Abstract

BALSAS URENA, Isabel María. A history of teaching Chinese as a foreign-language in China. Estud. Asia Áfr. [online]. 2019, vol.54, n.1, pp.103-130. ISSN 2448-654X.  https://doi.org/10.24201/eaa.v54i1.2355.

The history of foreign-language teaching has been traditionally analyzed from a Western perspective, thus excluding the teaching of Eastern languages. Chinese is no exception, even though the particularities of its teaching as a foreign language cannot be found in the teaching of European languages. We can refer, for example, to its close links to topical diplomatic policies and interpretation of structuralism that continues to the present day and influences how this language is studied around the world. This paper explores this history, with a description of every period’s didactic approach; it proposes some connections between teaching and historical events (and vice versa), and possible paths for development, stemming from the historical parallelisms detected.

Keywords : Chinese teaching; teaching history; Chinese as a foreign language; didactics of Chinese; Chinese teaching methodologies.