On April 17, the 2014 TCSOL (short for “Teachers of Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages”) Training of the Open University of China (the OUC) was officially launched in Wukesong distance teaching building. The first session of this training lasted six days, and was attended by almost 30 backbone teachers and teaching administrative staff from the Radio and TV Universities (RTVUs) of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Yunnan, Zhejiang, Chengdu, Gansu and other provinces, as well as other universities and colleges, many of whom had attended the 2013 OUC TCSOL Training.

This time, the training continued adopting the combined methods of teaching and seminars, and played the function of MyEChinese, the distance teaching platform, to assist learning and support services, and adopted the mixed learning method of “online plus outline.” The chief instructors, who were professional experts and professors from Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing Normal University, Renmin University of China, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Minzu University of China and Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban), respectively instructed learners in these five large aspects: teaching method of Chinese linguistics elements, teaching tasks and activity design, teaching ideas and in-class methods, modern education technology and international Chinese, intercultural communication and transmission of Chinese culture, and introduced specifically the US government’s  Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century, and the general situation of Chinese-teaching in the USA in detail.

In order to meet the internal and external needs of the RTVU system for training, 2014 TCSOL Training takes pertinence and practicability as its guiding principles and arranges the courses according to modules to lay the foundation for bringing the learning outcomes of this training into the credits of continuing education. Meanwhile, it opened several sessions of one module to facilitate the wide array of learners who work on weekdays, in order to make their learning schedule more convenient.

Zhang Shaogang, the OUC Vice President, and other directors of relevant departments, attended the ceremony, and through the “cloud classroom,” communicated and interacted with the leaders and teachers of Xinjiang RTVU, Bingtuan RTVU, Gansu RTVU and Guizhou RTVU, who were participating in the meeting online. This training is a constituent part of the OUC accelerating the process of internationalization, and will utilize the distance Chinese teaching platform “MyEChinese” to fully support Yunnan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and other provinces and regions in border areas to make use of their own geographical advantage to carry out teaching of Chinese language and culture to surrounding countries. It will also support Tianjin, Chengdu and other core cities to provide language culture education and communication services for local joint-venture companies and foreign companies.

TCSOL Training of the OUC started in 2012, and aims to enrich the basic knowledge and practical ability of TCSOL, cultivate qualified Chinese teachers for the OUC and whole system, and also store resources for selecting outstanding teachers to be sent to other regions and foreign countries.

By Zhou Jinlan, the OUC