Interviews with experts in the field of education
Last month, I met up with a friend from Singolingua, a publishing house that deals exclusively with teaching and learning Chinese materials. He has collaborated with Yale University on a series of books called Encounters. These books, which have accompanying multimedia components, were trialled with a select group of beginner students this past summer at…
EXPERT CORNER Last week, I was lucky enough to spend time with a Beijing-based university professor. She has accumulated a wealth of experience in Teaching Chinese Methods or “Patterns”. In her opinion, the following US-Sino collaborations implement some of the best practices for teaching Chinese (on intensive Chinese language summer programmes) today: 1. ACC –…
EXPERT CORNER A new Teaching Chinese Online platform, Mandaring, is in soft launch. I was lucky enough to meet up with one of the Beijing-based Mandaring team a couple of weeks ago. Since then I have enjoyed being one of their guinea pigs, trailing their online lessons. 45 minutes of intensive speaking and listening left…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAUrH9fOdDU?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281 EXPERT CORNER Interview in Chinese with Leo Laoshi Leo’s teaching background, love of Chinese characters, views on the current issues facing TCSOL and digital technology recommendations for learning Chinese. 傅强老师采访。傅强老师解释一下他的教学背景，热爱汉字，对学国际汉语当前存在的问题和数字化技术的建议意见。
EXPERT CORNER – Part 3 A dialogue with a university teacher with regards digital technology in the classroom. University Teacher 1 strongly believes in keeping her teaching skills fresh and up to date through regular training. She recommends Confucius Institute’s free summer training, available to overseas Chinese teachers and China-based teachers alike. We finished…
EXPERT CORNER – Part 2 We discussed Hanban’s International Curriculum for Chinese Language Education，the CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) approach， teaching Chinese characters and using the student’s mother tongue in the classroom. In 2007, Hanban’s Curriculum was developed with regards teaching Chinese abroad. The learning environment, and aims, of those abroad is inevitably different to…
EXPERT CORNER – Part 1 A dialogue with a university teacher with regards digital technology in the classroom. University Teacher 1 has been teaching Chinese for more than 20 years and has seen all of the changes and development in the industry first-hand. Using technology is a teaching basic for her. It’s not only a…
EXPERT CORNER ‘XiCheng Cup’ Last week I observed a Primary School Chinese Teacher competition in XiCheng, a district in Beijing. From a teaching with (old and new) technology point of view, a projector, flat screen TV, blackboard, hand-drawn pictures & flashcards were all well integrated into student-centred lessons. I was very impressed! ‘西城杯’ 今年四月份在西城区举办了一个小学汉语老师比赛。为了丰富他们的课程老师们都用了多媒体教汉语。这个经历对我的印象很深。
EXPERT CORNER Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with the founder of a US-based Chinese Language textbook series called Better Chinese. The company produces a range of multimedia resources from pre-school up to college level, and provides its own online learning system. Better Chinese have developed their own pedagogy: * Student-Centric approach *…
Based on the 10 questionnaires, my conclusions are as follows: – TCFL teacher training at universities and other private institutions focuses more on theory, than on practice. – These teachers have little opportunity for post-graduate professional development training – Availability of teaching resources and materials is very limited – Limited awareness of different language teaching and learning styles…