Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language to Beginners in an Australian University Context

In Australia, Chinese is recognized as one of the fastest growing languages and has one of the largest groups of non-English background speakers. A considerable number of universities, colleges and schools with different backgrounds and settings are strengthening or establishing their own Chinese language programs. However, students in different programs generally exhibit collective differences in learning objectives, motivation levels, academic abilities, learning styles, committed studying time frames and expectations of learning outcomes. How to create a better language environment to facilitate students' development of all four-macro skills in their Chinese study? What are the optimum and practical ways of adopting teaching to cater to the needs of different students' bodies? This article begins with a description of the current trends, Issues and challenges of Chinese language education in the multicultural society of Australia; the second part of the article is a briefoverview of teaching policies in Australia and the development of Chinese language learning; the third part of the article deals with the findings of a case study and an action research study; and the article concludes with some concrete suggestions for the design and implementation of teaching methods that facilitate effective Chinese teaching and learning.