Meeting of “Pre-service Training Program for Hanban-sponsored Chinese Language Teachers” held at Xiamen University

On the afternoon of August 2nd, Mr. Ma Jianfei, Deputy Chief Executive of Confucius Institute Headquarters and Deputy Director General of Hanban, visited Xiang’an Campus of Xiamen University and met with 24 trainee representatives of the “2015 Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) Pre-service Training Program for Overseas Chinese Language Teachers” to learn more about their study and life during the program. Ms. Zhan Xinli, Vice President of Xiamen University, also attended the meeting.

Mr. Ma Jianfei speaking at the meeting

At the meeting, Mr. Ma Jianfei got to know every trainee one by one and invited them to share what they have learnt during the program and their suggestions for program organizers. Showing great enthusiasm in airing their opinions, all the trainees expressed that they had benefited a lot from the lectures given by the experts and highly commended the use of small classes in practical training. Meanwhile, they also expressed their sincere gratitude to Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban) and the Southern Base of Confucius Institute Headquarters at Xiamen University. Then, the trainees proposed their concerns and suggestions on research in the early stage, time arrangement, curriculum design, and sustainable teaching resources. After having listened patiently to the opinions and suggestions by all the trainee representatives, Mr. Ma Jianfei offered his answers to these issues, which were responded with rounds of applauses.

Trainee representatives airing their own opinions

Towards the end of the meeting, Mr. Ma Jianfei said to the trainees, “Although this pre-service training program is very beneficial, it is even more important to explore and continue to learn in the teaching practice if you hope to become an outstanding Chinese language teacher, no matter whether or not you want to be an expert in teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages.”