LLRC Faculty Spotlight

Developing Suitable Learning Environments and Materials for diverse learners of Chinese  

Professor Dongmei Zeng has been teaching Chinese at various levels for over 15 years at SBU, for both heritage language and non-heritage language tracks. She is currently the Director of China Studies.

Coordinating the Chinese language curricula is extremely complex due to the varying linguistic backgrounds of the learners. Some have no Chinese background, while others are Chinese Americans. Nonetheless, some Chinese Americans may not speak any Chinese or speak a dialect of Chinese, which may be like a totally different language. In addition, some Chinese Americans may speak Mandarin Chinese quite well but have no literacy skills. Computerized proficiency tests cannot identify each student’s unique needs. Consequently, Professor Zeng spends considerable time and effort placing students in the appropriate Chinese classes through individual interviews, which she conducts months before the start of the new semester. Another challenge is the lack of appropriate teaching materials. The available textbooks for heritage learners are not very interesting for Chinese American college students. Thus, Professor Zeng authored her own textbook, Contemporary Chinese for Heritage Learners, first published in 2010. In addition to traditional Chinese culture, her textbook features dialogues and reading materials relevant to the lives of Chinese American college students who are interested in pop music, video games, and current fashion trends. She has shown unwavering dedication as a teacher to help diverse students.

For Professor Zeng, rewarding moments come when her students in the heritage language track share their progress in Chinese with her, for example:

“I can finally read signs at supermarkets in Chinatown!”

“I can now talk with my relatives in China!

“I sang "茉莉花" (Mòlìhuā, "Jasmine Flower") in front of my grandma! Then, she cried.”

“I finally understand why my parents were so harsh on me when I was growing up after learning the idiom "望子成龙" (wàng zǐ chéng lóng, "wishing one's son to become successful").”

Professor Zeng finds it equally fulfilling when her students in the non-heritage language track progress from CHI 111 to CHI 447 and start to read authentic Chinese literature such as 活着 (Huózhe, "To Live") and write literary analysis of the novel in Chinese.

While acknowledging the benefits of separate tracks, Professor Zeng also sees the value in blending heritage and non-heritage learners to build a collaborative and supportive learning community, facilitated by activities such as TA Time and Pair-Up Activities that were recently created with her colleagues in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies. Professor Zeng invites more students to take Chinese:

People might consider Chinese a challenging language, but it is a pretty easy language if you don't have to learn the characters at the beginning. This is because the word order is similar to that of English, and there are no conjugations for tense or agreement. So, I encourage more students to give Chinese a try.

Interviewed and written by Eriko Sato

November 10, 2023