Concepedia

Abstract

* This collection of 47 essays examines L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English) literacy among educated Chinese in the People's Republic of China. The articles were written by Chinese college teachers while they took part in a teacher education program at Nanjing University in 1994-1995. The formal essays and research reports were selected from papers submitted in academic reading-writing and research methods courses taught by book editor Parry. (Parry edited the papers for language and cut the length of some of them; Su assisted by checking Chinese characters and pinyin phonetic representations.) These courses aimed at improving the participants' academic reading and writing skills in English while helping them grow as English teachers. The participants read ethnographic studies about L1 literacy in homes and classrooms and pedagogical articles about L2 reading strategies and English teaching, and they wrote papers on these same themes, drawing on personal and family experiences, class observations, interviews, curriculum analysis, and action research.