The three-day National Chinese Language Conference ended in Boston, US on April 9. At the conference, the learning resources of the MyEChinese international education distance teaching platform, produced by the OUC’s Chinese Language Center, attracted many participants.

Mr. Zheng Xuliang, a staff member at the OUC Chinese Language Center, introduces the MyEChinese platform to participants

 
Mary (middle), Chinese Bridge prize winner who showed a strong interest in Chinese online courses, consulted with her mother and bought MyEChinese learning cards

With the application of information technology in the field of education, more and more schools and teachers are beginning to teach using online resources and IPad. The teachers who participated in the conference were eager to learn how to acquire useful teaching resources and how to use the Internet to teach effectively.

The MyEChinese international education distance teaching platform was created to answer these questions. It not only provides rich downloaded resources for teachers, it also offers a teaching platform and services to schools and other institutions. The MyEChinese Chinese language resources exhibited included mobile Chinese learning applications for children, new HSK online exercises and practice tests (http://hsk.myechinese.com), and free Chinese language and culture open courses on iTunes U. It also focused on programmes like immersive summer camps. The Chinese language education iPad application for children, which was received well when it was released last year, remains a hit. Many teachers at the conference downloaded and installed it and hoped that the OUC would produce more similar resources. The teachers and school principals who participated in the conference showed strong interest in the MyEChinese platform and hoped to apply the MyEChinese platform system to their Chinese teaching.

Hao Ping, vice minister of the Ministry of Education, and Xu Lin, director of the Confucius Institute Headquarters, also attended the conference reception and delivered speeches. This conference was co-sponsored by the American College Board, the Asia Society, and the Confucius Institute Headquarters/Hanban. Approximately 1,200 education workers and government officials from China and America participated in the conference, discussing issues related to the current situation and development of Chinese language education in America.

By Fan Yuan, the OUC