Contact Information

Office: 3063 JFSB

Phone: 422-5303

Email: matthew_christensen@byu.edu

Commonly Taught Courses Chin 101, 102 Beginning Chinese
Chin 325 Structure of Chinese
Chinese 343 Chinese Poetry in Translation
Chin 377 Teaching Methods
Chin 495 Senior Seminar

Vita: Link to Vita

Biography:

Dr. Christensen received his B.A. from Brigham Young University in Chinese with a minor in International Relations in 1988. He participated in BYU's first ever China Study Abroad program at Nanjing University in 1985. He received his M.A. in 1990 and Ph.D. in 1994, both from The Ohio State University in the field of Chinese linguistics. Following his graduate studies, he was hired as director of a Cantonese language project at Ohio State University where he worked for a year developing a Cantonese textbook series. He has been teaching at BYU since 1995. Dr. Christensen is also the Academic Director of the Chinese Flagship Program and has been working with that program since its inception in 2002.

Selected Publications:

Decoding China: A Handbook for Traveling, Studying, Working and Living in Today's China. Tokyo, Rutland, VT, Singapore: Tuttle Publishing. (forthcoming early 2013)

English Grammar for Students of Chinese. Ann Arbor, MI: The Olivia and Hill Press. 2010. 115 pages.

“Cultural Sensitivity and Lifelong Learning.” Co-authored with J Paul Warnick. In The Pedagogy of Performing Another Culture. Minru Li, ed. Columbus, OH: Foreign Language Publications. 2010.

“Bringing Culture into the Chinese Language Classroom Through Contextualized Performance.” In Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language: Theories and Applications. Michael Everson and Yun Xiao, eds. Boston: Cheng & Tsui. 2008.

“你好 and Greeting Strategies in Mandarin Chinese.” Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association. Vol. 41, No. 3, October 2006, pp. 19-34.

Performed Culture: An Approach to East Asian Language Pedagogy Columbus, OH: Foreign Language Publications, National East Asian Languages Resource Center. 2006. 255 pages. Coauthor: J Paul Warnick.

“Anaphoric reference in spoken and written Chinese narrative discourse.” Journal of Chinese Linguistics. 28.2, June 2000, pp. 303-336. Spoken Cantonese: Performance and Acquisition. Columbus, The Ohio State University: Foreign Language Publications. 1995. Coauthor: Xiaobin Jian.

Degrees: BA, Brigham Young University, 1988; Chinese major, International Relations minor
MA, The Ohio State University, 1990, Chinese linguistics
PhD, The Ohio State University, 1994, Chinese linguistics

Interests:

Chinese language pedagogy, teacher training, materials development, discourse analysis, language contact, Chinese food culture (and eating), and Chinese poetry.