Between May 8 and 12, the ELTE Central and Eastern European Regional Teacher Training Center held its 12th training program. A total of 80 Chinese language teachers participated in the event, coming from ten countries in the Central and Eastern European region (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Serbia, Ukraine), as well as from Denmark and the United States.

Ye Qiuyue

 

Hamar Imre, az ELTE Konfuciusz Intézet igazgatója

 

The opening ceremony, held on May 9, was hosted by Ye Qiuyue, Deputy Director of the ELTE Central and Eastern European Regional Teacher Training Center. Speeches were delivered by Prof. Dr. Imre Hamar, Vice-Rector for International Affairs at ELTE, Head of the Teacher Training Center, and Director of the ELTE Confucius Institute, along with Dr. Li Denggui, Chinese Director of the ELTE Confucius Institute.

Li Denggui

 

In his opening remarks, Imre Hamar introduced the Center’s new professional journal titled Journal of Chinese Language Teaching in Europe, launched in 2024 in both English and Chinese.

Following the welcoming speeches, guest students from the Zhejiang Conservatory of Music, currently studying at the Institute for Art Mediation and Music of the Faculty of Humanities at ELTE, performed a concert.

 

The five-day training program included eight lectures and one roundtable discussion. The five invited guest lecturers addressed current and practice-oriented topics, such as the use of artificial intelligence in language teaching and issues related to the International Chinese Language Teaching Standards.

 

Professor Xia Liang (Washington University in St. Louis) discussed the application of digital technologies—especially ChatGPT—in Chinese language teaching, along with the associated challenges, illustrated through specific case studies in his two presentations.

Professor Liu Lening (Columbia University) emphasized the importance of developing a concise and practical grammar framework and demonstrated the use of stylistic grammar in advanced Chinese language instruction through numerous case studies and text analyses.

Liu Lening

 

Zhang Jing, Associate Professor at Zhejiang Media College, introduced techniques for improving pronunciation skills through tongue-twister exercises, using phonetic systems and attributes as a foundation.

Zhang Jing

 

Liu Ming, lecturer at the ELTE Confucius Institute, presented various methods for curriculum and lesson planning based on the International Chinese Language Teaching Standards.

Liu Ming

 

Suen Lik, lecturer at the Department of Chinese at the University of London, explored in her first lecture the points of connection and differences between the 2021 International Chinese Language Education Standards (ICES) and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and in her second lecture, she demonstrated how artificial intelligence can be integrated into language teaching using numerous examples.

Xuan Li

 

During the roundtable discussion, participants had the opportunity to engage in conversations about current issues in Chinese language education and to share their classroom experiences with one another.