Narrative of a cross-cultural language teaching experience: Conflicts between theory and practice

China's economic performance over the past few decades has put China in a position where it now accounts for one-third of global economic growth, twice as much as America. The large-scale growth of China's economy has attracted attentionfrom businesses and investors worldwide [Morrison (2006). China’s economic conditions. Congressional Research Service: The Library of Congress]. With the continuing growth of China's economy, more and more people from all over the world are learning Chinese in order to conduct business and access China's huge markets. Correspondingly, an increase in the demand for Chinese speakers is being matched by an increase in available Chinese language teaching jobs globally. This has led many Chinese native speakers to consider teaching Chinese as a second language either in China or overseas.This study is a narrative inquiry into the transformation of thinking about language education, based on the author's experience of teaching Chinese while pursuing a doctorate program at a major university in the United States. The data used in this study are qualitative in nature, consisting of self-observations and journal writing. Narrative inquiry serves as a conceptual framework to this study and was adopted as a tool for data analysis. The analysis focused on how the author, as a teaching assistant from Taiwan, dealt with issues of teaching Chinese as a second language and how he drew on pedagogical theories and methodologies.The author's experience with students in the East Asian Language and Culture Department with their different assumptions and motivations highlighted the importance of teaching strategies and pedagogies in class. Elements like cultural diversity and learning styles are also discussed in this paper.