NCLC 2023 Breakout Sessions

Session Description: This session is based on Dr. Ying Chu’s doctoral dissertation research on implementing high-quality DLI programs in international schools or schools that have an international orientation. DLI program implementation is a systematic process requiring extensive planning, structuring, and step-by-step procedures. Dr. Ying Chu will present a comprehensive program implementation framework to guide school leaders in planning, implementing, and improving a DLI program at the school sites. In addition, she will share a bilingual program leadership competency framework that will guide school leaders in identifying, cultivating, or growing to be linguistically and culturally responsive leaders to assume the critical roles of realizing the core goals of dual language education.

Session Description: Thinking Routines ensure learners are actively processing information and making their thinking visible to the teachers. New Town Primary Teachers deployed a basket of Thinking Routines in their CL classrooms; integrating the development of students' logical thinking with language and skill acquisition, and providing a platform for students to showcase their learning after an engaged learning experience, as exemplified in 5 Grade Five classrooms, each with varied student profile. Attendees of this workshop would be able to witness and understand the various benefits of Thinking Routines in enhancing the reading comprehension skills of students in Chinese Language – serving as a tool to increase teacher-student interaction, allowing students to express their viewpoints, levelling up students’ logical thinking and reasoning skills as a structure, and helping students master the objective, processes and methods of reading comprehensions as ‘a pattern of action’. (Ritchhart, 2014) 

Session Description: This session will introduce the ACTFL Six Core Practices that are essential to Chinese language learning and teaching. The focus will be on strategies about how to implement the ACTFL Six Core Practices into lesson planning, classroom instruction, and assessment.   The information presented will include examples of how to use authentic materials to improve students’ language competence, steps to design effective communicative activities, demonstration of how grammar should be learned in meaningful contexts, improving students’ learning through target language, planning with backward design model, and providing effective feedback at appropriate time, and more.  This interactive session is aimed at sharing experiences and tips to formulate a lesson and instructional activities, practical techniques and strategies to promote language proficiency growth of students, and more. Participants will walk away with easily adaptable activities and will spark creative ideas to improve their teaching. 

Session Description: Do you find yourself wondering ...How can you better engage and motivate students in Chinese class? How can you increase students’ feelings of competence and autonomy in learning Chinese? In this session, you will be introduced to a fun and effective way of teaching called the Protégé Effect. The Protégé Effect is a psychological phenomenon where teaching, pretending to teach, or preparing to teach information to others helps a person learn that information. In my Fun Friday Classes, my classes are centered on learning culture-related topics and activities. Instead of the teacher deciding the topics and the method of instruction, students get to choose what to learn, how to learn, and who teaches it. The teacher's job is to oversee areas of study and presentation plans, suggest reliable resources during research, give feedback, and make sure the presentation is informative, reliable, interesting, and complete on time. In my experience, this model has successfully motivated students, improved their metacognitive processing, and provided more effective learning strategies.

Session Description: Although PBL(Project-Based learning) and TBL(Task-Based Learning) L are two different approaches, others have adapted and amended the original approach, but there are some basic common tenets. To be a valid task for the purposes for Mandarin language class, for example, it must be realistic and have a clear objective that students can apply to daily life. The task must be written in such a way that language is necessary for it to be achieved. No doubt that most of students who were undertaking the Task or Project-Based Learning more beneficial in the long term.Both TBL and PBL require a change of role for both the learner and teacher. For both PBL and TBL,the role of the teacher becomes more of a coach, guiding and facilitating the achievement of an end goal. Students work more independently and co-operate and communicate more with their peers. These changes of role can be quite difficult at first, especially meaning about the pre-work for teachers, so many doubted why moving towards TBL and having loaded tasks that required teacher’s efforts and time? May we start from a more pragmatic perspective for Mandarin class when applying TBL in classroom?The answers can be easily answered by demonstrating how teachers guided students to complete the tasks, and participants will have chances to take role-play to experience how in our presentation. Based on our previous presentation : “A case study of progressive path from Task-Based language Teaching to Project-Based Language Learning in Mandarin Class” at MaFla conference in 2019, we’ve found a balance between PBL and TBL in terms of work preparation and accurate 4 language skills assessments throughout the class activities and unit-end projects. In this session, we will explore more the main differences between PBL and TBL, and extract the practical and primary instructions that teachers can easily transform their current lesson plan tofit the requirements of TBL, which are : Pre-task, Task, Planning, Report, Analysis, Practice. (Richard Frost, 2007; Dave & Jane Willis,2007).As well as, we will explain step by step how we conducted unit-end project: Chinese Monopoly Gameboard and Playtime setting for classmates, that applied the ideology of PBL and practiced with TBL, which assessments were carried on along the way of project completion. Most importantly, we will share how those designs successfully assisted class management in a target language environment.

Session Description: In the AP Chinese classroom, students often have questions about what they see in the news in relation to China. However, students may not have the language proficiency or cultural understanding to discuss these complex issues. Underlying these events are common themes. News stories can be linked to such themes and connected to stories from China’s past. These connections help build context and more points of reference, in order to facilitate better learning. This presentation will share strategies and a rationale for engaging with students about current events, helping them to think critically while staying in the target language. This presentation will show participants how to plan engaging classroom activities that focus on global issues and events in China, using authentic news topics such as artificial intelligence, consumerism, and social media trends. Participants will leave with concrete activities to implement in their classrooms.

Session Description: The session presents the model of the Chinese program at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities (UMNTC) as well as its strategies to collaborate and interact with the K-12 pipeline in the area. Two programs at UMNTC, College in School (CIS) and Postsecondary Enrollment Options (PSEO), help high school students earn college credits by training high school instructors to teach college Chinese at their institutions or by allowing high school students to take a UMNTC Chinese course. These two programs are also helpful in creating curriculum alignment between high school and college Chinese. To increase interactions between high school and college students, UMNTC’s Chinese program has developed a conversation program, department-supported internship opportunities at high schools, culture-based field trips, and a project-based language learning curriculum. The curricular design, useful resources, staffing, and learning outcomes will be shared. The principles and practices are applicable to other institutions.

Session Description: Our session will introduce research that investigates the relationship among American Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) learners’ motivation of reading in Chinese (both autonomous and controlled reading motivation in two different contexts: recreational context and academic context), reading engagement, and reading achievement. The goal of the study is to investigate the following two questions: 1. Is there any correlation between reading engagement, reading achievement, and the four constructs of reading motivation: Recreational Autonomous, Recreational Controlled, Academic Autonomous, and Academic Controlled for American CFL learners? 2. Can American CFL learners’ reading achievement be predicted from their reading motivation and reading engagement? Our study aims to generate important implications for Chinese reading instruction. The investigation result will provide suggestions to Chinese language teaching practitioners to apply effective practices that promote CFL learners’ motivation to become lifelong engaged learners.

Session Description: Our students bring individual identities, language varieties and proficiency levels, confidence, and backgrounds to our classroom and it’s up to us to ensure that we not only honor them, but empower them to embrace their individuality and heritage. This presentation will delve into current issues in the classroom, such as asking ‘where are you from?’, names, language varieties, and trauma-informed teaching.

Session Description: Working in the drama medium, in meaningful contexts, enriches and improves the language learning process and empowers students with the confidence, motivation and enthusiasm to do their best. As an award-winning Chinese immersion school in London, a Chinese theatrical performance will be produced each year. This presentation aims to share how to teach Chinese language, literature and culture through a school-theatrical performance with the application of theatrical techniques like a soliloquy, dialogue, paralinguistics, and improvisation. This presentation will also provide practical, hands-on information and resources that participants can apply for their theatrical production, including how to choose themes for each year group to create a school-wide script and show progression across year groups; how learners write their scripts with the teachers; how to create songs and music engaging local musicians; how to adopt traditional art to create backgrounds and props; how STEAM is applied in the process of production.

Session Description: How can we not only build students’ global competence during this virtual learning era but also benefit their Mandarin language learning with culturally responsive teaching?”  Students’ diverse cultural knowledge and backgrounds can be used as a scaffold to connect to the curriculum and new concepts. In this session, presenters will share the purpose, tools, and planning/partnership process of this project, and explain how they overcame the challenges based on the feedback from the students and parents. Participants will go over the framework of culturally responsive teaching and share their experiences about how they apply culturally responsive teaching in their classrooms. Participants will work in groups to practice grading students’ video examples according to the rubric. After the session, participants will be able to prepare their classroom as an inclusive classroom by applying culturally responsive teaching strategies. Participants can reflect on their own experiences and expand their knowledge into partnership projects.

Session Description: The presentation, focusing on the instruction of pragmatics, addresses two areas– the discrepancy between the textbook language and the real life uses as well as how instructors can bridge the gap by introducing a model of pragmatics instruction. Using apology as an example, we collected and analyzed production data from 74 native speakers and compared the results to how apology was presented in textbooks. The presentation will highlight the discrepancy between textbook and authentic data regarding the pragmalinguistic resources of and sociopragmatic constraints for Chinese apologies. It will then present a model of pragmatic instruction, which consists of awareness-raising, noticing, and practicing, as well as applicable pedagogical tasks for different student groups with practical examples from the Chinese programs at University of Minnesota (heritage and non-heritage learners) and University of Utah (learners with K-12 dual language immersion experience and learners with extended stay abroad).

Session Description: Language, literature, and culture are inseparable. While students study Chinese language with their minds, the learning of culture and literature appeals to their imagination and hearts. This joint session organized by Michigan State University (MSU), National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA), and the Chinese Early Language and Immersion Network (CELIN) aims at sharing information and resources on how to integrate the teaching of language, literature, and culture in K-12 classrooms. The presenters will discuss their organizations and the resources they have developed. Using children’s and young adult literature as specific examples, they will showcase various pedagogical approaches that are effective in using these materials. They will also discuss the implications of connecting these resources with other content areas. Participants will provide suggestions on how to disseminate the information and join the efforts in developing more resources useful for students, teachers, and parents.

Session Description: The presentation focuses on approaches to balanced literacy in a Chinese immersion setting to help students achieve high proficiency levels of ACTFL standards and meet the grade-appropriate Common Core Language Arts standards. Participants will learn to set up the literature circles, discussion roles, job descriptions, etc. to promote students' in-depth, independent reading discussion. They will be introduced to different writing strategies and apply them effectively in their own classrooms, e.g. picking the right “tiny topic”, brainstorming, planing, and drafting to help students tell their life stories in Chinese.

Session Description: Struggling with achieving 100% target language use? Finding it challenging to reach comprehension from students? This session demonstrates small pivets in classroom routine and instruction through examples of survival language, engaging activities, and fun strategies to ensure full immersion in your mainstream foreign language classroom.

Session Description: Research tells us that the types of questions teachers ask directly impacts development of student language proficiency. Yet many Chinese teachers struggle with leading discussions with students, and knowing how to go beyond the basic who, what, where, why and how questions about a topic. This session introduces a structure for creating questions sequences, based on Bloom's Taxonomy  and Webb's Depth of Knowledge research, that will engage your students, encourage critical thinking and build their language skills at the same time. This formula will give you confidence in both leading successful discussions and responding to your students.  

Session Description: This presentation seeks to demonstrate how an empowering, transformative Chinese oral language and culture program, in partnership with Chinese-speaking MA in TESOL students at a university, can support learners taking Mandarin as an elective in a public school in California. Presenters will share challenges and best practices related to: (1) establishing a community partnership, (2) meeting the unique language needs of sixth-grade students and teaching needs of TESOL teacher candidates, and (3) building towards a longer-term, sustainable community partnership. Findings are based on data collected from two rounds of the Chinese program, which include weekly program implementation reflections from macro- and micro-level perspectives, as well as focus group discussions with TESOL educators and sixth-grade students. The session concludes with an invitation to hear from and respond to audience members regarding specific opportunities for K-12 school and university partnerships in their repective communities.

Session Description: After years of rapid expansion, Mandarin Chinese language programs in the U.S. are facing challenges such as staffing issues, decreasing enrollments, and shifting views on economics and politics. This interactive session will explore an innovative approach, known as FILL – Facilitated Interdependent Language Learning, that could help schools and districts sustain and even expand access to learning Mandarin Chinese. In a FILL program, a single class might have learners who are acquiring a dozen different languages or a single language but from diverse starting points. The teacher facilitates learner goal setting and access to resources. This interactive session will invite participants to identify challenges to and opportunities for implementing a FILL approach for Mandarin Chinese in schools across the United States.

Session Description: Linguists have long known asserted that a Chinese character is not a “word”, because Chinese is a not a phonemic writing system. That is to say that meaning in written Chinese is constructed and then perceived in a way radically different than that of alphabetic writing systems. Since characters are not “words” than what are they and how should they be taught? Song dynasty scholars first recognized that all characters are comprised of graphic components. A decade of my own research supports this thesis and has also discovered the detailed rules of production in which this limited set of graphic components combine and re-combine to denote meaning and form new characters. This session will demonstrate how knowledge of this systematic development can move your teaching of characters beyond rote repetition and assist your students to be able to more quickly learn characters so as to accurately recognize Chinese text.

Session Description: As educators, we have a responsibility to not only teach target languages but also to create a classroom/learning environment that promotes equity and inclusion. This session aims to provide teachers with the strategies and techniques needed to infuse social justice issues, such as gender, race and ethnicity, and environmental equity, into their Chinese language instruction at various levels. Participants will develop strategies for seamlessly incorporating the concepts of inclusion and diversity into lesson planning and daily teaching practices, including instructional materials, lead-in activities, class routines, stories, and projects. Participants will also learn how to design activities and utilize scaffolding techniques to facilitate students to explore social justice issues in Chinese-speaking countries and the U.S., to present and share their thoughts in the target language. Through sharing teaching practices from the beginning to advanced (AP) levels, participants will gain insights into developing curricula about social justice throughout all levels.

Session Description: Research evidence shows that performance-based tasks support students’ higher-order thinking skills and improve instructional and learning outcomes. In this presentation, experienced Mandarin educators will showcase the design and implementation of video skits as performance tasks and formative assessments. The session attendees will learn how to engage students in active learning, creating meaningful dialogues and lively role-plays. They will also see how this performance project engages students in collaboration with Chinese language partners, which creates opportunities to converse with native speakers and promotes cultural exchange. The attendees will also participate in the discussion about how to use these performance-based tasks to assess students’ language proficiency through IPA’s and ACTFL’s three modes of communication: interpersonal, interpretational, and presentational. An evaluation of the learning outcome will be discussed through descriptive data at the end of the presentation.

Session Description: It is significant to add Chinese American history to the K-12 school curriculum, to help teachers and students know more about Chinese American history and their contributions to the history of the United States, and to make the U.S. a multi-cultural, more equalized, and harmonious society. Three panelists will represent NCLCC, which consists of three national teacher’s organizations: CLASS, CSAUS, and NCACLS, facilitated by the NEALRC. The audience will understand the significance of introducing Chinese American studies into K-12 classrooms by attending the panel discussion. They will also learn the learning materials development, how to employ pedagogical approaches to teaching Chinese American history in class, and available resources to the teachers and students. The NCLCC represents heritage and nonheritage schools, which are at the frontier to carry out essential historical tasks and will work together with other organizations to contribute to the great cause.

Session Description: Before the Pandemic, children often picked up on social skills through everyday interactions with others. But during the last several years, many kids missed out on those interactions, especially at a younger age. Besides, students also miss opportunities to have agency upon their own learning and become independent learners. In a Chinese immersion program, students suffered from both learning loss and social emotional gap. How to make a successful transition to close the gap and build a strong student agency program? The presenters will share the experience that builds student agency and accelerates learning in our Chinese early elementary program.This session is based on classroom practices and is focusing on how to embed social emotional learning in Chinese Classrooms to help the field improve early elementary support for student agency. In the session, presenters will share the effective strategies and best practices they have utilized to empower students’ agency so that they can strive to ultimately take full ownership to become independent learners.

Session Description: Did any students beg to watch a game in your Chinese class during the FIFA World Cup?  Is there anything you can do to redirect students’ attention to focusing on learning Chinese? Research shows that successful language classrooms form connections to the real world, and that students are more motivated to learn when the content is personally meaningful. Let’s invite the FIFA World Cup into our classroom, and build Chinese lessons around the event! Join this session to see how two Chinese teachers utilized authentic materials and instructed in a Talk-Read-Talk-Write model, in order to promote speaking and writing skills of students at different proficiency levels.

Session Description: The goal of the session is to help the participants to learn how to develop a model curriculum to prepare students for college and career experiences both locally and globally by providing a curriculum that fosters fluency in a second language, immersion in a foreign culture, and exchange of ideas via advanced technology. The presentation is based on the Chinese program of the Newark School of Global Studies curriculum alignment and design. Chinese language learners are engaged in a meaningful way in the sphere of global business as they tackle the global issues of our time within an academic framework. The global business track will facilitate applying a language program and global studies education to lifelong career choices.

Session Description: In growing districts with evolving demographics, ensuring equal access to the right reading resources for all your students can seem like a complex undertaking. But the right edtech tools can make it simpler. In this presentation, attendees will join educators from the New York City Department of Education for school- and district-level insights into how digital books help make reading accessible for multilingual learners. Participants will discover: Why digital is critical to access equity. How to use features and formats unique to digital to facilitate language acquisition. Keys to building a library of translated and authentic Chinese titles that immerse students in the classroom and library and motivate them to read for enjoyment. Best practices to get educators on board and modeling reading for students.          Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to deliver fast, flexible reading access to not just their Chinese language students, but their entire school community.

Session Description: Two innovative Mandarin Immersion programs will share the models and methods used at their sites to develop collaborative professional learning communities to support and stretch teacher capacity, as well as teacher leadership skills. Effective teaching is the most critical component to increase student engagement and promote learning outcomes in dual language immersion classrooms. Both school sites will share effective and high-impact strategies to build and cultivate a supportive, safe and positive learning community for the immersion team to continuously analyze student progress, reflect, collaborate, and action plan with a growth mindset. Participants will learn best practices with vertical and horizontal alignment in the Mandarin Immersion programs. These models and methods will include customized professional development, collaborative planning time, demonstration teaching, co-teaching, best instructional practice library, differentiated coaching and feedback, teacher-led PLC, and the use of outside consultants.

Session Description: In the first half of this joint session, the presentation will start with a brief introduction on how to use stories to teach diverse perspectives and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Participants will then experience real classroom teaching moments and interactivity along with relevant resources and suggested language. They will also learn best practices such as storytelling, guided questions, and integrated subjects to adapt existing materials to a wide range of pedagogical strategies and outcomes. In the second half, the presenter will first invite the audience to discuss and explore how five equity principles proposed by Walden University are manifested in a student-centered Chinese classroom. Following that, proficiency-based communicative activities and equity-embedded projects will be shared and demonstrated. Participants will be inspired and walk away with new ideas, concrete examples, and DEI resources that can be directly translated into creating a more equitable Chinese classroom where all students can thrive.

Session Description: Differentiation means tailoring instruction to meet individual needs. Having the just right learning resources can minimize classroom management challenges, and also effectively maximize the learning outcome. Data-driven planning could be essential to make this process more effective! In this session, the presenters will share and discuss the best strategies for whole-group and small-group differentiation. The participants will have the opportunity to view different models of literacy in small groups for guided and independent practice. In addition, teachers will share their tips and tricks to help students develop agency to stay on task.

Session Description: This session presents multiple case studies on the implementation and results of a series of mind maps which were used in a career-readiness Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) program. Digital mind maps were created by learners, 16 to 20 years old at the novice and intermediate levels, and were used by the instructors to chart learners’ development of content and linguistic knowledge around two genres, conference proposals and presentations. Previous research shows that mind maps facilitate writing of various genres when used as a pre-writing activity (Ojima, 2006), and can chart development of learners’ conceptualizations of academic English written genres (Wette, 2017). However, mind maps have not yet been explored in a CSL context. Participants of this presentation will learn how to use mind maps to evaluate learners’ linguistic and content knowledge as well as how these tools can be used to assess learners’ progress.

Session Description: In the immersion field, Chinese teachers are dedicated to lesson development and delivery to help students meet their academic goals based on school-wide benchmarks. As students acquire language skills at a different pace, there is a group of students who require teachers’ extra attention and intrinsically need more intensive support throughout their Chinese learning. At Chinese American International School, we emphasize the achievement of high language proficiency and yet recognize the hurdles students as such are facing. As a school, we have developed systematic Chinese language support across the grades. In this presentation, participants will learn about our tiered support system in terms of additional support for tier 2 and tier 3 students, the approach we tailor the curriculum with differentiated instruction with classroom teachers horizontally and vertically, and lastly how the support team uses assessment data to amplify students’ learning to help them reach their individualized learning outcomes.

Session Description: Science is a way of explaining the natural world. It embodies holistic learning that requires educators to have intentional connections among standards, assessments, and implementation. In Mandarin immersion classrooms, how do teachers provide integrated science curriculum to children that shapes students’ scientific thinking and further develops their Chinese proficiency? How do teachers engage children’s minds in forming questions, investigating science experiments, sharing their observations, gathering and analyzing data, building their model and constructing their explanation? In this session, teachers from two Chinese immersion schools will discuss how they develop science integrated curriculum that engages students through hands-on activities, investigations, data analysis and productive science talks. The audiences will learn about how to organize children’s Science learning experience with various types of science learning activities, including children’s literacy, story-telling, circle time discussion and activities in the learning centers, as well as ways to document children’s scientific thinking process.

Session Description: Many Chinese teachers suffer from a lack of classroom management skills even if they have strong content knowledge. It is a big obstacle for newcomers in the workplace. Even experienced teachers often struggle in this area. Helping teachers to succeed is essential. In addition to a strong instructional philosophy, a well-thought-out lesson plan can help to form a foundation for effective student learning. The workshop will help to develop effective solutions to handle classroom management challenges. The workshop is conducted in the form of discussion of case studies. The pre-selected scenarios will be given to different grade level groups as well as various style schools. The participants will actively engage in analyzing, discussing, and sharing. They will walk away with coping skills and quick classroom management tips. 

Session Description: In recent years, there has been a rising call for more opportunities for students to make/build things and develop their critical thinking and problem-solving in the classroom, the so-called maker movement. Based on ideas and methodologies from the Agency-by-Design framework for maker-centered learning, designed by researchers from the Project Zero team at Harvard, two experienced teachers from two Chinese immersion schools on the two coasts will share how maker-centered learning is implemented in their classrooms. Participants will see specific examples of maker-centered classroom activities. Furthermore, participants will witness how students’ language proficiency is developed in the making. Participants will be engaged to try one of the thinking routines in the Agency-by-Design framework. Participants will walk away with a list of maker-center strategies that can be applied in their classrooms the next day.

Session Description: How speakers choose a linguistic form at a given moment has drawn much attention. However, few studies have investigated how schooled bilinguals - those acquiring two languages simultaneously in a school environment - make referential choices. We collected data from children in grades 3 to 6 in a Chinese immersion program using Frog goes to dinner (Meyer, 1969). Children were asked to narrate the story in Chinese after reviewing the book. All their narrations were recorded and transcribed following the procedures of CLAN. Participants will practice coding the oral narratives using the referential schemes which were categorized based on schemes from previous studies. Preliminary results show a gradual increase in referential adequacy across the grades; the bilingual learners in our study made different referential choices from other bilingual children based on referential functions. Participants will learn the development of schooled bilinguals’ oral narratives and pedagogical implications for enhancing students’ oral narrative skills.

Session Description: As we all know Graduate defense often happens at the high school level and up, however, our students are requested to do it by the time they graduate from the middle school. After 9 years of learning Chinese, how does the school develop our students to become bilingual, bilateral global citizens and changemakers? Students will use the artifacts(projects) they collect throughout the whole 9 years learning to defend themselves. This session will demonstrate what graduate defense is and how it looks like in the language middle school program. In addition,the detailed plan and the bilingual defense videos will be shared to the audience to walk through the planning process, how we scaffold students from scratch to the level they can use projects and reflections to defend themselves in front of panels.  

Session Description: Implementation of Hip Hop pedagogy in my classes has proven effective in increasing positive student engagement while promoting an inclusive environment. However, in Chinese language and culture classrooms, integration of Hip Hop pedagogy is still underrepresented. In this session, I will share Chinese language and culture content course classroom-tested approaches to teaching Hip Hop, which can be adapted to K-16 classrooms. Through participation in interactive classroom activity demonstrations, both language and non-language classroom teachers will learn the importance of Hip Hop culture and how it integrates with contemporary China. In addition to participation in classroom activities, you will also leave this session knowing how to develop a curriculum that promotes diversity and global competency, improves teacher-student relationships, and guides students through a new critical thinking lens. The positive influence of Hip Hop in education is felt around the world, and it is time for our Chinese classrooms to embrace it.  

Session Description: After determining the inconsistency between teachers providing effective feedback and students’ reception of feedback in her previous research, the presenter explores various approaches for students to be more open and willing to learn from feedback and make improvements accordingly.  The presentation also delves into the importance of including “feed-forward” as part of learning and teaching, building a growth mindset, keeping learning student-centered, and having clear learning intentions and success criteria when designing lessons. Strategies and feedback frameworks applicable at different age levels and for all modes of communication will be shared.

Session Description: This presentation describes pedagogical practices in an empowering, transformative Chinese oral language and culture program for sixth grade students taking Mandarin as an elective in a public school in California. Students in this presentation have no prior Chinese language learning experience. Pedagogical practices stem from a curriculum that centers student agency through (1) content that focuses on language expression; (2) pedagogy that focuses on student interaction with authentic experiences; and (3) leadership that focuses on the heart to empower students with purpose, motivation and confidence. Findings are based on data collected from video recordings of lessons, lesson reflections from Chinese teachers, and focus group discussions with students. The session highlights high-leverage practices that meet the goals of the curriculum, which are demonstrated for audience members. The audience will take away a variety of tangible strategies to apply in their Mandarin oral language and Chinese culture classrooms.

Session Description: As a powerful English Learner-focused approach, SEAL (Sobrato Early Academic Language) has been supporting hundreds of Cherrywood MI students from heritage and non-heritage families with their Chinese literacy skills. In this presentation, we will be introducing SEAL strategies to our participants and practicing some of them together. Participants will have a chance to work and think as Chinese learners and see how language elements as well as subject content become comprehensible and practicable. Different from a traditional classroom, a lot of visuals will be used in a SEAL classroom, such as labels, charts and posters. Classwork from the K-5 students at Cherrywood will also be shared out in order that participants can explore the differences of one strategy used in different grades.

Session Description: As more and more countries gradually open to travel since the year of 2022, how to create a new language trip program during spring or summer break to enhance students’ language learning becomes a new topic after the pandemic. This presentation reports on one Chinese language trip during spring 2023, the first one after the pandemic for high school students. This session discusses how to draft a trip proposal based on the school's portal, and plan before and after the trip, including discussing the challenges, reflections, and feedback from students.

Session Description: This research discussed the necessity to teach classic literary Chinese to college students, and when the class should be offered to ensure students' success in this class. The survey demonstrated that the classic literary Chinese helps students better understand modern Chinese language, ancient Chinese civilization and history through authentic scripts and texts, and classic Chinese literature, particularly to those students majoring humanities. However, this research found that students could be misled in understanding classic literary Chinese, classic Chinese literature, and classic literary Chinese texts and scripts if students were offered classic literary Chinese class without a certain foundation of modern Chinese. This research is expected to provide updated information on the current situation of the classic literary Chinese teaching in the U.S. and to explore an appropriate approach to promote classic literary Chinese education in post-secondary institutions.

Session Description: Supporting early childhood immersion students to develop a sense of literacy independence, open mindset, and curiosity for language and culture is a continuous challenge in the immersion field. Participants will learn how Rondo School of Discovery and Orion Alternative Mandarin Immersion School adapt and implement fun and engaging strategies from “Science of Reading” on a daily basis explicitly and systematically. Participants will also learn a variety of hands-on activities and “Science of Reading” modes and approaches to enhance the interpretive and interpersonal modes of communication in both whole-group and small-group differentiated instructions. Teaching and learning video clips, sample learning activities, data progress, and student work will be shared by two programs to show how students further deepen reading comprehension and further develop oral language skills.      

Session Description: Academic Language is something that schools should focus on to promote proficient language acquisition, but social language is another important component that is essential not only for making their voice heard but to advance into mastery of target language acquisition. In this presentation, we will show how our program uses seven different school-wide strategies to help students to build the toolbox to develop their social communication skills in their target language. The strategies include mandarin teacher-led class meetings, arranging facetime with native mandarin speakers, LIT (leaders in training) students’ interviews done in Chinese, assemblies' performance, raffle for target language, buddy reading & book discussion and Mandarin Spelling Bee. We will also provide evidence to demonstrate the improvement in students’ language proficiency through standardized tests and teacher observation. During the forum, one of our presenters will present from the administrator's perspective and how leadership provides support for teachers to be put into practice. 2 classroom teachers will present, from the teachers' point of view, the actual implementation of strategies into practice to promote social language for our students in grades 2 and 4. Overall, we wish to deliver to our attendees a clear picture of why it is significant to strategically design opportunities to develop school-wide social language within the immersion program.  

Session Description: Chinese immersion teacher retention has been a challenge across the country. How do we establish a sustainable growth system for our precious talented teachers? In this session, we would like to share how we incorporate the schoolwide mindset, skillset, and toolset through teacher onboarding, ongoing curriculum plus pedagogical support, and create different platforms for the teachers to have moments to shine. We will also discuss the challenges we faced in implementing this and how we overcame some of them. Participants will be able to see concrete examples of the teacher onboarding program, and the structure of our ongoing curriculum/pedagogical support, as well as different internal/external platforms where our teacher can be the spotlight in the professional community. Participants will also have the time and space to reflect on their challenges and successes in their school context in an interactive way, and brainstorm possible action items or takeaways to implement after the conference.

Session Description: Have you observed your students lack motivation? In this session, the presenter will explain how to design interdisciplinary Chinese lessons to motivate and foster students’ learning. The presenter will provide interdisciplinary examples, such as making blue-and-white porcelains in ceramic class and making one of China's Four Great Inventions, paper, in history class. Additional demonstrations such as composing music and creating Chinese lyrics in a music class, planting Chinese vegetables in a science class, using Adobe Illustrator with a laser cutter to make Chinese lanterns in an engineering and design class, will also be provided. The presenter will explain how to initiate interdisciplinary ideas that are proper for Chinese language and cultural teaching purposes. Techniques and strategies on how to effectively teach language and culture through these interdisciplinary lessons will also be described. These lessons are aimed at motivating students to learn Chinese language and culture during the post-pandemic timeframe.

Session Description: Developing a common vision and language for successful guided reading curriculum and lessons across grade levels is crucial for allowing students, especially students who do not have CHinese learning background at home, to read and comprehend in the target language. Participants will learn how Yu Ming Charter School,the National Blue Ribbon School and CA distinguished school,plan and implement their respective guided reading curricula from kindergarten to fifth grade . Participants will learn how the school builds up the guided reading program including fiction and non fiction reading based on Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, ACTFL proficiency guidelines. Methods for adapting readers’ workshop for dual language immersion programs, sample videos,and resources including guided reading set up, lesson plans from guided reading in K-5th Grade, as well as results and lessons learned will be shared.

Session Description: This session is designed to introduce numerous new and classroom-tested practices and projects that enhance student's cognitive engagement in learning a second language so that students can become a active and lifelong learner.  Presenters will demonstrate how to design projects, learning activities and learning materials with a focus of improving student's cognitive engagement and problem-solving skills. The participants will have the opportunity to view how to use different classroom or school-wide learning activities to maximize student's participation and deepen student's learning.

Session Description: This presentation will discuss how to create a curriculum and implement classroom activities and assessments of the three modes of communication to help Chinese language learners improve literacy skills. The presenter will first introduce the importance of developing literacy skills, and help participants explore the abilities necessary for better acquisition of the Chinese language. Then share a sample curriculum, classroom activities, and assessments of the three modes of communication that develop and assess literacy skills. An online platform that students and teacher can track the progress will be shared. Finally, the presenter will share tips about designing and implementing effective tasks of the three modes of communication to improve students’ Chinese literacy skills. By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to explain the importance of developing literacy skills, identify, design, and apply three modes of communication tasks to help students cultivate Chinese literacy skills.

Session Description: This presentation will approach Elementary Chinese literacy instruction and students' proficiency development through the perspective of social emotional learning . Through chatbox and/or padlet, participants will ask and answer questions of  why we need to incorporate SEL in daily instruction, what the fundamentals of SEL are, how to briefly align different aspects of SEL with the 5 World Readiness Standards, and list 2-3 strategies as to how to design SEL- related essential questions, and brainstorm a couple of SEL approaches to a given text. The presenter will share how she plans the lessons from the perspective of SEL while keeping students' proficiency development in mind，including specific classroom activities and students' work samples. If time allowed, participants will be invited to build on the presenter's SEL approach. By the end of the presentation, participants will learn be able to explain fundamentals of SEL, the importance of incorporating SEL in our instruction, and apply the shared teaching activities/strategies into their teaching to develop students' proficiency level through the perspective of social emotional learning. 

Session Description: This presentation introduces Project-Based Language Learning (PBLL) curricula designed and implemented for a year-round STARTALK program for K-16. Three PBLL projects were implemented throughout two semesters and a summer session: 1) Sun Yat-sen in Hawai‘i; 2) Honolulu Chinatown, past and present; 3) Tour around Oahu. Projects followed three phases: 1) online background learning; 2) data collection through field-trips; 3) final product: virtual tour website. The presentation argues that local cultural and historical resources are valuable tools for teaching and learning Chinese language and culture, and that PBLL is a feasible model for STARTALK programs, allowing students to create publicly-accessible products using knowledge gained from content learning and exploration. Discussion will include reflection on implementation and suggestions for best practices for PBLL in STARTALK programs. Participants can expect to gain essential knowledge needed for PBLL curriculum design and implementation, and observe outcomes for application in their own PBLL design.

Session Description: Historically, Mandarin immersion preschool education has been an emerging field in the past 20 years. There is only a little research that demonstrates how to develop a Mandarin immersion preschool program model with up-to-date research and best practice. This presentation will give a rich voice to the programmatic and innovative features that characterize the Mandarin immersion preschool education and will provide a fertile ground for the further advance in the theoretical educational investigation. Presenters from two Mandarin immersion preschool programs in the San Francisco Bay Area will discuss key principles and best practices of Early Childhood Mandarin Immersion Programs in the San Francisco bay area. They will focus on 1) Immersion models, 2) Pedagogical approach, 3) Professional growth path and 4)Building community, communication with families. The audiences will be inspired by the newest practice in the field and have concrete examples to start a new program and develop curriculum.

Session Description: At Yew Chung international school of Silicon Valley, our classes each have two fully qualified Co-Teachers, one native English-speaking teacher and one native Chinese-speaking teacher, who work together to create the bilingual learning environment for which YCIS is known. YCISSV curriculum is based on high standards and represents a multi and trans-disciplinary approach to learning and teaching.   Our project-based learning units are inquiry-based and concept-driven and reflect bilingual and bicultural content. We will share our PBL unit examples to show participants the step-by-step developing process. Participants will learn how and will have hands-on experiences in doing the unit design processes and making their own unit plan by integrating inquiry teaching pedagogy that is able to meet different subjects’ standards and develop a thorough understanding of the target concepts.  We also will share the strategies that enhance students’ engagement, motivation, and critical thinking skills along the steps. After the session, participants will have concrete concepts to implement the unit plan in the classroom and bring back this knowledge to their learning community.