Pedagogy studies what humans do to transmit knowledge and skills. My research has been focusing on HOW adult learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) may learn to become experts in communicating in Chinese. Inspired by the Performed Culture Approach, I ask the question of what cultures CFL learners may be performing and explores a arrange of relevant issues, such as: hybridity by default vs. hybridity by design, integrating the grand narrative of a culture with its observable and performable behavior culture, the highlighting/hiding nature of metaphorical conceptualization of Chinese culture, staging transformational experiences for aspiring learners, the dynamics between cultural constrains and learner agency,  transitioning from learning a language to learning in a language to doing things in a language, transitioning from “performing monkeys” to social actors—participating and contributing members of a community, gold-directed negotiating intentions and expectations in the co-constructed multilingual and transcultural Third Space. 

Recent publications include Third Space and Chinese Pedagogy: Negotiating Intentions and Expectations in Another Culture (coeditors Xin Zhang and Xiaobin Jian, Routledge, 2021); community-based learning intermediate to advanced course Perform China Series (editor Xiaobin Jian) with three volumes published: Perform Suzhou (coauthors Xiaobin Jian, Jianfen Wang, Junqing Jia, Chenghua Feng, Soochow University Press, 2016, Routledge, 2018), Perform Guangzhou (coauthors Xiaobin Jian, Xin Zhang, Zhini Zeng, Qingdao Publication House, 2019), Perform Qingdao (coauthors Xiaobin Jian, Kai Liang, Xuezhou Yu, The Ohio State University Foreign Language Publications, 2021); and domain-specific advanced course Negotiating China Series (editor Xiaobin Jian) with the first volume published: Negotiating the Chinese Workplace (coauthors Junqing Jia and Zhini Zeng, The Ohio State University Foreign Language Publications, 2023).