Discussion

An investigation on the existing Australian Governments’language policies and the curriculum documents of CLT in Australian universities has revealed that most Chinese language programs did not take into consideration the increasing number of CHBS who has formed a unique cohort of learners of Chinese.From the most influential national language policies(ALLP，1991;NALSAS，1994;NAP，1987)which were discussed earlier，we can see that they were issued in the last century when limited universities were offering Chinese programs and the enrolments were mainly local native speakers of English.It was impossible for the Commonwealth and State governments to foresee the booming number of learners of Chinese language.Likewise，Australian universities did not prepare for such a complicated body of learners with various cultural backgrounds.No one at that time would predict that in the university level，Chinese should be taught as a first language，a second language and an additional language in the same department of languages.

The further investigation on the curricula of CLT used in Australian universities has drawn our attention about two special characteristics of the universities，namely，autonomy of university administration and Europeancentred language curricula.The former did not bring much advantages to curriculum innovation in each university.The actions taken by one individual university could not be followed by another.The autonomous power of the universities did not enable them to work together to divide the two cohorts through streaming.The later hindered a careful consideration about the features of Chinese language which requires longer time for English-speakers to reach the basic proficiency.When the large number of CHBS suddenly changed the composition of learners，the traditional pattern of language teaching suitable for NCBS still remained unchanged.Consequently，the situation of less and less NCBS learning Chinese was worsening.This phenomenon has drawn increasing attention from Australian academics and teachers.For example，the former director of ACRI Bob Carr said in an interview conducted by SBS Mandarin radio(2015)that Australians need to immediately boost the number of students who are embarked on a serious study of Chinese，especially those from non-Chinese speaking households.

Unfortunately，in interpreting why the number of NCBS are decreasing，some academics and teachers blamed the increasing CHBS.For instance，Orton(2008，2016)pointed the problems of learners’composition but did not provide any solution.She believed that the achieved language proficiency and the speed of learning by CHBS was the reason why the number of NCBS was dropping because they were scared away.Accordingly，the change of composition should be blamed and CHBS was the major problem of current CLT at Australian schools and universities.However，such an explanation has not offered any solutions to the worsening situation.In fact，it is the learning environment rather than learners’composition that is the key contribution to the decreasing number of NCBS.For this reason，let us analyse the current learning environment on the basis of our imperical findings through the fieldwork.

Needless to say，learners of Chinese themselves are the first component of the environment.In the class of CLT，every student has to interact with other students and lecturers.People should be the core surrounded by other components of environment.When the students are basically monolingual or monocultural，they do not realise much difference.When CHBS was a very small number of leaners in CLT class，the other part of NCBSdid not care about their existence.In other words，they did not feel that the other party was“threatening”.When CHBS was increasing，NCBS and their lecturers would consciously notice that there was another cultural group in CLT class.This cultural group could be no longer overlooked because they became an important element of the environment.Both NCBS and CHBS have to learn the language together.The lecturers also realised the difference between the multilingual and multicultural students’cohorts.The change of learners’composition has become a reality.We can hardly do anything about it but change the other components of the learning environment.

On one hand，the most important environmental factor which has a strong impact on both cohorts of students is the content of teaching.As we can see from the results revealed in the fieldwork，generally speaking，the content of teaching and learning remained unchanged in spite that the composition of students are changing.In principle，content of teaching Chinese was determined by the curriculum designed and implemented by a university.When the division of CHBS and NCBS becomes more and more obvious by unbalanced numbers，the previous curriculum designed for NCBS as majority was no longer valid.In the eyes of CHBS，the teaching content was too easy while NCBS were scared because they could not keep the same pace of learning.Consequently，it was not the learners，namely，CHBS but the curriculum scared away the NCBS.If a curriculum which could accommodate the needs of both CHBS and NCBS，then the number of the enrolment both from two cohorts would be increasing rather than one group increasing and the other decreasing.Curriculum is a significant environment component we have to take into consideration.

On the other hand，since what to teach is related with how to teach，pedagogy is the other side of coin in relation to curriculum.When the student’s composition has changed，the process of teaching and learning remains unchanged to some extent at this stage.This is another reason why NCBS were scared away from class of CLT.The interviews with the lecturers and students in the participating universities have provided confirming evidence that the teaching methods used in CLT classrooms were problematic and reflected in three aspects:①Lecturers’cultural background and teacher education affected their choice and preference of teacher-centred，learner-centred or learning centred approaches;②Students’cultural background and attitudes towards the native speakers of Chinese caused a complicated relationship between the lecturers and the two cohorts of students;③Lecturers have difficulties in the teaching process in handling two groups with different needs，interests and motivation.There is no doubt that the pedagogy used in CLT needs to be changed，in the hope of keeping the similar retention rates for both CHBSand NCBS.

Following the problematic curriculum and pedagogy，the unchanged way of measuring of learning outcome was under fire.The current assessment of CLT is a perplexing dilemma due to the questionable curriculum and pedagogy.Using two different sets of assessment tasks to evaluate the students enrolled in the same course are normally not acceptable by the university regulations because of a concern of equity.However，using one set of assessment tasks to measure the learning outcomes of two different cohorts with multicultural and multilinguistic competence is not fair because of a matter of equality.Nobody would feel secure when they compete with a privileged or advantaged cohort.It was the unequal assessment tasks rather than the other cohort of CHBS that made NCBS feel threatened，voting with their feet for the course of CTL they enrolled.

In summary，three key components of learning environment have hindered the progress and lessened of productivity in learning Chinese language in Australian universities.They are curriculum，pedagogy and assessment，which formed an unsupportive learning environment as indicated in Fig.2.1 that shows the relations of learners and their environment.

Fig.2.1　Learning environment of CLT