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A New Direction Leading 21^st Century Chinese Language Education:

Creating Global Professionals

Wayne He, Erin Papa, Yi-Chen Chiang, Wen Xiong , Hong Qian

URI Chinese Flagship Program

With the rapid development of Chinese language education in the U.S., more and more people in our field are considering the question of next steps. The practice and endeavor at the University of Rhode Island provides a good answer to this question: to train global professionals. The term “global professional” refers to a graduate of higher education, who has developed professional-level language and cross-cultural communication skills through advanced language training in their major field of study. The training of global professionals represents a new trend in Chinese language education, aiming at the needs of the global economy and future job market.

In his presentation, Wayne He will talk about the Chinese language education system that URI is building. He will introduce different Chinese language programs that play important and unique roles in this system, such as the Chinese Language Flagship Program, the Chinese International Engineering Program (IEP), the Chinese International Business Program(IBP), the Chinese language teacher certificate program, the Chinese Summer School, and the Confucius Institute. He will discuss how these programs will collectively affect the future development of university- and secondary school-level Chinese teaching, and introduce ways to develop relationships between college Chinese programs and K-12 schools.

Erin Papa will introduce the renowned Chinese IEP and IBP, placing a special emphasis on the Chinese Flagship Program. The Flagship program, funded by the U.S. government, is an innovative partnership between the federal government, education, and business. Students accepted into the Flagship program may receive scholarships to study Chinese for up to two summers and for the entire Capstone Year in China, during which students take courses in their major alongside Chinese college students and complete a professional internship in a Chinese business or NGO. This program best suits high school graduates, who are highly motivated to learn Chinese and wish to graduate with professional skills and Superior level Chinese proficiency.

Yi-Chen Chiang will demonstrate how Flagship students are trained, including the additional support that the students receive from the Flagship program, as well as the major differences between the Flagship students and non-Flagship students in terms of teaching and learning. She will also talk about a new listening class that she has developed using internet resources in her teaching.

Wen Xiong and Hong Qian will give an overview of the Chinese Flagship Program curriculum, the goal of which is very clear: ACTFL Superior level. This is equivalent to the level of a well-educated native speaker, which is very difficult to achieve. In order to achieve this goal, the URI Flagship program has designed a comprehensive curriculum, including classroom instruction, one-on-one tutoring, pronunciation and reading workshops, a winter immersion program, a summer school, and study abroad.

This new direction toward creating global professionals will lead 21^st century Chinese language education.