Professor of Chinese Hong Gang Jin attended two events in Washington, D.C., related to language development in February. She participated in a STARTALK meeting at the National Foreign Languages Center to work with a group of national leaders in the Arabic and Chinese language fields to put together a resource guide for the Arabic and Chinese programs as well as for building the infrastructure of these two language fields.
STARTALK is one of the projects of the National Security Language Initiative, a multi-agency effort to expand foreign language education by funding new and existing programs throughout students learning careers, kindergarten through university; and to provide incentives and rewards for foreign language learning and use in the work force. STARTALK is the ODNI project, supporting summer programs of intensive language study for high school students and for teachers.
The purpose of the meeting was to develop the online resource guide and templates to be used or adapted by teacher and student programs funded under STARTALK. Jin presented the research findings and best practices in the Chinese language field in recent years and made recommendations for different programs.
She was also invited by the U.S. Department of Education's International Education Programs Service (IEPS) for a conference on key issues related to language teaching, acquisition, and assessment. She presented at a panel that focused on Effectiveness of Classroom-based Language Programs. Jin's presentation was "Integrating Task-based Instruction into Foreign Language Curriculum: A Working Model for Syllabus Design and Teacher Development." She discussed a task-based teaching curricular model based on her research and 10-year program design experience to highlight the principles and procedures in designing a coherent program curriculum. The discussion focused on experiential-based curricular format, input-rich syllabus/task design and sequencing, and form-focused instructional techniques.
