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William R. Kenan Professor of East Asian Languages and Literature Hong Gang Jin was an invited key speaker on March 16 at the 2nd Annual Chinese Pedagogical Workshop. The event was sponsored by the Department of Asian Studies of Penn State University.

Several Hamilton faculty members contributed to a new book, Pathways to Excellence in Teaching, edited by Ernest H. Williams, the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Biology, and published by The Couper Press.

William R. Kenan Professor of Chinese Hong Gang Jin was a presenter at the annual conference of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the Chinese Language Teachers Association (ACTFL/CLTA).

Hamilton College received the largest award among 23 Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad international education grants announced by the U.S. Department of Education. Hamilton was awarded $671,975 in federal funds to support the project “The ACC Intensive Language Training Program for Students and Language Professionals.” It will be managed by Hong Gang Jin, the William R. Kenan Professor of Chinese, and Associated Colleges in China (ACC) general director.

The Associated Colleges in China (ACC) Startalk teachers program is the only one of its kind to offer instruction solely for non-native-speaking Chinese teachers. The Startalk program was started at Hamilton three years ago by William R. Kenan Professor of East Asian Languages & Literature Hong Gang Jin with the help of a U.S. Department of State Startalk grant.

William R. Kenan Professor of East Asian Languages and Literature Hong Gang Jin was invited to present a paper, “Cognition and Chinese Language Acquisition,” at the International Symposium on Chinese Linguistics and Language Teaching at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The May symposium was co-sponsored by University of Hawaii at Manoa and Peking University.

For the third year, Hamilton College is the recipient of STARTALK funding to operate two programs for Chinese language this summer—a Chinese teacher development program and a week-long intensive learning Chinese immersion course for students in grades 8 and 9.  This year’s grant of $125,000 will fund the ACC-STARTALK Teacher Program for non-native K-12 Chinese Teachers and ACC-STARTALK Youth Camp for Utica BOCES students on the Hamilton campus July 1 through 14.  

Hamilton faculty participated in the 2012 STARTALK Winter Workshop hosted by the Associated Colleges in China at Hamilton on Jan. 6 and 7.  Hamilton participants included Hong Gang Jin, Ming De Xu, Lian Xue, Ying Gao, and Xiaoming Hou. The workshop was held in preparation for the 2012 STARTALK Program which will be held at Hamilton for two weeks in the summer of 2012.

William R. Kenan Professor of East Asian Languages and Literature Hong Gang Jin and Lian Xue, teaching fellow in Chinese, presented a paper at the annual American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages/Chinese Language Teachers Association (ACTFL/CLTA) conference on Nov. 18 in Denver.

Learning a second language is undoubtedly a challenging undertaking, and the pedagogical methods involved in teaching a second language can make the process easier or more difficult for students.  Linda Yu ’12 will spend this summer with Professor Hong Gang Jin, the William R. Kenan Professor of East Asian Languages, testing different pedagogical methods for teaching Chinese. Their project, “Attention to What? An Investigation on the Linkage Between Attention and Input,” is funded by an Emerson Summer Grant.