Breakout Sessions
The National Chinese Language Conference (NCLC) is dedicated to enhancing the nation’s capacity for the teaching and learning of Chinese language and culture by sharing cutting-edge practices and examples with educators and policymakers.
We are thrilled to feature over 50 interactive, practical breakout sessions by veteran practitioners at Virtual NCLC 2022 from April 22-24. Please explore the session full list below.
2022 Virtual NCLC Breakout Session List
Saturday, April 23
12:00 PM - 12:45 PM ET
Socioemotional learning in Chinese language classrooms
- Presenters: Frank Tang, Shanmao Liao, Yanhua Li
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "Research has shown that students’ socioemotional status has a positive correlation with learning outcome and that it is critical for teachers to heed to students’ SEL, i.e., students’ mental health and wellness. The past year of pandemic and distance learning, however, has taken a toll on students both academically and emotionally. To help students overcome emotional barriers and refocus on learning, teachers must pay attention to students’ SEL development, and Chinese language teachers must join all teachers in promoting SEL in their classrooms.
This presentation will (1) review research findings on SEL and its impact on learning outcome, (2) present case studies from Chinese language classrooms that involves SEL, (3) demonstrate strategies to nurture SEL in students, such as self-awareness, self-management and intercultural communication, and (4) explore techniques to include learning strategy training, such as working individually and collaboratively so that students become more motivated and efficient in learning Chinese."
Watch Movie Effectively to Learn Chinese Efficiently
- Presenters: Jingyi Wu,Chunyang Yang,Yinghan Xue
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: "Movies and shows are great resources to bring authentic language to the classroom, but at the same time, teachers are hesitant to use movies because the massive language from a movie clip may not be able to ensure comprehension. It is also time-consuming to find appropriate resources to incorporate the lesson.
The presenters will share strategies for selecting appropriate authentic Chinese video materials based on students’ background and language proficiency and the current language content. We will focus on demonstrating classroom activities that build up students’ Chinese comprehension in pre-watch and in-watch activities and how after-watch activities engage students in language output. The presenters will also share the collective resources of Chinese movies/shows. Participants will engage in all three session activities and learn to use authentic movie materials to enhance student language proficiency in the K-12 setting."
Design and Strategies of Dual-Language PBL in K-5 Classrooms
- Presenter: Pingxin Yang, Ivy Li
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: At Stamford American school, one bilingual teacher is in charge of teaching the elementary subjects in both English and Mandarin. We designed many inquiry projects to engage students’ dual language skills in a continuity and would like to share four K-5 project-based learning (PBL) examples. The examples will cover various subject areas including social studies, history and sciences. With the transferable knowledge as a bridge in the projects, students were able to meet different language objectives and develop a thorough understanding of the target concepts. Participants will learn to use BookCreator and Keynote to adapt materials and activities for a differentiated classroom. They will brainstorm how to pair up content objectives with language objectives to design PBL in inquiry units. Teachers will also identify meaningful assessments that can promote authentic language learning experience.
Online Games To Reinforce Chinese Character Retention
- Presenters: Yanyan Wang, Jinhong Xu,Weihui Lee, Jianbo Wang
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: In Singapore, our education philosophy is to help every student to learn Chinese Language to as high a level as possible. In recent years, the Ministry had introduced a support program to address the needs of 3rd and 4th Grade low progress students, which had received positive feedback from teachers concerning students’ engagement level and teaching strategies. However, due to the lack of language environment, students could not retain their learning of Chinese characters. This prompted the team to conceptualize and develop online games to help students reinforce their learning outside class. The team tracked 126 4th Grader’s reinforcement of the Chinese characters using the online games over four months. The findings showed that students’ use of the online games correlated positively with their ability to remember the characters. We hope that this sharing will provide some insights as to how educators could make use of technology to create joyful and meaningful learning experiences for the low progress students.
Standards-based Chinese Curri & Learning: Why, What and How
- Presenter: Grace Zeng, Jessica Shan
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: This workshop introduces EY-12 teachers, curriculum coordinators and program leaders to two different models of Standards-based Chinese program in an international school, which is not only proficiency driven but also focusing on students’ biliteracy development. Participants will explore the theories and benefits of a standards-based Chinese curriculum, the instructional models and curriculum building that can support a wide spectrum of learning needs and interest including heritage learners, and how to use data to improve program quality and student achievement. Some sample standards, instructional frameworks, learning tools, student artifacts, data analysis as well as teacher and student reflections will be shared.
Translanguaging Pedagogy in Multilingual Chinese Classrooms
- Presenter: Yajing Guo, Jana Benicka
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Translanguaging and the related pedagogy have been discussed for a long time, although limited attention was paid to Chinese language learning and teaching. The objective of this session is to show how translanguaging pedagogy can be applied and adjusted in multilingual classrooms or monolingual but not English classrooms. The presenters will introduce translanguaging pedagogy through real classroom practice in various levels. After the session, participants are expected to learn more about the theory of translanguaging and the application of translanguaging pedagogy in their own classrooms and teaching procedure.
How to program a scaffolded level reading to impact literacy
- Presenter: Laura Wang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "Engaging young learners to learn to read and to improve reading comprehension ability has always been a bump journey for Chinese language teachers. Learning as many characters as possible doesn't amount to an understanding of the context and it still costs a huge of teaching and learning time especially for acquiring Chinese as a second language.
The session will address how to program and scaffold in unity to improve the written Chinese acquisition process. Attendees will be presented with a refined reading acquisition curriculum to make the teacher-led instruction be more effective.
Starting in a light and easy manner basal reads to a scaffolded and progressive reading, through leveled reads, benchmark reading assessment accompanied with skills-focused worksheets around the reading, the materials can be inferred easily in classrooms for better class instruction and to enhance learners' reading capability in a structured and systematic process."
Saturday, April 23
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM ET
Cultivating Literacy Skills with OERs and Chinese Children's Literature
- Presenters: Jiahang Li, Shuhan Wang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: The purpose of this session is to provide innovative ways of creating and using Open Educational Resources (OERs) to cultivate early literacy skills with Chinese children's picture books. The critical importance of OERs to online language instruction has been clearly demonstrated as educators pivoted to online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With more and more teaching and learning occur in online environment, leveraging OERs to teach Chinese language and culture becomes increasingly important for K-12 Chinese language educators. Using authentic Chinese children's picture books, the presenters will introduce OERs created for K-12 Chinese language teachers and share innovative ways to incorporate these OERs into teaching practice. Participants will learn how to create and adopt OERs to cultivate early literacy skills for young Chinese learners.
Creating Authenticity in Intermediate- to Advanced-Level Chinese Language Courses
- Presenters: Li Xiang, Meiru Liu, Iris Xu
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: "Language learning is most effective when learners connect with real-life experiences. Creating authenticity in language teaching is critical for students’ learning. Authenticity is embedded in four aspects of teaching: contexts for settings, materials, tasks, and the process of negotiation of meaning (Mishan, 2005). This panel presentation will describe and explore how to create and use authenticity in the four different aspects of teaching in the intermediate- to advanced-level Chinese language courses across three different universities: a high-school dual enrollment program at a Midwest university, a private liberal arts college, and a public university in the U.S.
The presentations in this panel will show the participants how to adopt, customize, and tailor the internet-based authentic learning resources into theme-based, suitable and effective language learning materials to create the authentic settings, tasks, and simulate the authentic negotiation of meaning in Chinese language teaching. Examples of authentic articles, images, YouTube videos, teaching plans, clips of students’ project videos, etc. will be shared and discussed. "
Non-negotiable Practices in Mandarin Immersion Classrooms
- Presenters: Donna Podgorny, Lin Zhu, Judy Ouyang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: The Immersion faculty and staff of Union County Public Schools in North Carolina are committed to using effective instructional practices that are non-negotiable in every Dual Language Mandarin and Spanish Immersion classroom. In order to provide students with quality learning experiences and to increase student achievement for oral and written language, Mandarin immersion teachers must do a list of things, such as, posting daily purpose statements, using the target language for oral and written language, regular turn-and-talk, scaffolding, etc. In this session, a Mandarin immersion team from Union County Public Schools will share the checklist and resources of instructional practices and how teachers apply the checklist and resources into the classroom. Participants will have the opportunity to share their experiences and discuss how they could apply the checklist and resources into their classrooms.
Student-Centered Learning: Three Classrooms in Action
- Presenters: Yao Xiong, Huanxiaoge Wang, Huanxiaotu Wang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Student-centered learning enables students to take greater responsibility for their own learning and could engage students more profoundly in the process of pursuing their own success. What does a student-centered Chinese class look like? How should teachers play the facilitator role in creating a learner-centered class? Three elementary teachers from three different states will share and demonstrate how they have put student-centered learning into action. Presenters will lead the participants to discuss the main characteristics of student-centered instruction. Presenters will share a variety of student-centered activities from their own classes, showcase student products, and introduce strategies of how to scaffold students so they can gradually take initiative and become more accountable for their own learning. Participants will not only take away practical student-centered activities that could be implemented in their own classes the next day but also gain insights on how to design student-centered activities on their own and how to assist students as a "facilitator".
In Favor of Fun: Increasing Intrinsic Motivation through Experiential Learning
- Presenters: Julie Farrell, Sisi Zheng, Boyan Zhang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: For students at many Chinese immersion schools, second language acquisition occurs well outside the linguistic context of daily life, and contact with native Mandarin speakers is limited to the classroom setting. Though opportunities to travel or study abroad have traditionally served as a reliable motivator for language learners, various diplomatic, financial, and/or safety constraints place travel out of reach for many students. In this session, presenters share their innovative approaches to linguistic and cultural immersion on campus, including virtual exchange with partner schools, collaborative curriculum design, and in-person experiential programming. Participants will learn how to forge and sustain reciprocal relationships with peer schools, local non-profit organizations and community members. Participants will leave the presentation with concrete examples and strategies to advocate for, design, and implement immersive experiential programming in their own institutions, as well as how incorporating nontraditional programming increases students’ intrinsic motivation to study Chinese.
Math Curriculum in Chinese Immersion Schools: Recent Progress and Prospects
- Presenters: Cindy Chiang, Cristina Calcagno, Luyi Lien
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Many Chinese immersion schools have a high proficiency in math learning performance and assessment results, even though the assessment is administered in English. It’s common to attribute this outcome to the nature of literal meaning in Chinese when describing math concepts, and the emphasis on procedural practice as a basis for students’ math learning. However, there are certain prominent challenges that all Chinese immersion schools are facing, such as how administrators decide what language math is taught or what curriculum to adopt in their programs. In this presentation, three administrators from two different Chinese immersion schools will share their approaches, along with the strengths and challenges, of their respective school programming. They will also discuss how they have strategically overcome some of the challenges they are facing and share their perspectives in math instruction and curriculum for the Chinese immersion education field.
Teasing Out Identity Construction in Chinese Second Language Classrooms
- Presenters: Xiaoyun Wang, Kerry Sluchinski
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: By attending this session, which showcases an interdisciplinary investigation into Chinese second language learners’ and teachers’ classroom practice(s) of teasing, Educators will be empowered with new insights regarding interactional competency. Harnessing Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis (CA/EMCA), Multimodal Analysis, and Pragmatics, participants will familiarize themselves with SL classroom teasing as it appears in our data before finding themselves immersed in a hands-on analytical experience with real classroom data which can help them tease-out their own future conclusions about interactional competency. Participants will learn about the interactional role(s) that teasing can play in classroom identity construction from seven data-driven teasing interfaces: 1) Teacher to Student; 2) Student to Teacher; 3) Teacher to Self; 4) Student to Self; 5)Student to Student; 6) Student to Third-Party; and 7) Teacher to Third-Party. Knowledge of these role(s) and interfaces can be applied in transforming the everyday social action of teasing into a low-stakes measure of interactional competency.
Saturday, April 23
2:00 PM - 2:45 PM ET
How to Use Driving Question to Guide Students Sustained Inquiry
- Presenters: Linling Chawla, Huang Lyu
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: Research shows that Project Based Learning helps students be successful in today’s rapidly changing and complex world, by developing broader sets of knowledge and skills as well as improving academic achievement. In this session, two educators from Presidio Knolls School, a Progressive Mandarin immersion school in San Francisco, will explore the question: how to use Driving Question to guide students’ sustained inquiry in their projects in the upper elementary Chinese immersion school setting. Participants will learn tools to generate meaningful Driving Questions while involving students’ voice and choice. They will explore visible thinking routines that can facilitate students’ inquiry and related research. Participants will also learn how to provide structure during the PBL process so as to create more space for students to research, construct their knowledge and create. Project management toolkits will also be shared to help teachers and students manage the projects and their learning process more effectively.
Teaching Communicatively Online: Engaging Learners Using Open Educational Resources
- Presenters: Victoria Russell, Celia Zamora
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: In this session, attendees will examine Open Educational Resources (OERs), such as practical tools, resources (e.g., applications and websites), and activities that are user-friendly and free to engage traditional, hybrid, and/or online teaching environment learners in the three modes of communication (interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational). Other topics that will be presented include how to stimulate teacher, cognitive, and social presence, how to build an online community of practice, and how to measure students’ perceptions of connectedness. PowerPoint, interactive polling questions, and demonstrating language-specific examples of OERs will be employed to engage attendees. There will also be time for sharing, collaboration, and questions.
A Case Study of a Full Chinese Immersion Preschool program
- Presenters: CHU HSI TSENG, Cindy Chiang, Elaine Chang,
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: High-quality teacher-child interactions in early learning environments have been regarded as a key contributor to children’s early language and cognitive development. However, little is known about children’s receptive vocabularies in the Early Childhood Chinese Immersion context. The presenters from Chinese American International School used qualitative case study methodology to explore teachers' instruction support of children's Chinese language development. The presenters interviewed teachers, focusing on their students’ language learning experiences in a child-centered & play-based full Chinese immersion preschool program. Using data from teachers’ interviews and teaching journals and from the children's learning documentation, including video data of teacher and children's interactions during circle time and guide-play time and formative preschool assessments ("developmental narrative"). Findings contribute to the literature on the critical role teacher-child interaction quality plays in children’s Chinese language and literacy learning and development. Implications for developing a full Chinese immersion preschool program, and the strategies of the improvement of language and literacy teachers’ professional development are also discussed.
Effectiveness of Peer Feedback on University CFL Students' Writing Performance
- Presenters: Yu Liu
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "Effective writing pedagogy in CFL education has been a consistent goal of researchers and instructors in the Chinese as a foreign language writing field. Formative peer feedback, a key factor in pedagogical writing practices, has been receiving growing interest. My study investigated the primary pedagogical effects of peer feedback on university students’ writing performance in a CFL context. The result of my study revealed 1) After employing the intervention of peer feedback and back-feedback in the class, CFL students made significant growth in writing achievement; 2) the quality of students’ feedback and the quality of students’ back-feedback were significant predictors of students’ writing performance.
My study provides not only further evidence of the power of formative peer feedback as an effective learning tool, but also recommends the inclusion of it in the university curriculum to encourage students to direct and monitor their own learning processes and be life-long learners."
Looking to Expand your Mandarin Program? State Department Fellowships Can Help
- Presenters: Michael Kuban, Zara Hovhannisyan, Laila Ferris, John Pecoraro
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "This session will describe the U.S. Department of State's Teachers of Critical Languages Program (tclprogram.org), now 16 years old, and its broad impact. Since 2006, 234 Chinese teachers have reached approximately 62,000 students in 39 states. We will share highlights of successful program implementation, discuss the host school application process, and learn how one district greatly expanded its Chinese program through TCLP.
Attendees will learn about community outreach events Chinese teachers take part in to build cross-cultural understanding and garner community support for the school's Chinese as a Foreign Language program and how establishing U.S. - Chinese sister school relationships can help U.S. school districts enhance their Chinese instruction. Attendees will also receive a guide on how to conduct relevant community outreach events."
Speak Mandarin from Day One and Listen to Students Thrive!
- Presenters: Priscilla Russel, Shwu-Fen Lin, Victoria Shen
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: This session focuses on strategies that lead students to develop communicative competence and confidence when speaking Mandarin. Teachers and the Language Supervisor from the Princeton School District present the rationale for speaking Chinese during class from Day One, model strategies to provide comprehensible input in Mandarin and share student work from both middle school and high school that demonstrates the successes of their practice. Additionally, they show how to integrate technology tools into language learning to build communicative and cultural competence. Participants take away innovative and practical teaching techniques and multiple and varied activities that are highly effective in engaging students. Emphasis will be placed on the high yield practices from Level I through Level AP, specifically the exclusive use of the target language in instruction, demonstrations of effective comprehensible input and effective interpersonal communication tasks.
Develop a K-8 Standards-based, Fluid, Rigorous Immersion Curriculum Plan
- Presenters: Paohsuan Huang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "Cohesiveness and rigor of instructions are the core of a successful program that all immersion programs long for. However, juggling between different expectations and various instructional standards sets is also a common challenge for Immersion programs. The panel will share the journey of developing a K-8 articulated immersion curriculum plan. By selecting priority standards, integrating contents into thematic units and developing a culturally-responsive curriculum, the panelist will present a journey of building the solid curriculum plans that ensure students’ cross cultural competency, grade level content achievement and bilingual literacy development."
Saturday, April 23
3:00 PM - 3:45 PM ET
Re-examine Your Curriculum Through the Lens of Social-emotional learning (SEL)
- Presenters: Ying Jin
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: According to cfchildren.org, social-emotional learning (SEL) is the process of developing the self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills that are vital for school, work, and life success. SEL helps learners better understand their identities and manage stress. It also helps them build better relationships and interpersonal skills that will serve them in school and beyond. Without a doubt, incorporating SEL into the Chinese language classroom not only makes it possible to enrich your content and curriculum, but also allows students to achieve their learning goals and acquire social skills in a healthier environment. This session is based on classroom practice and is aiming to share how to embed and encourage social and emotional learning in Chinese classrooms. Effective strategies, practical ideas, and useful resources will be shared so that participants will have a chance to examine and reflect on various ways to enhance students’ learning experience by embedding SEL related content and information in your classroom.
Embracing Student Agency in Writing: Expertise from two coasts
- Presenters: Aini Fang, Yu Liu
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "We often talk about how important it is to give students ownership of their learning, but how can we do it in Chinese writing where students usually have the most difficulty? How can we give students voice and choice while providing them with enough support to grow into independent writers? How can we honor and incorporate students’ interests when planning writing units?
Presenters from Yu Ming Charter school and Washington Yu Ying PSC, two Chinese immersion schools from opposite coasts, will share how they structure their writing instruction where the role of teachers and writers change, and students’ efficacy is supported. Presenters will share strategies, resources, and examples in the following areas:
- create a learning environment with various writing resources and tools accessible to the writers
- design unit lessons and material that honor student interest and ownership
- establish routine and structure that support students’ independence"
The Logic of Using Chinese to Lead Math Activities
- Presenters: Pamella Stommes, Fiona Zhang, Fang Wu
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: "Presented by the curriculum designer and implementing teachers, the session will focus on two complementary approaches to mathematics education and the interactions between these methods in the Mandarin Immersion classroom’ the Singapore Math method, and the GRR (Gradual Release of Responsibility) method.
The ultimate purpose of teaching math is to help students perform their math knowledge independently. In the immersion classroom, teaching math is not simply conveying math skills or concepts; rather, it requires language support to eliminate barriers to in-depth reasoning. Therefore, teaching math in immersion is not only about the math itself, but also the linguistic acquisition processes implied therein.
Keeping these ideas in mind, this presentation will share immersion math curriculum and lesson design that reinforces language learning during class while also adopting teaching strategies such that students gradually take responsibility for their own learning. Ultimately, students are able to develop both advanced linguistic and mathematical skills."
Reading: The Foundation for All Learning
- Presenters: Ran Dalton
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "Reading opens the door to all content and discipline areas in learning. This session aims to demonstrate how to design Chinese reading lessons to help students foster reading interest and advance their language skills and cultural knowledge.
The participants will have opportunities to explore how reading supports the development of other language skills, and how it enhances students' language proficiency. Approaches to assessing classroom practices include reader’s workshops, writer’s workshops, reading proficiency assessments, and speaking activities.
This session aims to utilize research and classroom practices to demonstrate the importance and effectiveness of teaching reading strategies and how they increase students’ learning motivation and enable their independent learning.
During this session, participants will be asked to join scenario analyses, work in small groups to generate a reader's workshop, and design various language and cultural activities based on reading lessons. After attending this session, participants will be able to incorporate the presented reader’s workshop in their teaching practice and support their students' learning and growth."
Establishing research collaboration for better understanding of Chinese Immersion
- Presenters: Chan Lu, Amy Pace, Sue Park
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "In this panel, we will share with the participants a recent study analyzing longitudinal data of student achievement on state-mandated tests from a Mandarin immersion school. Using both repeated measures ANOVA and Growth Curve Modeling, our results demonstrated that our focal program not only helped students as a group progress significantly from year to year, it also enabled students of different race and family language backgrounds to make academic progress equally well.
Additionally, the panelists will share effective school- and class-level practices and strategies that Mandarin immersion schools and programs can consider to help students from diverse backgrounds.
Furthermore, the panelists will discuss 1) the need for more research-based findings within Mandarin immersion education in general, and 2) how administrators of Mandarin immersion programs can collaborate with the research community to produce research findings that are generalizable and applicable to Mandarin-immersion settings."
The Role of "Chinese Corner" in Promoting Students' Autonomous Learning
- Presenters: Yu Liu, Hsiang-Hua Chang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "This session will share the experiences of organizing a group of learners to participate in the Chinese Corner series events in an American university. The discussion will highlight that the Chinese Corner series events have become a stable social community where the participants can find supportive peers and self-assertion opportunities. The learners’ participation in Chinese Corner has been enhancing their autonomous learning motivation and fostering subtle changes in their self-identities.
1) We will share our examples, such as weekly events with strategically designed cultural presentations and conversation questions and events such as poetry reading, language contests, Chinese New Year, and other traditional holidays.
2) We will share our strategies of time management and how program coordinators may effectively guide and involve other student organizations such as language clubs, language honor societies, etc.
3) The session will invite participants to discuss how such out-of-class learning activities can be integrated into Chinese pedagogic practices."
Getting to State Certification and Beyond
- Presenters: Betty Lau, Margaret Chow, Marie Meyer
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: This session focuses on barriers faced by native speakers of Chinese seeking state teacher certification and then strategies to overcome them. What should Chinese language teachers look for in a certification program? What strategies do teacher preparation programs need to implement to support diverse teacher candidates? Topics: benefits of state certification, areas of concern identified in studies: barriers, recruitment and retention in state teacher preparation programs, supports needed by non-native speakers of English to successfully complete state certification and the on-going needs of newly certified and experienced Chinese language teachers. Issues identified in studies: lack of culturally appropriate professional development, remote teaching, classroom management, cross cultural communication, textbook dependency.
Sunday, April 24
12:00 PM - 12:45 PM ET
Move Into the Future with Chi Immersion Preschool Education
- Presenters: Shuhan Wang, Joy Peyton, Ting Shen
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: This session grows out of three recent publications that describe current trends and new initiatives in the field of Chinese preschool immersion, research on the role and importance of Chinese immersion preschool education, and two national surveys of these programs and the educators who work in them. Presenters will also make recommendations for ways that we as a field can move forward together in continuing to build Chinese preschool immersion programs and teacher supply and support systems across the country. They will invite participants to share their information and resources and suggest ways with which the field can move into the future.
Problem-based Learning for the Development of Global Perspectives
- Presenters: Julie Lee, Helen Yung, Min-Min Liang
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: Through the use of problem-based learning, exploration of UN Sustainable Goals, and the development of global competencies, the presenters representing the K-16 pathway, will showcase how to increase student engagement through student voice and choice and the reinforcement of the 5Cs. They will also model Comprehensible Input strategies to engage learners to solve real-world issues locally and globally. Participants will use role-play and task-based problem solving to address global issues and culturally responsive challenges. They will then use sentence stems, collaborate to investigate, recognize diverse perspectives, communicate, and take action to find solutions, and to self-assess based on the use of Asia Society’s Global Competency rubrics.
A Tool to Differentiate and Scaffold Student Output
- Presenters: Matt Coss
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: A major challenge language teachers face is different rates of proficiency development within the same class/level. This session will present sentence builders, a low-prep high-impact tool to empower teachers at all levels to differentiate and scaffold learner production in both oral and written modalities. Based on a line of second language acquisition research arguing that vocabulary and grammar are in fact inseparable and need not be taught separately, sentence builders support all students to move from input to output. Focusing on an approach using sentence builders, this session will not only provide attendees with a new tool, but also a new way of looking at their approach to teaching vocabulary and grammar for communicative purposes. Attendees will identify topics and language functions of interest to their learners and prepare resources for their own instructional contexts.
Playing, Talking, Co-constructing: Exemplary Teaching in Chinese preschool classrooms
- Presenters: Chu Hsi Tseng, Ying Liang, Allen Zhong
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "An increase in the young Chinese learner population has led to a critical need for early childhood educators to understand what the best practice is to teach Chinese in Early Year immersion classrooms. It is important for teachers to hold asset-oriented beliefs about Chinese immersion education and best Early Childhood practice, viewing young Chinese learners as capable learners and understanding they learn language through social interaction, meaningful, multisensory experiences in a literacy-rich environment. With these beliefs as a foundation, teachers enact a wide repertoire of practices tailored for children, including: teaching to enhance each child’s development and learning; emphasizing guided play, co-constructed project approach curriculum, and ongoing observational assessment; and scaffolding and modeling the Chinese language.
In this session, presenters from three Chinese Immersion schools, Chinese American International School, Silicon Valley International school and Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School, will provide concrete teaching examples of how they engage their students in learning Chinese through integrated units of study, guided-play and literacy-rich activities and classroom design."
Scaffolding Effective Instructional Sequence to Help Students Reduce Fossilized Mistakes
- Presenters: Shin Chi Fame Kao, Nancy West
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: In many Chinese dual language immersion classrooms, it is often found that while engaging in semantic rather than the syntactic learning process, students may miss the nuances of grammatical features in the language that might not affect their comprehension and meaning crossing but would affect the enhancement of language proficiency and accuracy. If teachers have not required syntactic and morphological accuracy in students’ speaking and writing, gradually, some fossilized mistakes would be developed and hard to be corrected. This presentation will discuss how to scaffold an effective instructional sequence based on the CAPA Model (contextualization, awareness, practice, and autonomy) to integrate a focus on teaching language in a contextualized way that can create opportunities for students to learn the language in the context of content-based tasks and, meanwhile, paying attention to its mechanical workings and correct their fossilized mistakes. Examples of instructional strategies and student outcomes will also be presented.
Bridging AP and College-Level Learning: An Intermediate Film-as-content Language Course
- Presenters: Zhiyin Dong
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Target language movies provide a fertile ground to explore the AP language and cultural themes. However, most film-as-content courses are offered at advanced proficiency levels. To render Chinese films more accessible for less advanced learners and to enhance continuity between local Chinese high school (AP) and college programs, the presenter designed an Intermediate-Low/Mid Chinese language course exploring social inequality and family dynamics through contemporary films. The session presents the course design and material development, mainly how to use the ACTFL curriculum template (Clementi & Terrill, 2017) to set proficiency targets and content outcomes, plan assessments and units, and choose/sequence films for maximal learner comprehension and engagement. Additionally, the presentation shares how to develop transitional materials to help learners interact with authentic languages featured in films.
Building Support for Teachers Through Strategic Coaching
- Presenters: Peng Peng, Saisai Yang, Ruoxi Jin
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Chinese immersion is a growing and expanding field, therefore the need for Chinese teachers is greater than ever, yet finding quality teachers has always been a challenge. Teachers who receive systemic coaching and instructional support are critical to the quality of any program. What can the school do to support teachers so that they have chances to grow?
The presenters from Washington Yu Ying PCS and Yu Ming Charter School will share effective approaches to support teachers through coaching programs. In this session, presenters will discuss how to build teacher proficiency and share their first-hand experience in the following areas: 1) effective coaching techniques for curriculum, instruction, and assessment; 2) resources and strategies for building a support system such as PLC. The purpose of this session is to not only promote teaching proficiency of teachers but also to build a strong professional community that grows future school leaders.
Sunday, April 24
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM ET
Advancing DEI through social studies, across English and Chinese curricula
- Presenters: Lucy Sui, Kelly Wallace
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: How can we create a safe and inclusive environment to welcome everyone and make each student feel a sense of belonging? English and Chinese co-teachers from a Chinese immersion school will share their experience in how they guide students to be respectful of the differences and celebrate differences among groups of people. This is a unique opportunity to hear about how cross-language co-teachers design a unit that closely connects multiple disciplines such as language studies (in Chinese) and social studies. The presenters will demonstrate the procedure and process of creating an integrated unit about indigenous people which will help students to build their understanding of treating people equally and fairly. The presenters will demonstrate how students reflect their learning in their projects which also represent their personal opinions and voices and prompt students to take action when facing injustice.
Authenticity and Real Life Readiness in Language Learning
- Presenters: Wen Xiong, Jinai Sun,Yunjuan He
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Research shows that the ability to interpret and discuss authentic content-rich topics is a defining characteristic of language proficiency and readiness to apply language in real life (Curtain & Pesola 1994; Genesee 1994). This session will demonstrate three content-based courses as case studies: 1. Implementing the authentic task to develop students' interests in Astronomy and applying the knowledge into real-life projects in target language 2. Using Chinese classical literature "Journey to the West" in a Mandarin Chinese language to impact students' intercultural communicative skills and their engagement in studying the language 3. Designing the learning materials and the performance tasks based on the authenticity under the STEAM theme of "Food and Wellness". The presentation will demonstrate how each course uses a backward design to provide authentic interpretive materials and design the real-life tasks & projects to engage learning language and content understanding.
Promoting student talk in Chinese immersion preschool classrooms
- Presenters: Robin Harvey, Kevin Wong, Isabel Zhang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "Three- and four-year-olds enter classrooms with varying degrees of exposure to languages (Gort & Sembiante, 2015). To promote bilingual language development among Chinese immersion preschoolers, teachers must engage children in extended discourse through story-reading, discussing personal experiences, and other oral language practices.
How do teachers engage young children in extended discourse? Preschoolers have a lot to share, but don’t always have the target language skills to do so. How can teachers encourage students to use all of their linguistic resources even as they move towards more use of the target language, Chinese? Teachers must make in-the-moment decisions to encourage, reinforce or redirect children’s language practices.
This presentation will share the findings of an exploratory study that examined immersion preschool teachers’ instructional decisions which extend student talk and promote learning of the Chinese language. Participants will leave with a toolkit for decision-making to promote student talk and oral language development."
从理解诠释到表达演示
- Presenters: Hwai Lin
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: "What types of authentic materials do we use in our class? How do we maximize the use of authentic materials to motivate our learners as well as increase their proficiency? What is our learners’ takeaway with the piece of authentic material provided in class?
While reflecting on these questions, this session will introduce three effective class activities to empower our learners to purposefully interact with a variety of authentic materials such as modern poems, play scripts and pop songs. Participants will walk away with concrete strategies to use authentic materials and walk our learners through the interpretive and presentational modes in a more meaningful and engaging way."
Teacher Training: Relationship -Building American Style
- Presenters: Stacy Lyon, Jiajie Wu, Liping Zheng
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: At the heart of Chinese culture is the concept of "guanxi" (gwan-shee), or 'relationships' as the means for successfully accomplishing objectives. As international teachers integrate into American classrooms and school systems, the new set of norms and values they encounter can be bewildering, particularly when it comes to applying them to the interpersonal demands of classroom management, teaming, and parent communication. This session will share a training approach used in a large-scale Chinese DLI program, that focuses on helping teachers build awareness and develop 'American-Style' relationship-building skills as the foundation for inside and outside classroom success. Participants will learn to identify culture-specific relationship behaviors, and be given access to the materials and tools presented for implementing this approach, or developing one of their own.
Engaging the Heritage Learners through Project-based Language Learning
- Presenter: Hong Jiang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Participants will learn how to design and implement a Project-based Language Learning project, and how to assess student learning and mastery. The presenter will also share the outcomes of two projects completed by a group of Chinese heritage learners at the proficiency levels of Intermediate High to Advanced Low. Based on the principles of the Project-based Language Learning approach, these two different projects were one-month and two-month long respectively. The success of the projects demonstrate how the PBLL approach can engage language learners with real-world issues, meaningful target language use, and authentic materials. When reflecting on one of the projects, a student said that it helped him reconnect with his relatives in China and that he intended to continue conversations with them. Another student said that she really enjoyed the project which was "one of the most intense projects he had ever done." Assessment methods will also be discussed. The presenter will also share ideas for things to avoid in the process of the PBLL project implementation.
Technology Integration and PBL in Middle School Chinese Programs
- Presenters: Wenting Wang, Kafka Xu, April Zhang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Mandarin language immersion programs are becoming more and more popular at the elementary level in the US. However, there are much fewer l Mandarin Language programs in the middle school level across the country. On top of that, it is rare to see that a Mandarin immersion middle school program which also integrates the PBL teaching approach. In this session, participants will examine the effectiveness of teaching Mandarin language in the context of a project based learning approach which simultaneously teaches students various self-directed learning skills and cognitive learning skills. Also, participants will be engaged in the experience of designing project-based Mandarin language units crafted by administrators and experienced teachers from the K-8 mandarin immersion school in California with diverse student demographics. Lastly, participants will learn how to utilize different technology platforms and technology tools that support student engagement and personalized learning. In this process, participants will obtain information on how to develop vertically aligned learning units, and how to balance the open-ended projects with specific language objectives.
Sunday, April 24
2:00 PM - 2:45 PM ET
Scaffolding-Confident and Capable Writers
- Presenters: Anita Ying, Jennifer Wu, Dandan Liu
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "Teaching writing effectively is a significant and challenging aspect of Chinese immersion education. As such, how can we implement scaffolding to help students improve their writing competence and advance their language learning?
In this session, teachers from two elementary school immersion programs with different teaching models will demonstrate how to plan structured and standards-aligned writing lessons with backwards design to help beginning and intermediate learners conduct writing practice effectively. Participants will view demo videos and student sample work to better understand how teachers facilitate meaningful and engaging writing experiences for students through various activities such as, think-pair-share, theme based songs, speaking games, mini-lessons, etc.
Participants will walk away with further understanding of standards-based lesson design, fun and engaging writing activities, worksheet templates, lesson schedules, etc. Through collaboration and discussion, we hope to foster greater connections between fellow educators as we work to develop creative and innovative Chinese teaching practices."
Evidence-Based Solutions for Learning Loss in DLI Literacy
- Presenters: Wenjing (Grace) Xie, Hong Zhou, Yi Liang
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: Have your students suffered from learning loss since COVID-19? This panel will use data to talk about how Tarwater Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program proactively addresses student needs through a personalized MTSS system. Teachers will talk about how they apply an effective core reading curriculum, as well as differentiated support for struggling readers in their MTSS practice. They will share their best practices to provide evidence based solutions to ensure student success.
Develop Chinese Proficiency through Teaching Science at K-5 Level
- Presenters: Ying (Fiona) Du, Liya Yuan
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: This presentation will provide the strategies and examples of developing Chinese proficiency in Three Communication Modes in a Grade 4 and Grade 2 Science classroom. Participants will observe day-by-day activities in weekly Science lesson plans that organize content knowledge and skills around the target language standards in order to develop students’ Chinese literacy and communication skills, and meet the science standards of the units at the same time. The activities will start with the learning intention/I Can Statements in both disciplines and incorporate a variety of language immersion instructional strategies, adaptation of digital resources, literacy development strategies and oral communication activities. Whether you are a Chinese immersion teacher or Chinese language teacher, you will find these strategies useful in your classrooms to promote your students’ Chinese literacy and communicative proficiency.
How Student-Directed Deep Learning Looks Like in Chinese Classrooms
- Presenter: Ya-Ching Chang, Jingyu Li, Annie Chen
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Have you wondered how Deep Learning actually looks like in the Chinese learning settings? The presenters will discuss how they foster and cultivate Deep Learning to advance their students’ Chinese proficiency. The first half of the presentation will show how to use question formulation technique (QFT) to help students ask and improve their own questions through the forms of divergent, convergent, and metacognitive thinking. The second half of the presentation will focus on a collaborative inquiry project which allows students to discover their passion on a particular topic. The presenters will further discuss how they design a learning environment that leads to deep learning. Participants will leave the presentation with a comprehensive understanding of the student-directed and inquiry-based approach, and obtain concrete examples of question formulation techniques and the process of increasing students' independence and deep learning competence to reflect, discuss and take actions on global issues.
A "From Scratch" Approach to Accessing and Building Community
- Presenters: Joshua Matlock, Bernadine Nabers
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "This session shares the fresh perspective of our middle school's new Mandarin program and the challenges to develop connections between students, school, and the Chinese language community in our city and across the nation and world. Our approach to planning and implementing community engagement relies on John Dewey's conceptualization of reflective thinking to practice thinking anew about our experience and what action that experience demands.
A confluence of research, professional organization directives, and anecdotal experiences identifies community involvement as a critical support for student engagement, retention, and linguistic success. In response to this, participants will assess their own programs' existing connections to the community, identify opportunities and resources to access and grow the community, and craft a plan of action. Participants will be equipped to formulate and implement a Community plan that is unique to their institution's needs and student interests."
Comprehensible Teaching Strategies in Immersion Math Class
- Presenter: Yaqi Ji, Yangyang Shen
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Language immersion programs and studies have shown positive results between dual-language immersion and students' achievement in both core subjects like math and language literacy skills. For immersion program math teachers, breaking the language barriers and enhancing cognitive skills simultaneously is challenging. This session will explain how 1st to 5th Chinese immersion program teachers leverage language teaching approaches in Chinese math classrooms. These strategies allow the teachers to go beyond concept explanations and blend meaningful language input, culturally responsive content, and effective classroom communication.
Revamp Chinese Curriculum to Engage and Power AAPI Students
- Presenter: Haiyun Lu
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "The rise in hate crimes against people of Asian and Pacific Island heritage in the United States since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the brutal mascara in Atlanta on March 16, 2020, has shaken and scarred the Asian American communities to their core. These incidents can also serve as a catalyst to one’s awakening for advocacy, activism, and the fight for a truly equitable world. Since schools and children are not immune from prejudice and racism, it is urgent to adopt a Chinese curriculum to include Asian American history, literature, and prominent Asian figures to educate and empower.
In this session, the presenter will share how her cultural identity has been transformed throughout the pandemic, what kind of actions and changes she has made at her workplace and in her curriculum. Participants will walk away with many ready-to-implement strategies to employ in their work setting. "
Sunday, April 24
3:00 PM - 3:45 PM ET
Making Writing Engaging, Assessment and Standards-Based within an Immersion Curriculum
- Presenters: Wei Song, Cindy Chiang, Hsiao-Chi Su
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Chinese immersion education has expanded tremendously across the nation for more than a decade. While school administrators have greatly focused on advancing students’ all aspects of Chinese language skills, writing instruction remains a critical area that requires our attention. It is commonly addressed that students find writing challenging and have always encountered writer's block. Teachers from different grades will discuss the following in this presentation: 1) how do we engage students in the writing process that is embedded in an integrated unit, 2) how do we establish and target writing standards in each grade level, 3) how do we design classroom practice for students to master the learning outcomes, and finally 4) how do we use assessment to guide our instruction. Participants will also leave this presentation with a fuller understanding of how our school-wise writing curriculum is designed.
The Secret to Effectively Observing in Chinese Classrooms
- Presenters: Jiajie Wang, Stacy Lyon, Liping Zheng
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Going beyond simply tuning into classroom management as a measure of teacher evaluation can often be a struggle for administrators who must observe instruction in Chinese language classrooms. However, becoming familiar with the research-based strategy of OTRs as applied in second language classrooms, can be a huge boon to successfully identifying high quality, student-centered instruction. This interactive session introduces and provides practice and analysis with a powerful observation tool that assists administrators in identifying the quantity and quality of student engagement and language production connected with effective instruction. No Chinese language skills are needed!
Promote Chinese Culture with Outreach Programme in London
- Presenters: Jing Wang, Yang Xiang
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "As the first Chinese immersion school in the UK, Kensington Wade is offering a three tiered Chinese cultural outreach programme for all the state primary schools in our local borough. In this workshop, you will find out about what entails in the three tiered programme and how it makes an impact on promoting diversity and cultural appreciation as well as strengthen the cultural understanding and appreciation within our own school.
Our three-tiered programme includes:
1. Six free online webinars introducing aspects of Chinese cultures with follow up activities made by our Chinese staff.
2. Free Chinese cultural workshops delivered in school by Chinese artists
3. Free bilingual summer camp on our school site"
Case Study in Early Childhood Mandarin Immersion
- Presenters: Gail Foster, Panpan Cui
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "We present data from 6 years of assessment videos from the Toddler Language Project at Morningside PlayCare. Videos document language development of three children with no other Mandarin exposure, who began Mandarin immersion in nursery school as toddlers and continued up through ages 4, 5, 6, and 7, inclusive of online teaching prompted by the pandemic. Video data is quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed along with other teacher documentation. Language acquisition is considered from the perspectives of educational practice and theoretical linguistics.
We briefly review the literature, then observe development in the areas of comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and sociolinguistic appropriateness, as evidenced in the videos. Considered and analyzed are a range of factors possibly influencing language growth, including the length and frequency of Mandarin immersion at school, and the impact of a change from in-person to online teaching. We also brainstorm methods for improving Mandarin proficiency and assessments."
A Pilot U.S.-China High School Exchange Program through Virtual Platform
- Presenters: Xiaoyan Wang, Na Cheng
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: Would you like to launch a language and culture exchange program? Join this session to learn about a 10-day pilot virtual exchange program, in which American high school students have had opportunities to expand their language and culture learning through interactions with instructors and peers from Xi’an, China! Participants will gain access to detailed information including, but not limited, to the program framework, learning objectives, planning stages, timelines, curriculum highlights, learning outcomes, and reflections from both students and instructors at the end of the program. Presenters from both the U.S. and China will interact with the attendees and share their insights from working throughout the program.
Constructing Successful Heritage Students’ Learning Experiences: Program Model, Curriculum, Community 如何丰富华裔学生的学习体验：成功的项目模式、课程设计与社区服务
- Presenters: Hsiang-ning Sunnie Wang, Pei-Chia Chen, Yan Liu
- Presentation language: Chinese
Session Description: This panel will demonstrate how to construct and enrich heritage students’ learning experiences from the macro-, micro- and meso-levels. The first presentation will analyze how a solid heritage stream across beginner, intermediate and advanced levels is successfully orientated, designed, and developed, and further benefits the overall growth of a Chinese language program. The second presentation will focus on strategies and approaches used to tailor the curriculum to a group of heritage students with mixed backgrounds and to align learning objectives with students’ strengths and challenges. The third speaker will discuss why community engagement is important for heritage students and how to connect them with various communities through different community-based service-learning projects.
Integrated STEAM curriculum in Chinese classroom
- Presenters: Chu Hsi Tseng, Pei Hsiang Liu
- Presentation language: English
Session Description: "Young children enjoy solving problems and exploring the world through science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In the Early Childhood Chinese Immersion program, a STEM-rich environment and curriculum design not only supports children’s development of math and science skills, but also enhances their Chinese proficiency. When teachers integrate STEM into their daily teaching, it provides an even richer context for young children to talk and think about scientific phenomena such as the rain and rainbow, solve engineering problems and use technology to make life convenient.
In this session, presenters from three San Francisco bay area Chinese schools will discuss how they design a STEM-rich classroom environment and implement STEM to engage their students through projects, hands-on activities and investigations."
