The Confucius Institute at Oxford Brookes University and Macmillan Education co-hosted a very successful and well attended Teacher training day for teachers of Mandarin on Saturday 11 May at Oxford Brookes University.
The aim of the event was to demonstrate using Discover China how Mandarin can be taught effectively through creative and innovative approaches whilst being communicative and learner friendly.
Our three professional trainers; Ms. Lik Suen from Soas University, Dr. Zhu Zhu from Leeds University and Dr. Duo Luan from Edinburgh University delivered a rich thought provoking course, with a diverse range of content and material; equipping the attendees with new ideas and approaches that they were able to take away and use on their own students.
Lik delivered the first session entitled ‘Be the Master of your Materials’ and used lesson 1 from Book1 of the Discover China series to practically demonstrate how to adapt your material to suit your learners needs.
Zhu Zhu followed with her session which was split in two. The first looked at First Lessons with Beginners. The session took an interactive approach by engaging teachers in actively seeking answers for a number of vital questions related to what to teach in the first lessons with beginners and more importantly how.
The second part to her session focused on Teaching Grammar to Post beginners. This looked at ways to keep learners motivated as motivation can wane when moving to a new level.
Duo for her session switched the topic to Teaching Chinese with Technology. She cleverly demonstrated how this can be done using the vocabulary from Discover China, Book 1, level 1.
Here are the links to key websites she used:
Link: https://quizlet.com/DiscoverChina
She used this to illustrate how you can create quizlet games to enhance vocabulary learning. She provided the delegates will the following login details to access:
User name: DiscoverChina
Password: Disc0ver China
Link: https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/
She used the above link to demonstrate how to create an easy and quick access to the webpage
She then used the link https://qwiqr.co.uk/ to show teachers how they can give their students intuitive and individual feedback through video, audio, text or web via a QR Code.
The day was not only a learning event but an opportunity to network as it brought old friends, ex colleagues and previous acquaintances together to catch up, share stories and experiences amongst this close knit community. There was a lot of laughter and Mandarin to be heard on the day within the room and along the corridors of Oxford Brookes University.
Due to the success of events like this one, it is our aim within the Discover China team to continue to promote new learning and knowledge through our Discover China Series.
The Discover China team at Macmillan Education would like to extend a special thanks to Hui Hou and Spring Zhang and their team from the Confucius Institute at Oxford Brookes University who worked tirelessly to help put the day together.
We would love to hear from you if your school or university would like to host a similar event or if you would like to contribute to our e-newsletter; CLTalk with any topics related to your teaching, your students’ stories, conferences and cultural events you may be hosting. Please contact the Discover China team at: discoverchina@macmillaneducation.com.
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