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Following the China Dream

By February 10, 2017No Comments2 min read1,664 views

“Learn Chinese, Double Your World”: Promotion of Chinese as a global language

Research seminar about the language learning experiences of Burmese high school students in China

Topic: Following the China Dream (中国梦): Burmese students in a Yunnan border high school

Where: Macquarie University, S2.6 (AHH) 1.620 Faculty Tute Rm (16UA),

When: Wednesday, 22 February, 13:00-14:00

Presenter: Li Jia

Host: Professor Ingrid Piller

Abstract: In the current era of globalization desired migration destinations are no longer confined to Anglophone and Western countries. Given the increasing prominence of China’s economy and soft power projection in the world, China has emerged as an increasingly attractive destination for international students. One of the first studies to systematically examine their educational experiences, this seminar shares findings from an ethnographic research project on Burmese students’ language learning experiences at a border high school in Yunnan in China’s south-west. The focus will be on the educational barriers experienced by Burmese migrant students, the educational policies and teaching practices affecting them, the agentive practices of migrant students and their interactions with the educational context in which they find themselves. The presentation will be of interest not only to those with a background in Educational Linguistics and Chinese Studies but to anyone wishing to understand how migrant education produces and reproduces the social order, particularly against the novel promotion of Chinese as a global language.

Li Jia (3rd from left) during field work

About the presenter: LI Jia is Associate Professor of Foreign Languages at Yunnan University. For the past three years, she has been a PhD student in the Linguistics Department at Macquarie University. Under the supervision of Ingrid Piller and as a member of the Language on the Move research group, she has conducted a critical sociolinguistic ethnography of the education experiences of Burmese migrant students in China. Her thesis is currently under examination. Her research interests are in the sociolinguistics of language learning and ASEAN students’ education in her native Yunnan, China.

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