Celebrating 10 years of Confucius Institute

The lion dance opened the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the global Confucius Institutes at the University of Maryland at the Hornbake plaza at the University of Maryland, September 16, 2014. Liu Chang / China Daily

Achieved vigorous growth. By the end of September, 2014, 465 Confucius Institutes and 713 Confucius Classrooms have been established in 123 countries and regions, three million students have been enrolled and more than one million people have taken HSK test. Confucius Institutes have strongly boosted the growing “Chinese language fervor” in the world as more than 100 million people are learning Chinese worldwide.

Built up a fairly high-quality teaching team. Confucius Institutes attach great importance to building a high-caliber contingent of teachers. For this end, the Confucius Institute Headquarters has formulated a series of systems and regulations, including Confucius Institute Headquarters Regulations for the Administration of Sponsored Chinese Teachers, Method for the Annual Evaluation of Sponsored Chinese Teachers of Confucius Institute Headquarters/HANBAN, The Provisional Measure on the Dedicated Chinese Teachers of Confucius Institute and Standards for Teachers of Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages. In 2014, in all Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms there were 29,000 full-and part-time teachers, native or non-native Chinese (among which 70 percent were local teachers), effectively meeting the local demand of Chinese language learning.

Accomplished a relatively complete system of teaching and learning resources. The headquarters have commissioned the compilation of a batch of multimedia Chinese language textbooks and cultural reading materials. For example, Everyday Chinese radio program textbook, My Chinese Picture Dictionary, Great Wall Chinese in 38 languages , revised and translated Chinese Paradise, Kuaile Hanyu, Learn Chinese With Me, Contemporary Chinese and New Practical Chinese Reader in 45 languages, developed resources like Five Thousand Years of Chinese Characters, New Concept Chinese, A Good Man in China, Confucius Cartoon Stories and completed translation of Common Knowledge about Chinese History, Common Knowledge about Chinese Geography, Common Knowledge about Chinese Culture into 30 languages and Roads to the World series into 10 languages. The headquarters also have developed the Guidelines for CLT Materials Development to assisting Confucius Institutes in different countries to work out their local teaching materials. Thanks to the above-mentioned efforts, 332 teaching materials of various kinds have been developed in 119 Confucius Institutes by the end of 2012, catering for students of different ages.

Provides rich and lively teaching content and flexible teaching approaches. Confucius Institutes are limited to not only education institutions, from primary schools to universities, but also to communities and enterprises. Apart from different kind of language instruction, Confucius Institutes also offer Chinese cultural courses like Peking Opera, Kongfu, Traditional Chinese Medicine, calligraphy, tea ceremony, Chinese songs and dances, Chinese cuisine, etc., effectively meeting the multi-layer and diverse demand of students. Confucius Institutes have formed their distinctive teaching approaches. Besides, Confucius Institute Online provides quality teaching resources to the world, established the virtual Learning Center in different languages and staged diverse thematic activities. Radio- and TV-based Confucius Institutes have gained great popularity by providing learners with audio-visual learning resources.

After 10 years of endeavor, Confucius Institute has significantly transformed itself from purely doing Chinese language instruction to promoting Chinese language in all-around way, from only inviting students to learn Chinese in China to both inviting-in and going global, from specialized language instruction to popular, universal and practical language promotion, from relying on a small number of universities to mobilizing resources home and abroad, from mainly government-led to both government-facilitating and market-based participation, and from paper-based textbooks and face-to-face teaching to multimedia and internet-based teaching.