Interview Series - Scholars from European Association of Chinese Teaching

The Fourth International Symposium of the European Association of Chinese Teaching (EACT) was held at the University of Southampton on 21st and 22nd April 2023, organised by the Confucius Institute at the University of Southampton. Taking this opportunity, the Confucius Institute conducted interviews with three keynote speakers, Professor Joël Bellassen, Professor Federico Masini, and Professor Andreas Guder. The interviews were summarised and compiled into a series, which will be published one after another.

[Interview II] Professor Andreas Guder

Prof. Andreas Guder, President of the German Association of Chinese Language Teaching, is currently a professor and the Head of the Chinese Language Education Programme at Freie Universität Berlin. His main research areas include Chinese character teaching, methodology of teaching Chinese as a foreign language, and teacher training for Chinese language education.

During this conference, Professor Guder was particularly impressed by an expert from University College Dublin, who focuses on applied research and is an expert in empirical studies on language acquisition. Professor Guder believes that such experts are highly needed in our field. He suggests to address the importance on educational policies and have a dedicated person or group being responsible for the European media. There is a need for a diversified publishing policy, and he hopes that more attention will also be given to Western languages in this regard.

Professor Guder discussed his approach to teaching Chinese characters and emphasised the importance of pinyin being used in grammar instruction. He said that being a Chinese language teacher in Germany, one needed to be an expert in local language and also to have the ability of spotting potential challenges that students might encounter based on the teacher’s own experience of learning a foreign language.