From November 6 through the 12, the fourth session of the International Chinese Teacher Training Programme of the Open University of China (OUC) was held at the OUC Wukesong campus. Zhang Shaogang, Vice President of the OUC, Yang Yongbo, Director of the International Cooperation and Exchange Department, and Chen Haishan, Deputy Director of the International Cooperation and Exchange Department, Guo Hongyang, Director of the Human Resources Department, Liang Xiaoqing, Director of the Chinese Language Centre, and Li Fujia, Deputy Director of the Chinese Language Centre, all attended the opening and closing ceremonies and kindly mingled with the trainees.
Beginning from the end of 2012, the OUC has launched a training programme consisting of a series of training sessions with an objective of educating the prospective teachers of the open university system. The first training programme was divided into four sessions and consisted of 75 backbone teachers and teaching administrators from 29 provincial and municipal Radio and TV Universities (RTVUs), including the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, and so on.
This training series was based on topics and a gradual model of learning. The topics of the four sessions were, “Becoming an international Chinese teacher,” “Practical methods and techniques of international Chinese teaching,” “Teaching strategies and organizational management of international Chinese teaching,” and “Language teaching and assessment of Chinese as a second language.” The content covered Chinese culture and cross-cultural communication, language learning theory, teaching theory and methods of Chinese as a second language, Chinese teaching strategies and techniques, instructional design and classroom management, an analysis and selection of teaching materials, modern education technology and application, Chinese test and assessment, etc. It stresses a “step by step” approach and theory and practices in terms of curriculum provisions made by the academic community and through the four sessions offers a relatively macroscopical understanding towards the theory of international Chinese teaching and basic teaching skills.
This training stresses technicality and authority. All of the lectures were presented by specialists and professors from Peking University, Beijing Normal University, Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Renmin University, Minzu University of China, as well as Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban). At the same time, the different forms of learning were combined from lectures, case studies, team activities, views of the classroom, simulation teaching sessions, and reviews. This allows for supported learning and support service of the MyEChinese distance teaching platform that adopts mixed “online and offline” learning methods and highlights the training courses featured at the OUC.
The trainees who participated in each session gave warm feedback with respect to the training and said they experienced an increase in professional knowledge and skills through the training, as well as having the subject of education opened up based on their exchanges with the specialists and famous professors, as well as teachers rich in overseas experience from the OUC Chinese Language Centre. At the same time, the trainees experienced the MyEChinese user platform and new HSK practice test/test system and also learned first hand the achievements of the OUC programme for international Chinese education and resource construction, which facilitates their own profession and the professional advancement of local RTVU. The trainess certainly were adamant in expressing they learned a great deal.
Zhang Shaogang expressed that through this training programme, the OUC strengthens communication with local RTVUs and stresses learning the need for launching this international Chinese education business. It can provide support for the MyEChinese distance learning platform in surrounding countries in providing distance language teaching training to provinces and autonomous regions that possess geographic advantages such as Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Guizhou and central cities and provincial branches that have frequent foreign visitors. At the same time, this training cultivates and develops outstanding international Chinese teachers at the Open University system who take the contributions the university has bestowed upon them and move out into the world with the ability to enhance the internationalized capability of the OUC system.
This series of training programmes will continue next year and will feature enriched training content and offer more targeted courses to teachers from different institutes with different major backgrounds based on the requirements proposed by the local RTVUs in the first training programme.
By Du Liang, the OUC