Teaching a mother tongue far away from the motherland: an analysis of Chinese language curriculum in Australian high schools

This article is concerned with the situation of teaching of Chinese as a first language or a mother tongue in Australia. Based on the analysis of the curriculum documents, students ' identities and exam papers in Victoria and New South Wales, the two biggest states in Australia, we argue that 1 ) the emergence of Chinese as a first language curriculum in Australia where English is the de facto national language is attributed to the globalisation and commercialisation in education; 2) the curriculum design of Chinese as a first language represents the curriculum' s Euro-centric mind-set and this also results in a new variety of Chinese language made for Australia education system, in particular for examination.