Recently, 9th Wales Chinese teaching project forum was held in Confucius Institute at UK’s Cardiff University. 32 language teaching heads from Confucius Institutes at University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Bangor University and the primary and secondary schools in Wales, were present at the forum.
The forum, taking “Gather strength, Improve together” as topic, aimed to sum up Chinese teaching experience and achievement in the past half a year and to overcome the difficulties encountered in local Chinese teaching, which facilitate the integration of the Chinese language to Welsh language teaching system and determine the future development plan of Chinese teaching projects in the primary and secondary schools of Wales.
The forum opening ceremony was presided by Rachel Williams, primary and secondary teaching project manager of Confucius Institute at Cardiff University, and Chinese dean Yubei Zhou delivered a welcome speech. Rachel made a comprehensive summary of the development of Chinese language teaching in Wales over the past eight years. She emphasized the important support from Chinese national Hanban and Welsh government for Chinese language teaching. She also pointed out that the focus of Chinese teaching in primary and secondary schools in the coming years will be cultivating local Chinese language teachers.
Later on, some Confucius classroom directors discussed one after another about the impact of globalization on school education. They said that language teaching plays a vital role in helping better adapt the local citizen to the new circumstances. The development of Chinese language teaching has set up a communication bridge between Wales and China, which benefits the regional development in the long term.
After one day of a heated discussion, the delegates proposed many methods of localizing Chinese language teaching, for instance, drawing the reasonable teaching outline, providing teachers with a probation period, attracting parents on Chinese teaching and so forth. They also made an agreement on intercollegiate and regional (e.g. with England) exchange and cooperation. The delegates generally believe that improving communication channels and strengthening the publicity can effectively promote Chinese language and culture in Wales.
It is understood that Confucius Institute at Cardiff University places a great importance on Chinese teaching in the local primary and secondary schools since its establishment. So far, more and more schools in Wales have absorbed Chinese teaching into Welsh Baccalaureate. Welsh government has also given a strong support for Chinese teaching.