Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language Training Day

Tuesday 23 April 2024, 9:30 AM – 15.00 (UTC+00)

Our conference

This training day in collaboration with the Online Confucius Institute of The Open University, shares best practice in teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. The one-day event can be joined online or in-person. Academics will share their insights on Virtual Exchange, Continuation Theory and Character Learning Strategies.

Venue: Lecture Theatre 19, B Floor, Lancaster University, Management School

Conference language: English

Keynote speakers

Dr Mirjam Hauck - Associate Head of School for Internationalisation, The Open University and President of EUROCALL
Dr Guo Zhiyan - Professor, Subject Leader of Chinese, University of Warwick
Professor Mei Yang - Professor of Applied Linguistics, South China University of Technology
Richard McCurry - Founder of Newby Chinese
Dr Kan Qian - Senior Lecturer in Chinese, The Open University

Dr Mirjam Hauck

Dr Mirjam Hauck is Associate Head for Internationalisation, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics and a Senior Fellow of the UK’s Higher Education Academy.

She has written numerous articles and book chapters on the use of technologies for the learning and teaching of languages and cultures, in virtual exchange contexts in particular. Her work covers aspects such as learner and teacher autonomy, intercultural communicative competence, and critical digital literacy. She presents regularly at conferences, seminars, and workshops worldwide. She is the President of the European Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning (EUROCALL), serves as Associate Editor of the CALL Journal and is a member of the editorial board of ReCALL and LLT. From 2014-2016 she spent 18 months at the Centre for Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) at SUNY in the US as professional development lead. She is a founder member of UNICollaboration.org and was a trainer and co-investigator in the EU-funded EVOLVE and ERASMUS PLUS Virtual Exchange projects which linked teachers and learners from Higher Education Institutions and Youth Organisations around the world in virtual exchange initiatives across the curriculum. She is currently a Co-Investigator in the Marginalization and Underrepresentation in VE: causes and remedies project funded by the US-based Stevens initiative.

米尔姆•豪克博士

英国高等教育研究院的高级研究员，语言与应用语言学院副院长（负责国际化及多元化），开放大学博士生导师。欧洲计算机辅助语言学习专业委员会（EUROCALL）主席，担任CALL国际期刊副主编，也是国际期刊ReCALL和LLT的编委会成员。她是欧洲网络教育联盟（UNICollaboration.org）的创始成员，也是欧盟资助的EVOLVE和ERASMUS PLUS虚拟交流项目的培训师和研究员，该项目助力世界各地高等教育机构的教师和学习者交流，设计整个课程的虚拟交流活动，在欧洲乃至国际上有着一定的影响力。研究领域：在虚拟交流环境中的语言学习，研究涵盖了学习者和教师的自主性、跨文化交际能力和批判性数字素养等方面。

Dr Guo Zhiyan

Professor of Chinese, University of Warwick; Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy, UK; Editor and Chair (2014–18), the British Chinese Language Teaching Society; Fellow of Warwick International Higher Education Academy (2019–22).

Her research interests are in intercultural communication, language acquisition, Chinese characters and reading, and language teaching and technology. She has published articles in these areas and edited books on Chinese pedagogy and been review editor of journals. She is the author of over 30 academic papers and the monograph “Young Children as Intercultural Mediator: A Study of Mandarin-speaking Chinese Families in Britain” published by Multilingual Matters. See more publication details in ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5852-4419

郭志岩博士，教授，英国华威大学现代语言文化学院中文部主任，英国高等教育研究院资深研究员。2014-18年任英国汉语教学研究会编辑和会长，2019-2022为华威国际高等教育研究院研究员。研究兴趣：跨文化交际、语言习得、汉字与阅读、语言教学及教育技术。中英文学术文章30余篇，专著：《英国华裔普通话家庭儿童作为跨文化协调者的民族志研究》（2014，Multilingual Matters）其它论著详见 ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5852-4419

Professor Yang Mei

Dr YANG Mei is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at South China University of Technology, currently seconded as the Chinese director of the Confucius Institute at Lancaster University in the UK.

She serves as a member of the Professional Committee of Second Language Acquisition Research in China, an expert in the evaluation and finalization of projects for the National Social Science Fund, a reviewer and disciplinary editor for multiple linguistic journals in China. She has published over 30 academic papers in authoritative journals such as Foreign Language Teaching and Research, Modern Foreign Languages, Chinese Teaching in the World, Chinese Learning, and the Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics. She has published a book titled Second Language Acquisition Research on English Articles from the Perspective of Language Emergence by Science Press; edited the textbook titled Continuation Writing in English; participated in the edition of multiple textbooks. Her research directions include second language acquisition, foreign language teaching, and international Chinese education. Her current research interests include the xu-based foreign language teaching theory construction and application research, the development and assessment of second language interaction competence, the xu-based international Chinese education research, and bidirectional comparative research on Chinese-English determiner structures.

杨梅博士，华南理工大学教授，英国兰卡斯特大学孔子学院中方院长，中国二语习得研究专业委员会理事、国家社科基金项目项目评审及结项鉴定专家、国内多家语言学期刊审稿人及学科编辑。在《外语教学与研究》《现代外语》《世界汉语教学》《汉语学习》《中国应用语言学》等权威期刊发表学术论文30余篇；在科学出版社出版专著《语言涌现视角下的英语冠词二语习得研究》；主编教材《英语读后续写教程》，参编教材多部。主要研究方向：二语习得；外语教学；国际中文教育。当前研究兴趣包括：基于续论的外语教学理论构建及应用研究、二语互动能力发展及测评研究、基于续论的国际中文教育研究、汉英限定词结构的双向对比研究等。

Richard McCurry

Richard studied Chinese at University, before living and working in Harbin China. He’s spent ten years looking at the problems Chinese language pedagogy presents to Westerners - with specific regard to literacy.

During this time, he’s been building a solution - through a startup called Newby Chinese, with the aim to create 50 Million new global learners. In the two years prior to her death, he had an active correspondence with Jane Orton, one of the world's foremost academics and thought leaders in Chinese language pedagogy for Westerners. He is a huge fan of her pinpoint-accurate descriptions of what is broken in current Chinese language pedagogy.

理查德大学本科主修中文，之后在中国哈尔滨生活和工作数年。他花了十年时间研究对外汉语教学法给西方人带来的问题——特别是识字方面的问题。在此期间，他创办了Newby Chinese 公司，旨在培养 5000 万全球汉语初学者，并试图利用该公司探索解决方案。理查德十分认同简·奥顿（Jane Orton）的教学理念，同意简对当前汉语教学法缺陷的精确描述。理查德与简在简去世前的两年里，保持着密切的通信。

Dr Kan Qian

Dr Kan Qian is Director of the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University. She is a Senior Lecturer in Chinese in the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics at The Open University. She is also a Senior Fellow of The Higher Education Academy (UK) and Bye-Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College at the University of Cambridge.

She supervises doctoral students in the field of language teaching and technology. Her research focuses on the use of technologies for the learning and teaching of languages: mobile language learning, interactions in online discussion forums, e-Tandem learning and online language learning design including MOOC design. She recently co-edited the Special Issue: Technology-Enhanced Teaching of Chinese as a Foreign Language, for the Journal of the ChinaCALL (August 2023). For her publications, please visit this page.

阚茜博士 - 英国高等教育科学院高级院士 - 现任英国开放大学网络孔子学院院长、语言及应用语言学学院高级讲师、语言学习博士导师。她也是剑桥大学露西·卡文迪学院荣誉院士。她的研究领域注重现代信息技术在外语教学中的应用；移动学习对外语教学和学习的影响；在线论坛对语言学习的作用；仿真学习（包括电子搭档学习）；在线课程设计，包括慕课设计。她最近为 ChinaCALL 杂志主编了特刊：Technology-Enhanced Teaching of Chinese as a Foreign Language（2023 年 8 月）。她的其它学术出版，请浏览此页面。

Program and registration

Registration for the Chinese as a Foreign Language Conference is now open and is free to attend. Lunch and refreshments will be provided for those at the venue.

Program

09.30 – 09.50 In-person attendees arrive, register, refreshments provided

09.40 Event opens to online registrants

09.50 Welcome

10.00 – 11:00 Virtual Exchange for Global Citizenship Education

Dr. Mirjam Hauck

Associate Head of School for Internationalisation, The Open University and President of EUROCALL

Language learning and teaching – as Satar, Hauck and Bilki (2023) remind us – increasingly means using multimodal, multicultural, and multilingual skills in digitally mediated environments. Undoubtedly, there are many benefits to such multifaceted and instant communication across time zones and geographical distance. Yet, the challenge for language educators is how best to prepare learners – including teachers as learners - for agentive, equitable and influential engagement in these environments.

Virtual Exchange (VE), an educational practice that combines the deep impact of intercultural dialogue with the broad reach of digital technology (EVOLVE, 2020) has emerged as one way to successfully approach this challenge. For over two decades, VE has enjoyed increasing popularity in university education, including pre- and in service (language) teacher education programmes (O’Dowd, 2018). Collaborating online with colleagues and students from different cultural backgrounds and educational systems has allowed trainees to experience and reflect on issues related to technology and pedagogy in authentic linguistic and intercultural contexts. I will offer an introduction to VE and its various formats illustrated by exchange examples from language education and other subject areas.

Session one slides: What is virtual exchange by Mirjam Hauck

11.00 – 12:00 Running VE in a Chinese language programme at a University in the UK

Dr. Guo Zhiyan

Professor, Subject Leader of Chinese, University of Warwick

While VE has been widely recognized as conducive to intercultural learning, how to embed it in a Chinese language programme at the university setting seems to be a recent endeavour in both teaching and research. In this workshop, Zhiyan will share her practice-based and research-informed experience from running a VE project among students of Chinese as a foreign language in both degree and institution-wide language programmes at School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Warwick. She will compare the two types of tasks that participants completed in the past years and offer practical tips on how to empower learners to manage exchanges with the minimum teacher presence.

Session two slides: Running VE in TCFL by Guo Zhiyan

12.00-13.00 Lunch

13.00-14.00 Continuation Theory and Its Application in Chinese Language Teaching

Professor Mei Yang

Professor of Applied Linguistics, South China University of Technology

The Continuation Theory, or the xu-argument, states that language is learned via xu and high efficiency in language learning can be achieved through xu (Wang, 2016). Xu is a Chinese word bearing the meaning of continuation, which describes how interlocutors participate in interaction through the actions of (utterance) completion, (content) extension, and (topic) creation. Alongside its potential power in uncovering the mechanism underlying language acquisition, the xu-argument has direct implications for second language (L2) pedagogy, as it offers valuable insights into how the efficiency of L2 instruction and learning may be improved through interaction and alignment.

I will introduce the Continuation Theory first, then discuss its use in second language instruction, specifically focusing on the xu-based tasks, or continuation tasks (Wang, 2019). I will then introduce two empirical studies, investigating reading-writing integrated tasks and continuation speaking respectively, and invite teachers to discuss on how to help L2 learners to achieve high efficiency in Chinese learning through the use of continuation tasks.

14.00-15.00 Exploring Chinese characters - Learning and Teaching Strategies

Dr Kan Qian - Senior Lecturer in Chinese, The Open University

Richard McCurry -Founder of Newby Chinese

Kan Qian will start the session by summarising the findings of the existing research on Chinese character learning strategies at beginners’ level, used by adult learners in the fast-moving digital age. Richard will follow it up by sharing his experience of learning Chinese from a learner perspective and outline the problems Chinese language pedagogy presents to Westerners - with specific regard to literacy. He will then discuss with the audience a different approach of learning Characters. This session will be interactive and expects the teachers to share their practices, and what they think are effective character learning strategies for their beginner students.

Session four slides: Chinese character learning by Kan Qian and Richard McCurry
Registration

In-person: Register to join in-person at TryBooking.

In-person attendees are asked to register by midnight on Friday 19 April 2024. You will be sent further details about location.

Online: Register to join online at TryBooking.

Travel information

The conference will take place at Lancaster University Management School.

How to find us
The university’s travel page provides detailed instructions on how to get here by car, rail, bus, air, and bicycle.
Where to stay
There are two options for campus accommodation, please see the links below.
- On-campus bed and breakfast accommodation (guest rooms on campus)
- Lancaster House Hotel (four-star hotel, located at the edge of campus)
If you prefer staying in Lancaster (town), there are several options, which you can easily find on booking websites.

Organising committee

Dr Mirjam Hauck, Dr Guo Zhiyan, Professor Mei Yang, Richard McCurry, Dr Kan Qian, Colette Webb

How to contact us

Please email: ci@lancaster.ac.uk

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