Professor of Chinese Hong Gang Jin has been elected president of the Chinese Language Teachers' Association (CLTA). She will assume the presidency in November. Jin served for two years on the organization's board of directors and was elected as vice president of CLTA and chair of the CLTA annual conference in 2003. CLTA is an internationally recognized organization for Chinese language and culture professionals. It has more than 500 members from the U.S. and other parts of the world at higher education and pre-college education levels. The CLTA conference she is chairing and organizing will take place Nov. 19-22 in Chicago. More than 100 papers were selected for the conference, and a series of workshops on topics of language acquisition, literature, culture, and curriculum will be discussed.
Jin also organized a conference on CFL (Chinese as a Foreign Language)Teacher Development: Goals, Criteria, Implementation, and Assessment in the U.S. and China on June 4, in conjunction with the Education Ministry and the National Center of Chinese Language and Culture Education (NCCLC). The conference was attended by many well known scholars from 11 universities and colleges in the States, such as Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, University of Indiana, Northwestern University, and seven study abroad programs in Beijing, and scholars and professors from 12 major universities in China. This is the first joint conference on CFL professional development held in China. At the meeting, the deputy of Education Ministry and director of NCCLC was present and delivered the welcoming remarks to the participants.
