On June 26, 2008, the first summer research and practice class for middle and elementary school teachers held by the Confucius Institute at Portland State University ended. The organizers held a graduation ceremony for this summer class. The research and practice class lasted for 2 weeks and all the trainees finished their study tasks and graduated without difficulty.

All of the 25 trainees who attended the class were from the middle and elementary schools in the Portland area. For the 2-week class, the Confucius Institute at Portland State University arranged a series of courses for the trainees. Professor Jennifer Liu( Liu Lijia) , the director of the Oregon Chinese language pilote, the former chairman of the all-US Chinese language teachers association, also the senior Chinese language qualified-teachers training expert gave the lecture on “Course Design and Writing Theory, Principles and Practices of Lesson Plan Writing”. Professor Jean Wu ( Wu Yuanpeng), the director of the Chinese language project in the University of Oregon gave the lecture “Effective Teaching and Managing Methods Within the Chinese Language Classroom”. Ms Joan Kvitka who worked at Wilson senior high school for 25 years and is now the director of the Portland Suzhou Garden education department gave a lecture focused on “ The Requirements, Policy and System of  Class teaching in American Middle and Elementary Schools , The Characteristics and Nature of American Teenagers in Class, and Some Detailed and Specific Methods in Class Management”. Cai Jifen, the teacher from  Lakeside School in Seattle where Bill Gates used to study, explained how to use  hi-tech methods to motivate interaction between the teachers and students within the Chinese language class setting. Cai also explained the application as well as the special effects of the smart board in the Chinese language teaching process. Dr Lv Lina, the teacher in charge of this research and practice class, introduced the form, the content, grading methods and the standard of evaluation for various Chinese language tests in both international and domestic settings, especially the content, time and different levels of the HSK examination. Well-known expert on language application and foreign language teaching methods, Professor Pat Wetzel gave a lecture on “The Different Style of Language Teaching and How to use Direct Teaching Methods Without the Native Language when Teahing a Foreign Language” . This lecture brought a lot of inspiration to the trainees. Professor Emily De La Cruz, the director for the qualifying certificate for the middle and elementary school teacher project at the education college at Portland State University gave very clear answers to questions and concerns of the trainees regarding the course setting, the examination and the qualifying certificate. Based on her many year’s experience in the teaching of Chinese language as a foreign language, president of the Confucius Institute Professor Liu Meiru gave a lecture “ Improving the Quality of Chinese Language Teaching---- teaching skills, tips,  methods, means,  behaviors and the results of the Chinese language teacher. During the lecture, Professor Liu Meiru talked about some teaching skills on teaching pronunciation, grammar, Chinese characters, reading and writing. Professor liu also introduced some teaching methods..

During the graduation ceremony, Dr Gil Latz the vice president of PSU ( the responsible vice-president for international affairs) awarded a graduation certificate to every trainee.

During the 2-week intensive study programe of listening to model teaching classes, discussion, group-planning of lessons, teaching practices, teaching presentation and writing a course report and thesis, the trainees did their best to participate in various training courses. After their studies, they had learned a lot in different areas. 13 outstanding trainees will go to Suzhou University (the cooperative university with the Confucius Institute at PSU) to have a 3-week “international Chinese language” master course. 

(Contributed by Xiang Li from the Confucius Institute at Portland State University)