On Saturday 14th October 2023 the 20th IOE CI Annual Chinese Teaching Conference took place at the IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society.
We would like to thank all delegates for attending this year’s conference themed “Developing Through Sharing” – a key ethos throughout the 20 years of our conference series. It was a wonderful day and a great opportunity to see so many of the Mandarin teaching community in person sharing ideas, knowledge and best practice.
The conference was attended by over 300 people, including delegates, speakers, student performers and workshop presenters. There were 15 workshops for delegates to choose from, 3 student performances and 3 plenary sessions featuring academics and Chinese education experts from around the world.
The conference opened with the wonderful student performance ‘找碴’ by Miroslava Lindsay who studies at Bohunt School Liphook.
The opening plenary featured speeches by Professor Li Wei, Director and Dean of the IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, Minister-Counsellor Zhang Jin, Education Section, Chinese Embassy and Katharine Carruthers OBE, Director IOE Confucius Institute for Schools. The Rt Hon Nick Gibb MP, Minister of State at the Department for Education and Professor Zhao Yang, Dean of the School of Chinese as a Second Language, Peking University sent video messages reflecting on the theme and acknowledging the impressive effort of all teachers over the past year.
After the speeches, another amazing student performance followed, ‘追梦中文’ by Thomas Sharma from Queen Mary’s Grammar School, Walsall.
Returning from very inspiring workshops and lunch, delegates had the chance to enjoy the student performance ‘中文辩论赛’ by Honour Odusanwo, Mia Rosolin, Tallulah Barker, Poppy Ernst and Nicoleta Rotari from the Hurlingham Academy, Lambeth.
The afternoon plenary was introduced by Sue Williamson who spoke about “20 Years on – the Long View”. Sue is the Chief Executive at SSAT (The Schools Network) who at the time of the inception of SSAT CI (before it moved to IOE) was a Specialist Schools and Academies Schools Director. Katharine Carruthers then led a discussion with the former SSAT coordinators who were also involved at the very start; Lisa Wang, Michelle Tate, Linying Liu and Xiaoming Zhu.
Delegates then had one more the opportunity to choose and attend two further workshops from a wide range of topics.
The IOE CI 2023 Excellence Awards Presentation followed up recognising and celebrating colleagues for their efforts and talent. Congratulations to all the Excellence Award winners: Hannah Latimer, Taylor Zhang, Rebecca Jiayu Lin, Alex Ferraby and Shan Li.
The programme for the day closed with the plenary “International Chinese Language Education – Towards a New Understanding” by Professor George Zhang, Richmond American University. During the plenary, George discussed two different understandings of international Chinese education and how it compares to Chinese Learning and Teaching in the UK.
After a very productive day, delegates moved on to a drinks reception for the final opportunity to catch up with colleagues and the IOE team to celebrate and reflect on a great day.
We look forward to seeing you at next year’s conference!
