On June 15, 2019, “Seminar on International Chinese Language Education in the New Era” was organized jointly by the Editorial Department of “Chinese Teaching in the World” and the College of International Education in Fushan Campus, Qingdao University (eastern China). Professor Kong Weijin, the vice president of Qingdao University, delivered an opening speech in the seminar which 182 representatives from 22 Chinese provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and special administrative regions—from 65 universities and scientific research units attended.
Among them, seven experts and scholars—Zhao Jinming, Yang Yiming, Xing Xin, Wu Yinghui, Ning Jiming, Li Daqin, Zhang Shuhui—were invited to make conference reports, putting forward quite a few suggestions and solutions for major issues such as how to achieve the disciplinary development of International Education of Chinese Language and the sustainable progress of the Confucius Institute; how to meet the needs of language in central Asian countries; and how to make the International Student Education more multi-level, diversified, and specialized. Their reports also demonstrated the latest achievements in adopting the methods of neurolinguistics, pedagogy, etc., into deepening the research of Chinese language and its education, thus reflecting the advantages and prospects of interdisciplinary research. In the six sub-sessions, the discussions were compact, serious, and enthusiastic with questions that were problem-oriented. Many research discussions were focused on new problems of International Education of Chinese Language in the new era, such as how to help African students deal with cultural conflicts as they are learning Chinese language in China; what is the best way or strategy of integrating Chinese language into the national education system of the target nation; and what changes the teaching methods should make to help lower the age of overseas Chinese language learners. There were also questions on issues like the thematic teaching of audio-visual Chinese language in in a smart classroom together with the development and compilation of export-oriented Chinese dictionary under media integration condition.
The extensive communications and in-depth discussions at this seminar reflected the increasing awareness of innovation of the research groups in this field. The universal academic consciousness in the academic world is that further research is necessary in order to cope with the reality of International Education of Chinese Language in this new era.
