University of Southampton Confucius Institute hosts a School Forum Event
- Time:
- 09:30 - 15:00
- Date:
- 29 May 2012
- Venue:
- The Hartley Suite University of Southampton
Event details
The School Forum on the teaching and learning of Chinese language and culture was held with the aim of informing local schools of the services and support available from the Institute and to investigate how these services might be further developed and tailored to meet local demands.
The forum was attended by more than 30 delegates, including head teachers and representatives from 12 primary, secondary and sixth form schools and colleges in Southampton. By holding such events the Institute hopes to develop a school network for collaboration and information sharing.
The Forum was opened at 10:00am by Mark Cranshaw, the Confucius Institute’s Executive Director, who gave a warm welcome speech and a brief introduction of the CI. This was followed by two key-note speeches, the first delivered by Mary Higgins of the Education and Commissioning Division, Southampton City Council outlining the importance of learning Chinese in schools in Southampton and the second by Professor Siyi Fu, the Confucius Institute Chinese Director who introduced the range of Chinese teaching and culture programmes offered by the Institute and the support and services available to schools in Southampton.
Ms Xiaoming Zhu of the London Specialist School Academy Trust then presented their series of Mandarin language teaching resources developed specifically for UK-based schools and this was followed by a demonstration by Prof Fu of a multimedia teaching resource pack that she has developed with her Cardiff team. Delegates were able to take a sample unit back for trial use.
In the afternoon followed a presentation by Ceri James of the National Centre for Languages Wales illustrating successful partnerships with schools which have been initiated by Confucius Institutes in Wales. Adrian Ash, the South Somerset Partnership Director gave another presentation, showcasing their successful collaboration with Yueyang School in China. Judith Munro, Director of Brockenhurst College Confucius Classroom also shared their experience of running a Confucius Classroom and the benefits of setting up such an initiative.
The event ended with a 30-minute open forum during which the four speakers responded to delegates’ questions and comments. Five schools registered their bookings for Chinese programmes via their feedback forms.