Expert: innovation key for driving high-quality development of international Chinese language education

The 14th International Chinese Teaching Seminar of the International Society for Chinese Language Teaching was held on Dec 18.

Zhong Yinghua, president of the International Society for Chinese Language Teaching and president of Tianjin Normal University, stressed the importance of innovation for driving the high-quality development of international Chinese language education in the new era at the opening ceremony.

The society, rooted in China and connecting the world, is the most authoritative and influential Chinese education academic organization.

Its members include 5,229 sinologists, international Chinese education experts, scholars and unit members from 89 countries and regions around the world. It continues to organize a variety of academic activities on Chinese language education, carry out academic exchanges, and establish various research projects.

Zhong noted that as an academic think tank partner for the development of international Chinese language education, the society has bright prospects in tapping into its strengths and cohering innovative wisdom.

According to Zhong, to start with, close attention should be paid to systematic construction in language teaching. Systematic construction is crucial to language teaching.

“Language and cultural teaching are three-dimensional, all-round and systematic," said Zhong, “What we advocate here is a learning path of ’speech--language—speech’, which follows the general rule of ‘practice--knowledge--further practice’. Language generates and develops from people’s desire to use language, and it is the concrete manifestation of people's communication, information transmission and thought expression.”

What more, systematic construction must be need-oriented. He said that general public should be given special attention ,as they learn Chinese for advanced studies and future career prospects.

He also said there is a need to place emphasis on dynamic changes in target learners. The average age of international Chinese learners is trending younger, while more learners see Chinese language proficiency as a key rung in their career ladder.

Third, top-notch teachers of Chinese are in critical demand around the world amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The increasing demand for Chinese education was not substantively affected by the COVID-19 and there is still a great need for high-level professionals in international Chinese language education.

The integration of training bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral personnel needs Chinese-foreign cooperation to collaboratively and systematically establish scientific talent training systems. As one of the first universities to enroll PhDs in international Chinese language education, Tianjin Normal University is combining such knowledge with the enhancement of international communication, reserves of talents, cross integration of disciplines and teaching innovation.

Last, he said emphasis should be placed on the application of creative theories and achievements. The precondition of innovation is information integration and cross-disciplinary studies. International Chinese language education should be based on Chinese-oriented features to continuously expand methods of publishing, applying and transforming innovative achievements, so as to form creative theories that fit their own development.