ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews literature on teacher bicultural awareness (BCA) drawn primarily from two areas: native Chinese teachers’ adaptations to overseas education settings, and teacher competences releated to integrating cultural instruction into Chinese language education. We begin by defining the concept of BCA. We then describe historical, social, and academic developments in Chinese education that create a need for studying teacher BCA. After explaining how BCA can be thought of as one dimension of Chinese teachers’ competence, we articulate three aspects of BCA for these teachers: knowledge of Chinese culture, knowledge of pedagogies about integrating cultural instruction into Chinese language education, and knowledge of cultural adaptations. We include discussions about research methodologies used for designing, collecting, and analyzing BCA-related data, in order to enhance the study of BCA among both researchers and practitioners. The implications of BCA scholarship for the Chinese language education profession, as well as directions for future research, are addressed in the final two sections. Overall, this chapter is intended to help improve understanding of the interrelationships among Chinese-teacher training, cultural instruction in Chinese language education, and overseas Chinese-teacher adaptations. It provides readers with a theoretical and practical guide to the literature of teacher training, cultural instruction in language education, and teacher cross-cultural adaptation.
