Abstract

NEL, Norma; WANG, Linpu; KROG, Soezin  and  LEBELOANE, L. D. M. Oupa. A Collaborative Auto-Ethnography: A South Africa-China Community of Practice and Its International Collaborative Research Process. Educ. as change [online]. 2019, vol.23, n.1, pp.1-22. ISSN 1947-9417.  http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/1947-9417/4904.

A South African university and a Chinese university embarked on a collaborative research project in 2014. The project was propelled by the introduction of Mandarin as a second additional language in South African schools and Mandarin taught as a foreign language to non-Chinese learners and mixed-blood learners (one parent is ethnic Chinese) in schools in China. A Community of Practice (CoP) was established as part of the existing research project in 2017. Based on our research process experiences as a CoP we were able to present a collaborative auto-ethnographic narrative. The focus was on the teaching and learning of Mandarin as a foreign language: Chinese characters. The benefits of the CoP for each country ensure the sustainability of the research project, with a renewed vision for future research. CoPs are enablers of collaborative comparative research whereby their combined experiences and conclusions are reflected in an auto-ethnographic narrative.

Keywords : Communities of Practice; platform agreement; collaboration; Chinese characters; auto-ethnography.

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