On April 7 & 8, the 2017 National Conference for Second Language Educators was held at Shaw Conference Centre. The Confucius Institute in Edmonton was one of the sponsors for this conference which was attended by around 720 second language teachers from across Canada, among whom were almost 30 Chinese language teachers. The CIE visiting teachers also attended the conference.
At the conference, there were two sessions which related to the teaching of Chinese language. Dr. Liang Tian, the Chinese special language advisor of Alberta Education, gave a presentation on effective strategies for the teaching and learning Chinese vocabulary, exploring a number of learner-centered ideas and strategies that focus on the teaching, learning and enrichment of Chinese vocabulary. Her discussion was well received by the teachers.
A second presentation was made by Jenny Li and Kathy Gu, the Chinese teachers of EPSB. Their topic was on the approach to learning in language lesson plans, which will serve to design teaching practice to produce effective inquiry learning given. Their vivid presentation attracted a lot of interest and attention from the audience.
CIE also had a booth set up at the conference to display the information about the institute as well as the support and services CIE provides to the Chinese language and culture programs at the schools.