australian university students，although it has strengths in structure and grammar explanation.(L9，25/11/2018)
New Practical Chinese Reader is appreciated for its great organisation and structure of topics and content yet criticized for its insufficient annotation of grammar knowledge.But it is considered more suitable for students to learn Chinese in China.Moreover，some controversial issues of political and cultural concerns have been raised in terms of relationship between the host Australian universities and Confucius Institutes located on their campus(Chen and Sit，2018)，therefore，it is thought that avoiding the textbook from Confucius Institute would avoid“unnecessary troubles”.However，given the tight time schedule and heavy teaching load，the teaching materials developed by Australian lecturers were limited and only used in their own classes without a wide range of circulation.