The 8th Confucius Institute Conference was held in Beijing's China National Convention Centre on Dec. 7 & 8, 2013. With “Reviewing the Past, Looking to the Future” as its theme, the conference adopted a practical method of case study utilizing dissection and analysis, hoping to provide a platform of experience sharing and information exchange for various Confucius Institutes all around the world. The conference also intended to introduce MOOC to the Confucius Institute to further promote Chinese language and Chinese culture. More than 2,000 university presidents and representatives of various Confucius Institutes from 120 countries and regions attended the conference.
Liu Yandong, Vice Premier of the State Council of China and Chair of the Council of Confucius Institute Headquarters, delivered a keynote speech and mentioned 4 shining points in the Confucius Institute’s development during 2013: Firstly, the Confucius Institute has created and implemented a medium and long-term development plan, in which the overall goals and key tasks from 2012 to 2020 have been decided; Secondly, the Confucius Institute has made a breakthrough in the development of teaching staff; Thirdly, a programme called “Confucius China Studies”has been implemented, having already brought 70 young people from 30 countries to China, with the help of financial aid, to further their studies; Lastly, in order to facilitate the quick and efficient communication between difference Confucius classrooms, both a U.S. hub and a Latin-American hub of the Confucius Institute have been established in Washington, DC and Santiago, Chile. As for the direction of the Confucius Institute's 2014 development, Liu Yandong mentioned the following points: Firstly, she hoped that the Confucius Institute, an effective vehicle for people-to-people exchanges as well as an important platform for promoting mutual friendship, will continue to scale up its scope of Chinese language teaching and ameliorate the quality of teachers, teaching materials and methods so as to provide foreigners interested in the Chinese language with Chinese language teaching services of high quality. She added that the Confucius Institute, as a platform for diverse cultural exchanges, has a unique advantage in presenting China as what it really is, and therefore it needs to strive to deepen the cooperation and promote cultural inclusiveness and diversities. In addition, the Confucius Institute should make itself a cultural brand to enhance its attraction and influence. In the end, she pointed out the importance of an excellent director and administrative team since it is the guarantee of the sound development of the Confucius Institute. The opening ceremony of the conference was hosted by Yuan Guiren, the Minister of Education.
During the “Forum on Superior Cases of School Management” at the conference, there was a sub-forum named “Confucius Institutes and MOOC”, which aimed to discuss how to further enlarge the Chinese language and culture teaching of the Confucius Institute through information technology, such as using large scale online teaching. In this sub-forum, university presidents and directors of the Confucius Institute from various countries such as China, America, England, Canada, South Africa, and Sweden shared their understanding and experiences related to MOOC. Yang Zhijian, the president of the OUC, introduced the OUC's achievements in the field of MOOC. He said that the OUC would continue to be based on cloud technology, build a cloud platform, set up a learner-centred network learning environment, and serve the teaching and development needs of the Confucius Institute. During the British prime minister David Cameron’s visit to China at the beginning of this month, the OUC and the British Open University signed a cooperation agreement in which they agreed to cooperate in the aspects of distance education practitioners’, training and Chinese teaching. They also agreed to continue to promote the development of the Confucius Institute by taking advantage of online teaching.
In order to present new achievements in the construction of global Chinese textbooks, the conference featured simultaneous exhibitions of Chinese textbooks and cultural reading materials. The OUC launched a web-based homepage service for institutional users, the new HSK online practice/mock test, the Easy Chinese online course, and other relevant APP products, all of which drew representatives’ attention. Representatives present at the conference were all interested in education methods such as using the Internet for short term Chinese language training and using online resources for Chinese teacher training. They all stopped and watched, hoping to find some resources which would be a good fit for their local Confucius Institute.
By Wu Di, the OUC