Meeting discusses teaching Chinese as a 2nd language

A two-day conference on Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages was held at Beijing Language and Culture University from Saturday to Sunday.

A total of 183 teachers and professors from 92 universities gathered at Beijing Language and Culture University and discussed the curriculum settings and the future development of teaching Chinese.

Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (formerly known as Teaching English as A Second Language) was established as a university major in China in 1985. Around 300 universities have this major, with 15,000 freshmen recruited every year.

During the conference, Cui Xiliang, president of Beijing Language and Culture University, said teaching Chinese has been more and more popular with China's increasing internalization in recent years. However, fully qualified teachers, teaching materials and good teaching methods are key issues at the moment.