An innovative teacher training day was held by the Confucius Institute for Traditional Chinese Medicine (CITCM) on 4 November, 2016. The training was attended by 75 of CITCM’s new Mandarin Teachers and the sessions were delivered by local professionals in Chinese teaching.
This year CITCM employs over 75 teachers who are successfully teaching Mandarin in primary schools, secondary schools and to the public. This teacher’s training gave them a great insight into teaching Chinese in the UK and inspired them to enhance their professional development.
The training began with a very informative presentation from Ms Fangjing, a Chinese teaching specialist from Oxford University, who recommended and introduced some key Chinese teaching resources.
Ms Pennington, a local Mandarin teacher working at Highgate Primary School, went on to discuss the importance of incorporating various aspects of Chinese culture into Chinese language lessons. Miss Lawrence, from Tollgate Primary School, talked through various case studies of teaching Mandarin in primary schools. The final speaker of the day was Mr. Beckmann, a Mandarin teacher at St. Joseph’s College, he gave tips on cross cultural communication and advised how they could work more effectively in their school, with particular reference to the importance of them positively expressing their opinions and ideas.
Mr Lu Yang, a Mandarin teacher at CITCM explained that ‘the day was a huge success and we all learnt a huge amount. Hearing first hand experiences from local teachers and specialists was really eye opening and greatly inspired me’.
CITCM hosts teacher training every year to ensure that the quality of teaching provided remains at the highest possible level. We know that all of the teachers who attended will benefit greatly from this day.