Challenges for Chinese Teachers in Australian Scho...
There is still this lingering perception that a language program including Chinese in the school curriculum is a soft subject like Music and Arts and Crafts，which enjoy a lesser status in the mind of students，parents and the broad school community.There is no way it can compete with Mathematics，Science and English，though all of them fall into the key learning areas(KLAs)as curriculum offerings.Learning a foreign language is often a choice to be made by necessity to fulfil the subject requirements or satisfy personal pursuit of a leisure activity.
Because of this common perception，a language program at school is as a consequence not adequately profiled.A successful language program that features prominently in the school community often has these characteristics such as close community engagement，innovative classroom pedagogy，conscious efforts to incorporate other school subject teaching and learning into the language classroom(e.g.，teaching mathematics in a Chinese lesson)，teaching thinking skills(e.g.，higher order thinking and problem solving skills)in a language class and integration of technologies，such as smart boards and digital resources，into the language lesson.
All these require a genuine change of the mindset，good strategic planning and setting both short and long terms goals to effect changes in the school community.This obviously goes beyond the actual knowledge and skill base of instructional design，material selection and classroom instruction.There is a need for language teachers to acquire a different yet related set of knowledge and skills，which are often neglected in pre-service teacher training programs in Australia and overseas.It is part of the knowledge and skills identified in the pedagogical knowledge framework to be discussed in some more details.