Character And Citizenship Education (chinese) Students Journal P3

[Siri]

Thecase this paper focuses on is a language club run by a group of Chinese international students at a university campus in Melbourne. This case study is based on a data collection conducted in December 2021 as part of a research project investigating citizenship practices and belonging of Chinese international students in Melbourne, Australia. In the interviews I conducted with Chinese international students, this club was mentioned by quite a few participants when they were talking about their social life in Melbourne. Participants invested a significant amount of time and energy into running this club, and it was obvious that this club played a crucial role in their social lives and in their engagement with the host society. Their experiences spurred me to want to understand why students invested so much time and energy in this club. What does their engagement with this club mean to them? And what do these participatory activities tell us about the citizenship they practise in Melbourne?

The operational team of this club includes one president, one secretary, one treasurer, and a team of committee members responsible for a wide range of tasks including recruiting new members, attending student club expos at the beginning of each academic year, recruiting and training language lecturers and tutors, performing administrative work associated with teaching, developing and delivering language classes, organising special events such as welcoming parties and Chinese cultural events, raising funds, maintaining the social media pages of the club, and publicising club services and activities.

The team was awarded the Club of the Year in 2017 among hundreds of student clubs and organisations at the university. Its membership exceeded one thousand students before the pandemic with over 300 members attending the language classes and cultural events organised by the club at least once in the second semester of 2019. After the shock of the pandemic in 2020, the club resumed its operation in 2021. It currently has over 100 active members who regularly attend online language classes and cultural activities.

Free Mandarin lessons is one of the key activities of this club. The club maintains a team of lecturers and tutors through recruiting and training new language teachers. The teaching team designs, administers, and delivers weekly classes at elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels to those members who joined to learn Mandarin. The classes run for 22 weeks, covering the first 11 weeks of the two long terms in each academic year.Footnote 1 Each session includes a 45-min lecture followed by a 30-min tutorial in which students practise their new skills. The club has a fully functioning marketing team, maintaining home pages on major social media platforms through which they provide rich language learning materials and promote club activities.

The data in this case study was mainly collected through a focus group interview with five of the key members of the club. The interview was conducted via Zoom in December 2021 because indoor gatherings in Melbourne were restricted due to the pandemic and because two of the participants were resident in China. The participants included the former and current president of the club, a lecturer who has been voluntarily teaching mandarin lessons for the club over the past 2 years, the current secretary of the club, and the current treasurer who is in charge of the finance- and marketing-related work of the club. In the two-hour interview participants were asked to first provide a detailed introduction to the club covering its history since its establishment in 2016, its purpose, and how it has evolved over time. Informed by the notion of inclusive citizenship as everyday practice, they were then invited to share their stories of finding and working in the club, the role(s) they played/playing in the club, and discuss together the meaning they derive from their engagement with it.

All the interviewees mentioned that they joined multiple clubs at the beginning of their first academic year in order to explore possibilities for their social lives but later dropped out of most of them; however, they found that their engagement with the language club deepened over time. They said that they invested a significant amount of time and effort in operating and expanding this club, developing a special attachment to it. When asked what was unique about this club for them, the interviewees all commented on how the language club was constructed and functioned as an intermediary platform.

When international students come to the university campus, they are relatively unfamiliar and scared, and then they may need to attach to a group very quickly, but at the same time they do not want this attachment to be completely with Chinese people. Some people may think if I attach to a group of a hundred percent Chinese, what is the point of study abroad? Right? I think our club provides a very good intermediary platform: you can keep in touch with both Chinese and foreigners; you are safe on the one hand; and you are out of your comfort zone on the other. This feeling is a very subtle balance.

I joined probably a dozen clubs at the beginning, but finally stayed in the Chinese Club because other clubs are either very Chinese, or a completely Chinese club. I also joined linguistics club, and creative writing - this kind of more English club, but honestly you do not feel a very strong sense of belonging there, as you always feel I could not follow, or we are not on the same page, so just participating for the sake of it, but the Chinese Club has a really good balance.

In the introductory video on the homepage of the language club website, aside from stating the aim of the club as creating a safe and inclusive space for all for learning Mandarin and knowing more about Chinese culture, Chinese international students are explicitly addressed by the video positioning the club as a site for those who are interested in establishing a career in education and training to develop their teaching skills, and for those who are interested in a career in public communication and marketing to develop their skills by publicising the language club through online and offline channels, organising special cultural events, and gaining sponsorship from local businesses.

This is a good environment, a precious learning opportunity. You can practise your teaching ability, develop your interpersonal skills. These days if you go to an outside institution and get some training in your teaching and presentation skills, you have to pay for it, right? Our team can provide the same for free; moreover, it is a peer-to-peer relationship, not a hierarchical one. Getting constructive feedback in a supportive environment, you would not be criticised or feel painful; it can only help you to do it better next time.

The work involved in constructing the language club into an intermediary space for Chinese international students to engage with people from the same or different language and cultural backgrounds provides rich opportunities for Chinese international students to perform and consolidate their Chinese identity. This identity performance is first actualised through teaching Mandarin as a second language. One participant said that.

(By providing Chinese language courses and an environment for non-Chinese speakers to practise Chinese), I feel that it is a great way for Chinese students to meet each other and to stimulate their own identity about China.

Identity entails experiences of both similarity and difference (Buckingham 2008). In terms of similarity, language is a primary source of commonality and comfort through which a sense of connectedness can be experienced (Gomes 2022). Teaching Chinese in collaboration with other Chinese students to non-Chinese-speaking members of the club provides the best opportunity for Chinese international students to experience this connection to the broader collective of Chinese culture and to establish a strong social network with their peers from a similar cultural background. Research has shown that such networks play a crucial role in providing practical and emotional support to international students (Glass et al. 2013; Gomes 2022).

I decided to join language club because I felt there is a lot of positive energy in this club. You can work with other Chinese students to communicate Chinese language and culture. It is something I am very passionate about.

The reason I joined language club was I feel it is a club doing real work for communicating Chinese culture. It will create a place for international students to socialise. Although it is small, it is doing a meaningful thing.

Their Chinese citizenship was also apparent in their intention to communicate what they saw authentic Chinese culture through providing opportunities for their students to interact with real Chinese people, and their seeing this task as a natural mission for them. One participant explained this:

Along with their practice of neoliberal citizenship and Chinese citizenship in the language club, their engagement with the club also represents an expression and practice of global citizenship. This is indicated in their strong awareness of gaining intercultural experiences and in their active effort to obtain these experiences. In expressing her disappointment at being trapped in China during the pandemic, one participant commented that.

Citizenship is an active concept which entails an ethics of participation (Faulks 2000). The effort of this student to gain cross-cultural experience through engaging with people from different language and cultural backgrounds at the language club is her way of deriving value from her global citizenship. In the meantime, by providing free language classes and cultural events, these international students also practice their global citizenship by contributing to the cultural diversity of the host society while providing an accessible opportunity for others to learn about a different language and culture. A participant of the focus group interview commented that.

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