The Introduction of VCE Chinese Language，Culture...
In 2017，a new pathway for students studying VCE(Victorian Certificate of Education)Modern Standard Chinese(Putonghua or mandarin)，VCE Chinese Language，Culture and Society(LCS as below)，was officially introduced in Victoria schools and becomes the fourth stream of the available VCE Chinese courses.The creation of the new course is to respond to:
(1)the growing economic and cultural significances of Chinese language education，and to benefit Victorian young people“with a better understanding of Chinese language and culture”(Minister for Education，2017).
(2)The growing number of students learning Chinese language in Australian schools.
The significances of building and maintaining a positive Australia-China relationship for great mutual economic and social benefits afloat in early 2000s(Orton，2008;Lo Bianco and Slaughter，2009).From 2009 to 2011，underpinned by the financial supports and promotion efforts of the federal government National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program(NALSSP)，the number of students learning Chinese in Australian schools has been great increasing.Until 2016，the number of students has doubled the 2008 record，reaching to 172 832，accounting for 4.7 percent of total school student numbers(Orton，2016).
However，the growth also showed significant imbalance in student demography.Lo Bianco and Slaughter(2009)have identified and studied this imbalanced situation in their study on school-level language education，suggesting that Chinese is among a few languages featured with significantly disproportionate construction of background speakers and genuine second language learners who do not have any Chinese background.(Lo Bianco and Slaughter，2009:12).Orton further confirmed this imbalanced growth of student number in a report(2016)and attributed the situation to the strong presence of first language(L1)speakers[1]and the underdeveloped cohort of second language(L2)[2]students.In Year 12，the number of L2 students has suffered an overall decreasing through the past eight years，approximately by 20 percent.
Although the previously exiting VCE Chinese studies already have three streams to cater students from different language proficiency levels，L2 students reportedly feel overwhelmed by the presence of those fluent Chinese speakers in the classroom，and their willingness of studying Chinese at the VCE level is undermined.VCE Chinese second language is designed for L2 students，and ineligible for students who have had either:①12 months or more education in a school where Chinese is the medium of instruction，or②3 years(36 months)or more residence in any of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority(VCAA)nominated country or regions[3].However，many background speakers who have spoken Chinese at home since birth and，whether born in Australia or not，have been schooled in Australia，being assessed as L2 and push up the level of competition in VCE Chinese Second Language.As background learners usually enrolled into a lower level to get high marks(Orton，2016).
To address this situation and to“better meet the needs of students who are not from a Chinese-speaking background(Minister for Education，2017)”，a new VCE Chinese course—“Chinese Language，Culture and Society(LCS)”is added into VCE curriculum by VCAA in 2017 and becomes the fourth VCE Chinese course，in addition to VCE Chinese first language，VCE Chinese second language，and VCE Chinese second language Advanced.
The creation of LCS is clearly to encourage non-Chinese background students to maintain their interest in Chinese language studies and have their opportunities to further develop their Chinese language skills.According to the LCS study design，this“sensible addition to the Victorian curriculum will encourage even more students from a non-Chinese background to learn modern standard Chinese(Minister for Education，2017)”，and can develop a number of school graduates with high-level proficiency in Chinese and with better employment opportunities.
As one would understand，the State of Victoria in Australia is a multiculture society.The students’demographical backgrounds in Victorian Chinese language classes is highly diversified than that one can expect，and they will always pose challenges to any Chinese language study design for schools.The newly created LCS can be trusted in giving this teaching and learning reality a thorough consideration and its aim is well intended.However，based on what we have read from the LCSstudy design and our initial observation of some limited initial data，we feel that more discussion should take place about this new VCE stream.In this paper，we would like to investigate on if LCS can productively meet up the challenges and reach its goals?