Power, Identity and Second Language Learning

Reviews / Votes

"This book critically examines and compares how two unique immigrant groups, the Koreans in northern China and the Southeast Asians in Hong Kong, learned Chinese as a second language in the context of intensified globalization. It specifically investigates the interplay between power and identity in teaching and learning Chinese and raises a question about the role of race/ethnicity in second language learning, probably also in second language acquisition." - Minglang Zhou, Associate Professor, University of Maryland

"Dr. Gao's investigation of political, socioeconomic, cultural and ideological contexts in Korean and South Asian minorities learning Chinese as a second language is a unique contribution to authentic critical multiculturalism. She uncovers the dialectic between long term racist attitudes towards South Asians which promote monoculturalism and monolingualism and provide second class treatment for students of non-dominant cultures and languages and the struggle of students to accept, resist or repudiate those identities in the course of learning Chinese. Gao Fang calls for a shift from narrow remediation of minority students' limited Chinese proficiency to a comprehensive additive approach, supporting students' powerful identities within the current global migration patterns, to maintain valued transcultural/transnational elements for their linguistic and cultural rights."- Dr. Shelley Wong , George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, author of Dialogic Approaches to TESOL: Where the Ginkgo Tree Grows