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RE: 4 th Annual ACAMIS Chinese Language Teachers Summer Conference
We are very proud to share some of our successes from this conference. This year has been the biggest and best so far… with over 200 participants and the largest number of presentations as well.
Teachers and presenters came from as far and wide as Canada, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and of course all around mainland China. We’ve had presentations and workshops on all kinds of topics relating to the teaching of Chinese language and culture; publishers have been displaying and selling resources and teachers have been grabbing every opportunity to network and make new friends. This opportunity to chat and compare our stories with others helps to remind us of the small part that we play in the ‘big picture’ of Chinese teaching and learning in the world today. The feedback and evaluations from workshops are very positive, with the only complaint being that participants want more time and longer workshops in order to be able to delve deeper into techniques, questions and issues! If that is the only complaint, then obviously this conference has been a great success.
We are also aware that many of us are at the cutting edge of our profession and are ideally situated in China or Asia. We acknowledge continued support of ACAMIS Schools and hope you will continue to be supportive and understanding of the uniqueness of Chinese language teaching and learning so that we may continue to develop professionally and our students can benefit directly from all we learn.
Shanghai American School has provided us with their wonderful facilities for a fourth year. As always, Dr Susan Zhang, and the Chinese language teachers and support staff at SAS have organized everything extremely well. The level of professionalism is very high and SAS has certainly set a standard for all future host schools to follow. Next year they are going to pass the torch to Western Academy Beijing and we are all looking forward to not only to new hosts, but a new location as well. At this stage, the American International of Guangzhou has volunteered to host in the summer of 2008. Of course the Steering Committee, which still includes two of the three founding members, Susan Zhang and Sally Lean, will continue to work throughout the year behind the scenes with planning meetings, organizing events, inviting guest speakers and presenters etc.
Finally, a huge vote of thanks to the following people:
- Dr Susan Zhang & the Chinese language faculty at SAS;
- The ACAMIS Chinese Language Teachers Summer Conference Steering Committee (and the extra support of the Heads of our Schools);
- a big thank you to Shelly Xue ( Suzhou Singapore International School) who will be stepping down from the Steering Committee this year;
- Dr Dennis Larkin, Superintendent at SAS, for agreeing to host again this year;
- The support staff at SAS; and
- Michael Williams (SCIS), President of ACAMIS, and the Board for their continuing support.
And of course – the speakers and presenters for this year as well as all the participants – without whose support and enthusiasm, none of this would be possible.
Sincerely,
The 2006 Steering Committee:
- Dr Susan Zhang, Shanghai American School, Susan.Zhang@saschina.org
- Xu Zhaohui, Western Academy of Beijing, zxu@westernacademy.com
- Sally Lean, Dulwich College Beijing, sally.lean@dcbeijing.cn
- Erica Liu, American International School of Guangzhou, eliu@aisgz.edu.cn
- Doris King, Shekou International School, dking@sis.org.cn
- Lili Jia, Nanjing International School, lilijia@nanjing-school.com
- Dr Xiaoping Wang, ESF Adviser for Chinese, xiaopingw@esfcentre.edu.hk
- Lily Luo, Xiamen International School
- Shelly Xue, Suzhou Singapore International School
- Dr Suyi Wang, Western Academy of Beijing
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