The 10th Confucius Institute Conference was held from December 6th to 7th in the Shanghai Expo Center to promote Confucian culture to be a cosmopolitan culture and strengthen the connection and exchange among the Confucius Institutes (CI) all over the world.
Eighteen forums among the directors and presidents take place during the conference in two days. Representatives spread the discussions with regard to the issues such as the native demands for CI, the long-term plan for further development of CI and as well as the comprehensive cooperation between Chinese and foreign universities.
On Sunday afternoon, nine Directors’ Forums were carried out among more than one hundred directors from the CI all over the world, in relation to the topics such as “Test for International Chinese Language Teacher Certification and the Cultivation of Local Teachers”, “Resource Sharing among Confucius Institutes” or “Building more Creative Brand of ‘Confucius Institute Day’” and etc. Directors addressed their personal experiences and opinions about the specific topic and shared their CI stories to the audience.
On the Directors’ Forum under the topic of “Resource Sharing among Confucius Institutes”, Dr. Yan Tingguo, a Professor of Arabic studies delivered a speech on resource sharing based on the constitution of CI in Morocco. Yan is now the Chinese director of the CI at University of Hassan II- Casablanca in Morocco, which is one of the partners of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU).
According to Yan, resource sharing is an important method and a necessary demand for teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages both in the past and at present.
In addition, he pointed out an intriguing thing but also the difficulty for their CI that a teacher who majors in Arabic teaches Moroccan students Chinese in English with textbooks in French. “Such a twisted condition is exactly what we are intended to solve in the future as we are planning a comprehensive cooperation with the Chinese university in terms of resource sharing to recruit more suitable and qualified teachers in our program.” Yan added.
The CI at University of Hassan II- Casablanca was founded in 2013. There are 59 volunteering teachers from SISU have been sent there to support the CI and 39 students coming from the CI at University of Hassan II- Casablanca are now studying in China, mostly at SISU