GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES IN CHINESE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE INSTRUCTION

Alice Zhang

Chinese Language Teaching Expert / Co-Director, Center for Chinese Language Teacher Certification and Development (CCLTCD) at the University of Maryland

This presentation will review the challenges that have been addressed by the Center for Chinese Language Teacher Certification and Development (CCLTCD) in the College of Education at the University of Maryland. The CCLTCD was founded in 2009, with funding from Hanban and the College of Education, after the University received permission to add Chinese as one of the foreign languages in the Foreign Language Education program. The mission of CCLTCD is “to set a national and international standard of excellence for Chinese language teacher preparation, certification, and further development.” To accomplish this mission, it set as its primary goal to prepare excellent teachers while meeting the requirements for teacher certification in the State of Maryland.

In order to achieve this goal, one of the challenges facing CCLTCD was to develop a variety of program options that would attract and meet the needs of the different potential students interested in becoming Chinese teachers. Other challenges included instituting appropriate recruitment strategies, meeting the admission requirement constraints of a prestigious university, and modifying foreign language education courses to meet the demands of a more unique language.

With the State of Maryland and the University cognizant of the shortage of qualified teachers to meet the rising interest in Chinese language, the CCLTCD has addressed these challenges as its first students enrolled in the program. This presentation will address the successes and the challenges still remaining.