Invitation to GCI’s 2019 Chinese Language Teacher Training Programme

Published on 29.06.2019

Groningen Confucius Institute (GCI) is organizing its 2019 Chinese Language Teacher Training Programme on 29 and 30 June (Saturday and Sunday).

Experts from China and Europe have been invited to give lectures about Chinese language teaching during the two-day programme. In addition, panel discussions on Chinese learning from the perspectives of both students and teachers will be held, as well as a series of workshops on in-class and after-class activities, the making and the application of classroom teaching materials and the integration of culture and language teaching, among other topics. Other events, such as teaching demonstrations and feedback sessions, open discussions and performances, including a tea ceremony and poem recital, are also being organized.

We cordially invite you to join us!

Date: 29–30 June 2019 (Saturday and Sunday)
Location: GCI Amsterdam, Herengracht 141, 1015 BH Amsterdam
Training fee: One day: € 40,00 (lunch included) ; Two days: € 80,00 (lunch included)
Number of participants: 30. First come, first serve.
Registration: Please register here to save your seat.
(Registration deadline: 17 June 2019)

Programme

Saturday 29 June
10:00-10:10 Opening speech
Jiahui Jiang, Chinese Director of Groningen Confucius Institute
10:10-12:10 Lecture: Experiential Chinese Grammar Teaching (language: Chinese)
Prof. Yuling Yang, Beijing Language and Culture University
12:10-13:00 Lunch
13:00-14:00 Teaching demonstration and feedback session
Margie Li, Stedelijk College Eindhoven
14:10-15:10 Workshop: Interactive Classroom Activities’ Design in Dutch Language Courses: Inspiration for Chinese Teaching (language: English)
Alex van Egmond, De Taalvakman
15:10-15:30 Tea break
15:30-16:30 Analysis and discussion of cases in teaching: How Teaching Reflection Can Help Us to Optimize Our Chinese Lessons (language: Chinese)
Ziqiao Zang, Groningen Confucius Institute
Wenjia Xu, Groningen Confucius Institute
Jingfan Xie, Groningen Confucius Institute
16:40-17:40 Workshop: The Making and Application of Classroom Teaching Materials (language: Chinese)
Yang Wang, Groningen Confucius Institute
17:40-17:50 Certificate awarding

Sunday 30 June
10:00-12:00 Lecture (language: Chinese)
The Design of Chinese Character Teaching
Dr. Lianyi Song, University of London
12:00-13:00 Lunch
13:00-14:00 Teaching demonstration and feedback session
Zhuan Hu, Groningen Confucius Institute
14:10-15:10 Panel discussion: The Voice of Learners – Is Chinese Learning Fán or Fun? (language: English)
Wei Jiang, Groningen Confucius Institute
Nol Duindam, student of the University of Groningen
Hero Hovinga, student of the University of Groningen
15:10-15:30 Tea break
15:30-16:20 Workshop 1: How to Stimulate Students’ Interest in Learning and Apply What They’ve Learned by Carrying Out Activities Inside and Outside the Chinese Classroom (language: Chinese)
Jina Zhong, Chinees Onderwijscentrum Nederland
16:20-17:00 Workshop 2: “Xuéjiāo” — A New Teaching Model Combining Language and Culture (language: Chinese)
Ellen Chan, Chinees Leercentrum
17:10-17:25 Tea ceremony; Poem recital accompanied by Guzheng
17:25-17:45 Open discussion and training summary
17:45-17:50 Closing speech
Xuefei Knoester-Cao, Director of Groningen Confucius Institute
17:50-18:0 Certificate awarding

Keynote speakers:

Prof. Yuling Yang (Author of Handbook on Grammar Teaching for International Chinese Teachers)

Yuling Yang, Professor of Chinese Linguistics and doctoral supervisor at Beijing Language and Culture University.

Professor Yang received her MA and PhD in Modern Chinese Linguistics from Peking University. Her teaching career spans over 20 years and has included tenure at Capital Normal University, study abroad programmes at Duke University and the University at Buffalo, among others, and a visiting professorship at George Washington University.

Professor Yang’s research interests lie in TCSOL (teachers of Chinese to speakers of other languages) and modern Chinese grammar, and she has published over 40 articles and authored 7 books (including textbooks) in these areas. She has lectured and conducted over 200 teacher training workshops abroad (in the US, Ukraine, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines).

Lecture by Prof. Yuling Yang: Experiential Chinese Grammar Teaching
How can we help students to acquire Chinese grammar easily through classroom activities? What is grammar teaching without “teaching grammar”? Professor Yang will combine the teaching process of the comprehensive course and the grammar teaching procedure to extract the four principles of Chinese grammar teaching. On the theoretical basis of experiential teaching, she will present teaching case studies and classroom activities and summarize the methods and techniques of grammar explanation and practice.

Dr Lianyi Song (Advisor of the British Chinese Language Teaching Society)

Dr Lianyi Song is a Principal Teaching Fellow in Chinese at SOAS University of London. He has taught Chinese as a foreign language in the UK for 30 years. He was once the chairman of the British Chinese Language Teaching Society (BCLTS), and he is currently the advisor of BCLTS and the academic advisor of the UK Chinese Examination Committee. His research mainly covers the areas of language pedagogy, assessment and teaching characters, among others, and he has published multiple articles. He was involved in the EU funded project European Benchmarking Chinese Language (EBCL) from 2011 to 2012.

Lecture by Dr Lianyi Song: The Design of Chinese Character Teaching
This lecture aims to illustrate the various ways of teaching Chinese characters to Western students. Of the different approaches, some may be traditional while others may be somewhat radical. By considering different aspects of these approaches and through the discussion of their strengths and weaknesses, Song hopes that the lecture attendees are able to gain a broader insight into the teaching of Chinese characters.

Alex van Egmond (Founder of De Taalvakman)

Alex van Egmond, founder of his own company De Taalvakman, studied Dutch Linguistics at the University of Leiden and enrolled in the international business administration (MBA) programme at the National Cheng Kung University. He has more than 10 years of experience in language coaching and is a certified NT2 teacher and examiner of the CNaVT (Certificate Dutch as a Foreign Language). With his company De Taalvakman, he organizes in-house training sessions and language coaching for organizations (e.g. PricewaterhouseCoopers, Heineken, China Construction Bank, etc.).

Workshop by Alex van Egmond: Interactive Classroom Activities’ Design in Dutch Language Courses: Inspiration for Chinese Teaching

In this workshop, De Taalvakman founder Alex van Egmond aims to introduce you to various techniques and activities that contribute to a good learning environment. He will highlight the didactic effects of classroom activities and how these affect the students. Real-life examples of games and ice-breakers will be demonstrated during the workshop. All of the demonstrated activities can be adapted to any taught language and any language proficiency level.

Ellen Chan (Head of Chinees Leercentrum CLC)

Ellen Chan is the principal trainer at the Chinees Leercentrum CLC. The CLC focuses on how to learn Chinese as a foreign language, what are the techniques of learning Chinese and how to interest a learner in the Chinese culture. Ellen Chan has been teaching primarily in Dutch primary and secondary schools in the Utrecht and Amsterdam regions for 12 years. She has penned 2 primary school textbooks that have been used by 800 Dutch students. The training load for the organisation is shared by 2 other teachers, Grace Lu and Wen Zhang.

Workshop by Ellen Chan: “Xuéjiāo” — A New Teaching Model Combining Language and Culture
The traditional method of teaching starts from the standpoint of the teacher: I teach, you learn. If we reverse this traditional perspective, will we still obtain the desired results? “Xuéjiāo” (learn-teach) is an approach in which students decide what they want to learn within a set of prescribed themes. Would the interest to learn Mandarin be prolonged if students were able to choose their own topics within these themes? Ellen Chan aims to present several practical examples that make use of games (e.g. bingo, quartet), Chinese and Dutch historical/cultural timelines, a free-and-easy travel brochure/poster and debates, and to then discuss these with the workshop participants.

Jina Zhong (Chinese language teacher at Chinees Onderwijscentrum Nederland)

Jina Zhong currently works as a Chinese teacher at CON (Chinees Onderwijscentrum Nederland). Her students are between 8 and 17 years of age. Zhong believes that “interest is the best teacher”, and advocates “putting knowledge into practice”. Following children’s personalities and the developmental psychological rules of teaching, Zhong is good at bringing picture books into the teaching process, as well as organizing interesting, appropriate and meaningful games, performances and speech activities in the classroom. All of these methods guide students to understand, master and flexibly use what they have learned. As a result of learning by playing, her students increase their enthusiasm for learning Chinese, and begin to like it.

Workshop by Jina Zhong: How to Stimulate Students’ Interest in Learning and Apply what They’ve Learned by Carrying Out Activities Inside and Outside the Chinese Classroom

Due to the lack of a Chinese environment and the limitations of Chinese teaching materials, students are unable to use what they have learned in daily life, which inevitably affects their interest in learning. Therefore, we need to combine teaching inside and outside the classroom, to carry out activities that are suitable for students and their learning process. For example, by assigning interesting, meaningful and practical homework, by establishing an incentive system to encourage students to fulfill practical tasks after school, by learning from students’ activities in Dutch schools and translating them into Chinese tasks or by bringing excellent picture books into the teaching process, and so on. Through these methods, the comprehensive Chinese abilities of our students are practiced and improved in a relaxing atmosphere.

In this workshop, Zhong will share her practical experiences by introducing methods, showing results and demonstrating interactive activities, among other things. All methods are easy to learn and practice.

Margie Li (Chinese language teacher at Stedelijk College Eindhoven)

Margie Li holds a PhD in discourse analysis of Chinese-Dutch business negotiations (Eindhoven University of Technology, 1999). She has an MA in Teaching Chinese Language and Culture (Leiden University, 2019). She also holds an MA in English for Special Purposes from Xi’an Jiaotong University (1988). For years, she has been a guest lecturer of International Business Negotiations and Intercultural Communication focusing on China at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

Margie Li started to teach Chinese language and literature in 2014 at the International School Eindhoven (ISE). Since 2008, she has taught Chinese as a foreign language at Stedelijk College Eindhoven. She is keen to promote Chinese language and culture in the Eindhoven Brainport region. She is committed to making Chinese a popular and sustainable subject at school. Her area of interest in teaching and research is spoken Chinese.

Teaching demonstration by Margie Li:
This demonstration will show how the methods outlined in HSK Standard Course (Jiang Liping, 2014) can be effectively used in combination with other Dutch methods. The starting point of Margie's each lesson is not the instruction of vocabulary, grammar or texts, but the instruction of the key sentences/language points. The instruction is followed by intensive practices and communicative tasks performed in pairs, leading to oral presentations in front of the class. Listening and reading exercises are used to consolidate the knowledge acquired during the lesson.

Wenjia Xu (Chinese language teacher at Groningen Confucius Institute)

Wenjia Xu joined Groningen Confucius Institute in July 2014, and is currently working as a Chinese teacher and as the Confucius classroom coordinator. A graduate from the Communication University of China in Beijing and the Central China Normal University in Wuhan, she holds a Master’s degree in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. Since 2011, she has taught Chinese as a foreign language at Central China Normal University, Beijing International Studies University and Princeton in Beijing (an intensive Chinese programme at Princeton University). She co-authored the book One Hundred Thousand Whys about Traditional Chinese Culture in 2013. Believing that teaching is a way to help people to discover their unexplored potential, she truly enjoys being a teacher of language and culture.

Ziqiao Zang (Chinese language teacher at Groningen Confucius Institute)

Ziqiao Zang received her Bachelor’s degree in Chinese Language and Literature at Zhejiang Normal University and obtained her Master’s degree in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Shenyang Normal University. Her academic research is mainly in the fields of Chinese grammar and vocabulary teaching. She has now been teaching Chinese courses, including those in Chinese reading, listening, speaking, literature, history and culture, for over four years. She has been a member of Groningen Confucius Institute since March 2016. In addition, Zang gives Chinese lessons in Amsterdam and also helps the iDealFuture Chinese Community School in their Mandarin classes.

Jingfan Xie (Chinese language teacher at Groningen Confucius Institute)

Jingfan Xie holds a Master’s degree in MTCSOL (Master of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages) from the Communication University of China (CUC). She joined Groningen Confucius Institute in 2017 and is currently working as a Chinese teacher in GCI Amsterdam and as the Confucius Institute scholarship coordinator. Prior to GCI, she engaged in teaching intermediate and advanced Chinese courses for foreign students at CUC and taught Chinese in South Korea for one year. Besides, She is skilled at playing Guzheng (the Chinese zither) and she had many Guzheng recital performances and Guzheng workshops in GCI events.

Analysis and discussion of cases in teaching: How Teaching Reflection Can Help Us to Optimize Our Chinese Lessons
Teaching reflection is an essential step in helping to remember the highlights during classes and to help us to discover the imperfections of our teaching designs. In this session, we will present some real cases and stories from our classes by acting them out. Based on these “successes” and “failures”, together we will analyse, discuss and explore how reflection can enable us to optimize our Chinese courses for both teachers and students.

Yang Wang (Chinese language teacher at Groningen Confucius Institute)

Yang Wang is a graduate of the Master’s programme in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature at the Communication University of China (CUC). She previously taught Chinese at the Sofia Confucius Institute in Bulgaria as well as at the Ljubljana Confucius Institute in Slovenia, during which she collaborated with Slovenian sinologists in developing a Chinese textbook for secondary school pupils, and also regularly conducted Chinese calligraphy workshops for Chinese culture aficionados. She has been working for Groningen Confucius Institute (GCI) since September 2017, and is currently teaching Chinese language and calligraphy courses both at GCI and at GCI’s cooperative secondary schools. She is also coordinating the Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK).

Workshop by Yang Wang: The Making and Application of Classroom Teaching Materials
Good teaching materials will help greatly to reinforce students’ initial desire to learn the language and to sustain their enthusiasm throughout the course. In this workshop, we will present three simple examples which can be applied in Chinese language teaching and class management for primary schools, secondary schools and adult groups accordingly.

Wei Jiang (Chinese language teacher at Groningen Confucius Institute)

Wei Jiang holds a master's degree in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages. She has worked as a volunteer Chinese teacher in Sudan and Egypt. She joined Groningen Confucius Institute in September 2015 and is currently teaching GCI HSK 4 course, tailored course, and Chinese course for BA programme in International Relations and International Organization at University of Groningen. She is also coordinating GCI course management. With an aim of facilitating effective learning and teaching, she is committed to integrating online and offline resources to provide personalized training services.

Panel discussion: The Voice of Learners – Is Chinese Learning Fán or Fun?
Teachers and learners make progress by learning from each other. Understanding the requirements of learners helps to boost the quality of our courses. You are invited to exchange ideas on learning and teaching Chinese with two Chinese language learners, Nol Duindam at HSK 4a level and Hero Hovinga at HSK 6 level, as well as the Chinese language teacher Wei Jiang. Together we will share the learning tricks and teaching feedbacks to inspire more powerful tips on making Chinese learning fun.

Zhuan Hu (Chinese language teacher at Groningen Confucius Institute)

Zhuan Hu, graduated from Xi'an International Studies University (XISU) , She holds a master degree in Journalism and Communication (MJC). She joined the team of Groningen Confucius Institute (GCI) in October 2018 and had taught Spoken and Written Mandarin (Beginner and Advanced), as well as Chinese Culture in Thailand and Cambodia as a Chinese volunteer teacher in the last two years.

At GCI she teaches HSK Standard Courses and YuWen Course for children and also works on the development of GCI WeChat account. She is keen on exploring various teaching methods to provide a supportive learning environment for her students enjoys cultural communication in her class.

Teaching demonstration by Zhuan Hu: How to Organize Primary School Classroom Teaching Better
How can we help primary school students who have the Chinese speaking environment to easily master basic Chinese knowledge in class activities? How can we “teach through lively activities”? This demonstration will give examples of teaching cases on classroom management and the design of classroom activities, such as writing and rewriting Chinese stories, in order to simulate the actual teaching environment of primary school classroom and summarize the methods and skills of explaining and writing Chinese stories.

Video for 2018 GCI Chinese Language Teacher Training Program