Mandarin language learning motivation among non-heritage university students

¶ … Second Language Learning Motivations of Non-Heritage Chinese Learners in University Credit Courses

The 21st century has been dubbed the "Century of Asia" with China leading the way. Moreover, the number of people who speak some form of Chinese all over the world is enormous, and many experts suggest that individuals who are bilingual and fluent in Chinese as a second language will be in big demand in the future. This demand is being fueled to some degree by the need for Chinese speakers in North America as well. For instance, over the course of the next 2 decades, the respective representation of minorities in Canada is projected to continue to increase so that, by the year 2016, it is estimated that visible minorities will likely comprise close to 20% of the adult population and 25% of children. In addition, within the population of visible minorities, the growth rate of specific groups is expected to differ, leading to increased diversification. In 1991, Chinese, Blacks, and Indo - Pakistanis accounted for the largest percentage of visible minorities in Canada (Esses & Gardner, 1996). According to Statistic Canada (2009), the Chinese heritage population in Ottawa is 30,760, about 3.8% of the total population of the city. This includes speakers of both Mandarin and Cantonese. In connection with China's fast growing economy and its greater role on the world stage, Chinese learning by non-Chinese-heritage learners is starting to attract more interest in the language market. In this environment, identifying opportunities for improving the delivery of Chinese language courses represents a timely and valuable enterprise. To this end, this study examines aspects of the Mandarin language learning students in University of Ottawa Chinese courses.

The study upon which this interim report-based has been designed to determine how motivation plays a role for non- heritage learners in this program in their effective acquisition of the Chinese language and an understanding of a centuries-old culture more. The students are from various backgrounds. Apart from students born in Canada, there are those who were from Vietnam, Peru, France, Laos, United States, Korea, Mexico, Poland, Germany, etc. Most of these students are bilingual (their family tongue is either English or French) or multilingual. Some students are able to speak three languages when they enter the program.

The students who have non-Chinese background are different from all other Chinese heritage language students on site. Heritage students are able to more or less use Mandarin or Cantonese in daily living contexts at minimal basic level, thanks to their family background. These non-Chinese heritage students should be specially taken care of because they are usually a group of multi-aged students from college age to senior age. The special features of this group in a classroom can afforded a unique opportunity of the researcher to look more closely at the various factors that may have influenced their varying levels of performance.

This report is composed of the following sections: (1) Introduction; (2) Statement of Research Questions; (3) Literature Review and Theoretical Framework (4) Research Methodology; (5) Results and Implications.

The introduction provides a brief overview of (a) the background of the research; (b) the research question; (c) and general information of research participants. The second section delivers a statement of the research questions that drive the entire project. In this section, there are statements pertaining to (a) what the researcher wants to argue; (b) the significance of the study; and (c) what motivated the researcher to pursue this study. The third section outlines the literature pertinent to the topic. Gaps in the literature will be highlighted in this section as a way to further argue for the significance of this study. Theoretical framework outlined the viewpoint from which the researcher has approached the study. In this section, the researcher relates theories of L2 teaching and learning (Stern, 1983, p.1) to heritage language teaching (Duff, 2008, p. 71) and international language instruction (Tavares, 2001, p. 199). These theories with be discussed with special reference to the motivational factors that affect L2 acquisition (Dornyei, 2001; Gliksman, Gardner, & Smythe, 1982. Gardner, R.C., & Lysynchuk, 1990). The next section goes over the research methodology employed for the study in which the researcher explains (a) the choice of qualitative case study methodology; (b) the potential difficulties and limitations of the proposed procedures; (c) and the procedures employed for data collection and analysis.

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Statement of Research Question

The design the project is targeting at non-Chinese heritage learners who are interested in learning Mandarin in a university. For this research, the purpose is to explore the factors that affect the learning motivations in order to discuss the ways to effectively maintain learner's interests in staying in the program. The research questions that will be used to guide the proposed study are as follows:

A.

How do non-academic activities affect students' motivation of learning the language?

B.

How does peer-influence affect the learning motivation?

C.

What are other factors affect the learning motivation?

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Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

Heritage Language Teaching and International Language Instruction

Canada's experiences with heritage language instruction among its Chinese population can help inform educators concerning some of the similar constraints and challenges involved in teaching non-heritage Chinese students. Today, Canada is an increasingly multicultural nation that remains officially bilingual in both French and English (Skeldon & Gungwu, 1999). A number of unofficial languages, though, continue to be used in various parts of Canada, such as Toronto's Chinatown, where the population has not experienced very many interactions with the larger Canadian society; in these settings, there is little acculturation with the mainstream Canadian society and Chinese continues to be used on a day-to-day basis (Skeldon & Gungwu, 1999). In yet other cases, though, sustaining an unofficial language in a larger society has not been possible. According to Skeldon and Gungwu, "Some immigrant groups who saw themselves as political exiles, waiting to go home, made great efforts to maintain their language and made their children go to Saturday language schools, an effort which was seldom successful. The pressures against maintaining the ethnic tongue were too great" (1999, p. 37).

Some minority groups in Canada that have had a strong desire to remain culturally separate from the mainstream society and which have enough money to fund their own schools have focused on religious and cultural instruction to the exclusion of language instruction and heritage languages have tended to fade in significance and use as a result. In this regard, Skeldon and Gungwo emphasize that, "There was little perceived use in knowing a language not used in Canada, and often a sense that spending too much time on such a language might in fact impede social and economic advancement" (p. 37). During the 1970s, the national Canadian government implemented a policy concerning the need for bilingualism in English and French, especially for the country's civil servants, an initiative that was eventually added to the public schools. As a result, Skeldon and Gungwo advise that "[Bilingualism] soon trickled down to the school system, and parents, especially middle-class ones, began to see English/French bilingualism as a mark of status. In Toronto, private schools which taught entirely in French were popular, as were immersion classes in the regular school system. One university campus, Glendon College (York University) offered a whole francophone university program" (Skeldon & Gungwu, 1999, p. 37).

Not surprisingly, this effort to promote bilingualism in Canada has resulted in increasing calls for instruction in other non-official languages and many Canadian schools began implementing language programs that were termed "heritage-language instruction" (Skeldon & Gungwu, 1999, p. 37). According to Corson (1999), "Heritage language programs try to maintain the minority language to some extent, while still allowing quick transition to the dominant language if necessary through ESL classes" (p. 181). Although the concept was well received, the implementation and operation of these programs was far more complex than was originally expected by Canadian authorities (Skeldon & Gungwu, 1999).

Some of the issues that made the introduction of heritage-language programs complicated and controversial included the following:

1. Heritage languages could not supplant French in the school system and therefore had to be studied as a third language by students who were not even fully literate in English;

2. Heritage languages usually had to be studied outside the regular curriculum and therefore after school.

3. Finally, there was a question of what the target level for the heritage language would be, whether full literacy would be expected or some spoken competence only (Skeldon & Gungwu, 1999).

There have been some other problems involved with the delivery of heritage language instruction in Canada in recent years as well. Besides the basic issue of trying to incorporate heritage-language instruction in Canadian schools, Canadian Chinese parents and students were faced with the problem of deciding which spoken form of Chinese was most desirable. In this regard, Skeldon and Gungwu report that, "In the case of parents from Hong Kong or southern China, there had to be a choice, for the spoken language, between Mandarin and Cantonese. Cantonese, as the heritage language, would be the natural choice of most Canadian Chinese parents, but this choice clashed with the general assumption that Mandarin was the real Chinese and that children should be encouraged to study it" (p. 38).

In recent years, more heritage-language Canadian Chinese students have elected to pursue instruction in Cantonese, an indication of the growing popularity of this form of the Chinese language in the prosperous southern China area as well as in Hong Kong and the increasing importance to Canada's international commerce with these regions (Skeldon & Gungwu, 1999). In sum, Skeldon and Gungwu conclude that, "The evidence is not in yet about whether the heritage-language program works and whether children come out of it able to function fully in their mother tongue" (1999, p. 38). Further, some authorities suggest that heritage language immersion programs represent a more cost-effective approach that traditional heritage language instruction programs. In this regard, Corson advises, "The costs of providing bilingual education can also be a concern. In dealing with this, partial immersion programs, like those used in the prairie provinces of Canada, are less expensive and they seem more effective than heritage language programs" (p. 183).

Although the jury is still out on the effectiveness of one approach over another, the fact remains that there are an increasing number of Chinese-speaking Canadians today who are being provided with media broadcasts and entertainment in their native tongues. According to Skeldon and Gungwu, in Toronto alone, "There are Cantonese radio and television stations, two daily newspapers with wide circulations, one, Singtao Jih-pao (Xingdao Ribao), with Hong Kong connections, the other, Shihchieh Jih-pao (Shijie Ribao), with Taiwan connections" (p. 38). From a purely economic view, some forms of Chinese appear to be more valuable than others, with Cantonese being the language of commerce in the majority of the Chinese regions in Toronto, and growing numbers of companies are employing individuals just for their Cantonese-language skills; these organizations include the Toronto Metro-Police, a majority of the city's hospitals, the social agencies, the school boards, and the courts (Skeldon & Gungwu, 1999). According to these authors, "There are Chinese movie theaters, professional services of every kind, and even Chinese old peoples' homes. Cantonese is clearly the dominant form of Chinese in Toronto, though there are now significant Mandarin-speaking groups, immigrants from Taiwan and refugees from mainland China" (p. 38).

From a purely motivational perspective, both heritage- and non-heritage Chinese language learners in Canada would likely be highly interested in which form of Chinese was the lingua franca for modern Canadian business and international commerce, and would seek out programs that focused on this form of Chinese. The importance of this decision is highlighted by Skeldon and Gungwu who emphasize that even amongst the Chinese Canadians, the form of Chinese used is an basic part of business transactions and social exchanges: "The spoken form of Chinese is a divider within the Chinese group as a whole. There tends to be little social or economic connection between Cantonese and other Chinese from the mainland, Taiwan, or Southeast Asia, because they have no common spoken language. The one exception has been the post-June 4 democracy and human rights movement, which has brought together Chinese from every community" (p. 160).

The most recent Canadian census found that the percentage of residents who spoke Chinese as a mother tongue had increased by almost 60% compared to the previous census, and the number of Canadian Chinese who speak some form of Chinese as their mother-tongue speakers had reached almost a half million (Skeldon & Gungwu, 1999). In fact, Skeldon and Gungwu note that Chinese has become the second-largest non-official language group in Canada, with non-official mother-tongue speakers accounting for 13% of the Canadian population, suggesting that a majority of these speakers learned their mother tongue outside of Canada, a view that is consistent with the high levels of immigration for this segment of the Canadian population (Skeldon & Gungwu, 1999). As a result, the decision concerning whether to use a heritage language or immersion approach for second-language acquisition in Canadian universities remains controversial and complicated. As with any curricular offering, part of the problem involves resources and determining which approach would be more cost effective in achieving successful academic outcomes. Some educators believe that a heritage language approach is better because of the format that is used: "Teachers in heritage language programs are often themselves bilingual, bicultural, or both. Because heritage language courses are not conducted in English, they provide an excellent venue for observing student achievement, creativity, and potential in contexts not constrained by the medium of 'English only'" (Lynch, 2008, p. 50). As Castellano (2002) has observed, the use of the heritage language for instruction "allows for its continued development, with particular emphasis on improving reading and writing, while at the same time encouraging the student behaviors of risk-taking, elaboration, and complexity" (p. 125). While some authorities believe that an immersion approach is best suited for learning Chinese, others argue that a step-by-step approach is preferable. According to Kubler (2002), "The average lay person, if asked the best way to learn Chinese, would probably reply that one should go to China for a period of time and 'pick up' the language naturally. For beginning students, learning Chinese in China is actually not the most efficient way to proceed" (p. 96). As noted above, though, even these authorities suggest that immersion, especially in the home country, is the best -- and perhaps only -- viable approach to achieving a high degree of fluency in Chinese. According to Kubler, "After students have reached the intermediate stage, though, there is widespread agreement that the fastest and best way for them to continue their language studies is to spend a substantial period of time in a Chinese-speaking region in close contact with Chinese speakers. In fact, it is questionable whether a non-native can attain Superior- to Distinguished-level (SD) proficiency in Chinese any other way" (2002, p. 96).

The reasons cited by Kubler concerning why it is preferable for most non-heritage Chinese language learners to begin their study of Chinese in their native country include the following:

1. Instructors in the students' native country are usually more familiar with the challenges facing beginning learners;

2. Students there usually have a common native language and culture, making instruction more efficient;

3. If learners travel to China before they have attained basic proficiency in the language, they will initially be unable to take advantage of the main benefit of residence in China, i.e., interacting with the Chinese people in their language;

4. Students may pick up nonstandard pronunciation and usage; and,

5. Students will learn words and grammar in the order of perceived utility to them rather than in the order that makes the most sense pedagogically (Kubler, 2002, p. 96).

As noted above, though, at a certain point, some type of immersion is needed to promote continued improvement and growth in language skills. For instance, in the opinion of Dew (1994), "Intensive overseas study is essential for the attainment of high levels of Chinese language competence because that is the context in which (1) the student can devote full effort to language study; (2) the student can be exposed to the language in all of its varied uses, active and passive; and (3) maximum use can be made of the powers of reinforcement among the four skills" (pp. 40 -- 41).

If a university has enough students with the motivation and aptitude needed to succeed and the resources required to provide them with the Chinese language instruction they require, it is safe to say that almost any Chinese language could produce some good results in Canada or elsewhere; as Kubler (2002) points out, though, immersion in the Chinese culture remains an essential part of any long-term effort to achieve true fluency. According to Kubler, "In practice, it is nearly impossible to achieve this in a non-Chinese environment, especially in the case of the oral skills. Because of the vast cultural and linguistic differences between Chinese and English, the student needs the culture for support" (p. 96). As noted above and throughout the literature review, Chinese is one of the most difficult languages for native English speakers for a number of reasons, including the following:

1. Tones;

2. The enormous size of the vocabulary (due to the length and breadth of Chinese history and culture);

3. The great amount of linguistic and cultural variation across the Chinese speech area;

4. A paucity of linguistic and cultural cognates;

5. The large number of characters making up the writing system;

6. The complexity of the characters; and,

7. Lexical and grammatical differences between speech and writing (Kubler, 2002, p. 96).

Beyond having the motivation to learn Chinese for whatever reason, non-heritage Chinese language learners must also acquire a sufficient amount of proficiency to achieve higher levels of fluency. The results of empirical observations from Chinese language program directors and instructors indicates that some of the important qualifications for non-heritage Chinese language students seeking to achieve the SD level include the following:

1. Advanced proficiency in Chinese at a solid Speaking Level 3 / Reading Level 3 (S-3/R-3) or higher, with oral and written skills as evenly balanced as possible;

2. Evidence of strong language aptitude through prior successful, rapid learning of Chinese;

3. At least one year's residence in a Chinese-speaking region in daily contact with members of Chinese society;

4. Substantial knowledge of Chinese culture and society;

5. in-depth knowledge of the student's field of specialization;

6. Detailed understanding of the student's future job needs;

7. Strong motivation for continuing the study of Chinese;

8. Outgoing personality;

9. Single status (or dependents who also speak Chinese); and,

10. Youth (Kubler 2002).

Although none of the foregoing are absolutely essential to achieving success, Kubler (2002) suggests that the more of the criteria that non-heritage Chinese language learners satisfy, the greater their chances for success. These are valuable insights, but there are some recent trends that are affecting what types of program offerings are required in Canadian universities. The majority of the studies and feedback from educators concerning what works best in helping non-heritage Chinese language learners achieve fluency at the SD level have focused on teaching students who started their study of Chinese as adults (Kubler, 2002). According to Kubler, though, "In recent years, increasing numbers of 'heritage' speakers, i.e., Chinese-Americans who are native or semi-native speakers of Mandarin or other Chinese dialects, have been enrolling in university language classes" (p. 96). At first blush, this trend would appear to be a win-win situation for non-heritage Chinese language learners as well as their teachers because of the peer-mentoring opportunities that it presents; however, as Kubler points out, there are some downsides to this trend as well: While these students often bring considerable strengths to their studies, some of them -- having acquired all or most of what they know informally in a limited range of situations and registers -- may find it difficult to add to their existing linguistic inventory the higher-level, more formal vocabulary and grammar associated with SD-level proficiency" (p. 97). In addition, other non-native Chinese language speakers may have already acquired and used Chinese in various informal settings in Canada for many years and these adults may be especially challenging students in university-level Chinese language courses: "Such speakers may be quite confident of their ability to use Chinese; they think they are very fluent but typically produce many fossilized errors and are limited in precision of vocabulary and range of topics. In many cases, such speakers are at best S-2+, often with substantially lower reading and writing ability. These students are particularly difficult to bring to higher levels because they often feel their Chinese is perfectly adequate" (Kubler, 2002, p. 97)

Because all students seeking to achieve higher levels of proficiency in Chinese will be motivated by different factors, it is important for educators to take the steps necessary to accurately assess these motivational factors as well as the individual strengths and weaknesses that each student brings to the classroom in order to develop responsive curricular offerings (Kubler, 2002). With regards to the two types of nontraditional learners discussed above, Kubler recommends that educators must (a) convince the student that accuracy and precision do matter; (b) convince the student that educated Chinese do employ high-level, formal vocabulary and grammar on those occasions calling for them; (c) point out the student's errors and weaknesses; and (d) teach effective study skills (Kubler, 2002).

With regards to general international language instruction considerations, Ning (2001) emphasizes that a majority of the textbooks for Chinese as a foreign language currently on the market in North America continue to support instruction through vocabulary and grammar drills; typically, these approaches involve presenting students with textual Chinese in some form (i.e., a dialogue, narrative, report, or essay: in the lower levels these tend to be teacher-made concoctions tightly controlled in terms of how many vocabulary items are included; at the higher levels they may be extracts from the Chinese press). The textual Chinese is then supplemented with a vocabulary list, explanations of the grammar used and reinforcing drills (Ning, 2001). Moreover, Ning (2001) notes that this approach has become standard practice over the past 5 decades or so, based in large part on the difficulties that many non-heritage Chinese learners have with the Chinese language. In this regard, Ning reports that, "At least two generations of Chinese-language pedagogues since the Cold War have been nourished on this approach and continue to adhere to it, at the same time cautioning that Chinese is a very difficult language that is best tackled only by elite students with a long-term commitment to learning it" (p. 34). This point is also made by Husseinali (2006) who notes that, "Languages like Chinese are commonly perceived as difficult to learn by American learners, prompting many students not to study them or to drop classes if they do not do well from the beginning" (p. 395).

A study by Liu, Wang and Perfetti (2007) confirms that learning to read a second language in a new writing system presents complex challenges, but adult learners do not necessarily have to be "elite" to successfully acquire Chinese. In this regard, Liu et al. (2007) note that, "An English speaker learning to read Chinese must acquire knowledge of the visual forms of characters, knowledge of the mappings of these forms to meaning and pronunciation, and knowledge of the language itself. Research with college learners suggests that acquisition is fairly rapid. Students can discriminate novel legal characters from illegal ones within at least the first 4 months of classroom learning" (p. 471). Beyond this learning of form, it becomes a question of the acquisition of character representations that include orthographic, phonological, and semantic constituents that can be activated by the character form (Liu et al., 2007).

International language educators must also be open to change and asking for help from their peers is an important part of developing a truly effective second language program. For example, according to Leaver and Shekhtman (2002), "Any foreign language department of a college or university wishing to implement a comprehensive program for home-background speakers can benefit from interdepartmental collaboration" (p. 216). In addition, because many non-heritage Chinese language students will likely be interested in how they can use their newfound language skills to help them in their careers, making L2 classes relevant for adult learners is especially important. In this regard, Leaver and Shekhtman add that, "Offering an array of courses, such as Chinese for Lawyers, is always attractive for students who see the benefit of enhancing their knowledge of a language as they gain exposure to the content they will need in their future careers or intellectual development" (p. 216). In other cases, though, the curricular offerings might be more effective if they focus on other factors that might be important to adult non-heritage Chinese language learners. For example, Leaver and Shekhtman (2002) note that, "If the home-background-speaker population is not large enough and a school can only implement isolated courses for these students, these courses would generally have to be broad enough to attract all home-background speakers regardless of the career interests. In this case, the courses would most likely be language courses with an emphasis on culture" (p. 216).

Whether profession- or culture-oriented, Chinese language programs must have some type of student performance process available so that the effectiveness of a given curriculum can be assessed and opportunities for improvement identified. For example, according to Fall, Adair-Hauck and Glisan (2007), "Over the past two decades, the foreign language profession has experienced a paradigm shift in planning and instruction as programs have begun to change their traditional emphasis on grammar and the textbook to focus on student performance" (p. 377). This shift has been accompanied by a move to more clearly define what students should be able to actually do with their newfound language skills in real-world settings. In this regard, Fall et al. (2007) conclude that, "This new focus has brought with it attention to the attainment of performance-based outcomes, and more recently to standards that define what students should know and be able to do as a result of language study" (p. 377). The concept of performance-based teaching for the foreign language education profession has been highly influenced by earlier research that has focused on oral proficiency assessment in general and the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) in particular; this research resulted in the publication of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Provisional Proficiency Guidelines and, more recently, the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines-Speaking (1999) (Fall et al., 2007). According to Fall and his associates, "These speaking guidelines specify what speakers can and cannot do with the language, as measured according to the criteria of the rating scale: global tasks or functions, context and content, accuracy, and text type" (2007, p. 377). Fortunately, the studies concerning the correlation between the ratings achieved using the OPI and SOPI to date have confirmed their validity and reliability. In this regard, Fall et al. note that, "In five studies involving different test development teams and different languages, the SOPI has shown itself to be a valid and reliable semidirect surrogate for the OPI. The development of four forms of a simulated oral proficiency interview in Chinese were administered, together with an OPI, to 32 students of Chinese at two universities. Each test was scored by two raters and the scores on the two test types were statistically compared. The results showed the correlation between the SOPI and the OPI to be .93" (p. 378).

As noted above, beyond identifying the respective strengths and weaknesses of second-language learners, it is also important to determine what has motivated them to pursue proficiency in a second language. Based on his earlier collaboration with Lambert and subsequently with associates at the University of Western Ontario, Gardner remains a prominent authority in the field of motivation in second language learning. In this regard, Gardner (1985) reports that, "Motivation involves four aspects, a goal, effortful behaviour, a desire to attain the goal and favourable attitudes toward the activity in question" (p. 50). According to Gass and Selinker, "Effort consists of a number of factors, including an inherent need to achieve, good study habits, and desire to please a teacher or a parent. This seems to be a mixed bag of components, as some pertain to what one has done and others to what one would like to do" (1994, p. 251). To help motivate non-heritage Chinese language learners, Jiang & Ramsay (2005) emphasize the need for educators to establish a rapport with their students: "It is common knowledge that human beings are driven by emotional factors in whatever they do. Learners of language are no exception in being driven by emotional factors in their learning. It is thus worthwhile for teachers to make a special effort in developing rapport with their learners" (p. 48). Besides just making learning more "fun," establishing a rapport between students and teacher also has the added benefit of actually motivating these students to learn: "Rapport helps motivate learners: Learner motivation is crucial to learning. Learners have various motivations in their learning and learner-teacher rapport is one of them. A link is strongly suggested by Gardner and his associates between motivation and second language (L2) learning" (Jiang & Ramsay, 2005, p. 48). As noted above, Gardner and his like-minded colleagues maintain that "attitudes and integrativeness" are important motivational factors in L2 learning settings that "determine the level of proficiency achieved by different learners" (Yu, 2002, p. 21). Furthermore, establishing a rapport between students and teachers in L2 classrooms is consistent with previous research in this area: "Developing rapport with learners is an effective measure of motivating them, which is supported by Dornyei's (1994) L2 motivation model. In this model, learner-teacher rapport, namely the 'Affiliative Drive' (p. 280) is one of the important motivation components" (Jiang & Ramsay, 2005, p. 48). Which approach is used in delivering second language courses, these authors and others emphasize that need for accurate student assessment before and during the course as well as establishing a rapport with the students as being essential elements in an international language study setting: "Rapport building, therefore, lies at the centre of good teaching practice and successful language learning" (Jiang & Ramsay, 2005, p. 48).

Finally, Corson (1999) suggests that there are a number of cost effective ways that educators can incorporate activities into their second language curricular offerings that can help improve interest and participation by learners; these methods can be used in schools that have existing bilingual education programs but they are also effective in other settings as well:

1. Using the language resources of the community in the school's official program of events;

2. Treating adult speakers of the minority language with respect in the school's curriculum;

3. Deploying signs written in all the languages of the school;

4. Having older bilingual children work with younger ones in vertically grouped classes;

5. Asking children to compile the emigration patterns of each others' families; and,

6. Developing narrative stories of family histories (Corson, 1999, p. 183).

Although there is no "one-size-fits-all" approach that defines best practices in second language instruction, the foregoing review indicates that there are several ways that educators and administrators can help L2 programs succeed, but that there were also several challenges involved in the implementation and operation of any such program targeting non-heritage Chinese language learners. Therefore, it is important to examine these issues head-on by gathering relevant feedback from students who have experience with these programs to determine what was effective in helping them learn Chinese (and what was not) and what factors compelled them to discontinue (or continue) their studies in the Chinese language and the research methodology developed for this purpose is discussed further below.

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Research Methodology

There are a number of social research methods available to the qualitative researcher, including phenomenology, hermeneutics, historical methodology, ethnography, case studies, grounded theory and action research (Burton & Steane, 2004). As noted above, the proposed study will use a qualitative case study together with a quantitative element consisting of analysis of the statistical data that is obtained from the questionnaire of non-Chinese heritage students. This approach is highly congruent with linguists such as Dornyei (2003) who advises, "The study of L2 motivation is very closely linked to the use of questionnaires" (p. 2). The participants in the proposed study will be 10 female and 10 male non-Chinese heritage students who were formerly enrolled in Chinese courses in the university.

The data for the proposed study will be collected through a questionnaire and follow-up interviews, which will be recorded and stored in a locker that only researcher has access to it. The field data will be transcribed using NVivo software and the statistical data developed from the questionnaire will be analyzed using SPSS Version 11.0 for Windows (Student Version).

Findings and Pedagogical Implications

1.

Non-academic activities such as: watch a movie, go to 'Dim Sum', go for bubble tea, celebrate Chinese New Year and other festivals, learn to sing Chinese songs, play an important role of maintain and increase students' interests in learning the language. It is suggested that these activities should somehow be included into the curriculum revision.

2.

Peer influence has both negative and positive affects in motivation.

3.

Teaching Chinese characters from etymology point-of-view using cartoon motion pictures are helpful to some students. It implies that the cultural roots of Chinese language are more or less attracting students' interests at philosophical level.

4.

Drama in the classroom is also helpful. But it varies from class to class.