Inclusive teaching strategies and proprioceptive learning methods for migrants in acquiring basic Chinese

The continuing flow of new immigrants in Taiwan over the last ten years has placed significant pressure on the provision of transitional Mandarin Chinese services by the Taiwanese government. To ease this pressure, the Taiwanese government invests annually in various programs aimed at providing Mandarin Chinese classes to newly arrived migrants through its municipal libraries. This chapter reports a case study on the diversity in second language education for migrants in Taiwan and explores inclusive teaching strategies for these migrants. An inclusive proprioceptive teaching method was employed to help students effectively manage the prosodic system of Mandarin Chinese, including tones. Our analysis was based on video recordings and class-related materials and notes from a “Parent-Child Class: Basic Chinese Program” for migrants and foreigners in Taipei. The results show that inclusive teaching strategies created a safe learning environment for migrants, and the proprioceptive activities used in the class proved to be very effective for students to acquire basic Chinese.