The book is linked to the annual theme of the 2008 CAERDA International Conference with contributing authors serving as keynote speakers, invited panelists, paper presenters, as well as specialists and educators in the field. The book provides a most comprehensive description of and a theoretically well informed and a scholarly cogent account of teaching and learning Chinese in general and in the United States in particular. It examines a wide range of important issues in Chinese teaching and learning: current state in teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL) in the United States, US national standards for learning foreign languages K-12, policy making about how to meet the growing demand for Chinese language and cultural education with regard to a national coordination of efforts, professional teacher training in terms of the quantity and quality of Chinese language teachers at all levels, promotion of early language learning, characteristics of Chinese pedagogy, aspects of Chinese linguistics, methods and methodology in teaching TCSL, techniques and technology in Chinese language education, curriculum and instruction in TCSL, cultural aspects of teaching Chinese as a Second Language, issues in Chinese pedagogy, development of Chinese as a Heritage Language (HL) and the issue of cultural identity for bilingual/multilingual learners (particularly bilingual/multilingual children), testing and evaluation in TCSL, Chinese literacy and reading, approaches to instruction and program design, etc. Following "Introduction: Teaching and Learning Chinese in a Global Era--Issues and Perspectives" by Jianguo Chen, Chuang Wang, and Jinfa Cai, this book contains: Part I: Chinese Language Education--A Historical Perspective: (1) Chinese Language Education in the United States: A Historical Overview and Future Directions (Shuhan Wang); (2) A Historical Perspective of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (Zhiping Zhu); Part II: Chinese Language Education--Case Studies at College Level: (3) Effects of Prompt Sentences in Beginning Chinese Classes (Yongan Wu); (4) Creative Writing in CFL Curriculum (Hong Wei); (5) Language Attitudes Among American College Students in Chinese Language Classes (Ko-yin Sun); (6) Motivating U.S. Students to Learn Chinese as a Second Language: Understanding the Interactions Among Motivation, Ethnicity, and Teaching Strategies (Aubrey Wang); Part III: Chinese Language Education--Case Studies at K-12 School Level: (7) What Difficulties Do Children Experience While Learning to Read and Write Chinese? (Hui-Hua Wang and Alice Sterling Honig); (8) Literacy Practices in the Family Household of Taiwanese American Children (Hui-Ching Yang); (9) Acquiring Chinese Simultaneously with Two Other Languages: Effective Home Strategies (Xiao-Lei Wang); Part IV: Program Development, Curriculum Design, and the Acquisition of Chinese Literacy: (10) The Role of Chinese Culture and Language in Global Education: The Chinese International Engineering Program at University of Rhode Island (Xiong Wen and John Grandin); (11) Curriculum Design and Special Features of "Computer Chinese" and Chinese For Tomorrow (Wayne W. He and Dela Jiao); (12) Morphological Awareness: Why and How to Link it to Chinese Literacy Teaching and Learning (Phil D. Liu, Yanling Zhou, and Catherine McBride-Chang); (13) An Analysis of Orthographic Processing: Non-Chinese and Chinese Readers' Visual-Spatial Concept (Pei-Ying Lin and Ruth A. Childs); and Part V: Issues in Teaching Chinese Literature in American Classroom: (14) Teaching Chinese Literature in the Post-American World (Rujie Wang); (15) To Be or Not to Be?: Death as the Paradox of Survival--Chinese Literature in the American Classroom (Jianguo Chen). About the Editors and Contributors is also included.