The Confucius Institute Welcomed Dr. Haidong Ni; Held Annual Teacher Training Workshop
November 07, 2018
The Confucius Institute (CI) at Webster University recently hosted two major events the weekend of Nov. 2-3.
On Nov. 2, President Beth Stroble welcomed Haidong Ni, the chairman of our partner university, Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), to the Webster campus. The greeting was followed by the annual work meeting with Vice Provost Nancy Hellerud, Confucius Institute Director Patty Li, and delegates from BLCU.
On Nov. 3, Dr. Ni delivered the opening remarks for CI’s annual Teacher Training Workshop for local Chinese teachers in the Emerson Library Conference Room. Chinese teachers from around the St. Louis area, from elementary schools teachers to university instructors, attended the daylong workshop. In the morning, a panel of prominent academics in the field of Chinese language instruction discussed aspects of their profession, ranging from specific teaching skills, to teacher evaluation and training, to research areas such as phonetics, phonology and Chinese linguistics.
The CI would like to extend the warmest thanks to the morning’s panelists: Dr. Xia Liang of Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Chaofen Sun of Stanford University, Dr. Lening Liu of Columbia University, and Dr. Zhiqiang Li of the University of San Francisco. This is also the first time that the CI has worked together with the Confucius Institute at Pace University in New York. Professor Wenqin Wang and Professor Jiayi Wang of Pace University also presented at the workshop.
The afternoon consisted of two interactive training sessions with experienced local Chinese teachers. First, Lily Childs, Chinese teacher at Mary Institute and Country Day School and a Google Certified Educator, gave an interactive training on how to incorporate technology into the Chinese language classroom. Then, Larry Huang of St. Louis University High School modeled ten highly engaging classroom activities for educators to incorporate into their lessons.
In accordance with its mission, the CI will continue to serve as a platform to help strengthen the academic cooperation and student exchange programs between the Webster University and its partners, and continue to provide resources and tools to broader STL community for Chinese language learning.