With support from the federal government, OSU has become one of the three centers to host regional Language Summits in order to determine a national strategy for foreign language study. The Ohio Language Summit is organized by the OSU Chinese Flagship Program and Educational Council. The first part of the summit was held on June 28 (limited to invitees only) and the second part is an open forum to be held on October 25, 2007. Business, government, civic and educational leaders are brought together to help shape state and national strategic policy relating to foreign language proficiency. For more information, visit Ohio Lanaguage Summit or contact Patrick McAloon at patrick.mcaloon@sinoconnect.com.

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OSU and ODE co-hosted the first statewide conference on K-12 Chinese last December. It attracted more than 200 administrators from Ohio schools and districts and led to more schools starting Chinese programs in this school year. The OSU K-12 Chinese Flagship Program and ODE are planning on the second annual conference on December 12, 2007, in Hagerty Hall on OSU campus. The target audience will be school / district administrators, curriculum directors, and foriegn language coordinators. The conference theme will continue to be Making the Global Connection: Linking Students and China in the 21st Century. In addition to general session, we plan to organize more breakout sessions in two tracks: one for schools already operating a Chinese program, and one for schools planning to start a program. The conference announcement with a specific agenda is being sent to all Ohio schools and K-12 education entities soon. Registration through the STARS system at ODE will begin on November 1st and end on November 30th. For further information, please revisit our website or contact Kun Shi at shi.7@osu.edu.

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During the 2007-08 school year, sixteen visiting teachers from Hanban will teach Chinese in Ohio’s public schools. At least three other visiting teachers from China are working for private schools in Ohio. Eleven new visiting teachers will participate in a week-long orientation organized by ODE. The OSU K-12 Chinese Flagship Program hosted an information session (including a video demonstration of a Chinese class for high school students at OSU) and lunch meeting for them on August 14. We hope all the visiting teachers will have an enjoyable experience in Ohio. We will be pleased to offer any support we could to help make their teaching and the school programs a success. If any visiting teacher needs help, please call us at 614-292-0460 or contact Kun Shi (shi.7@osu.edu) and Zhiwei Bi (bi.2@osu.edu).

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The OSU K-12 Chinese Flagship Program organized two-day workshops for current and new teachers of Chinese language on June 19 and 28. Fourteen teachers from across Ohio attended the workshops. The workshops were intended for high school teachers because most of the Chinese programs are at the high school level. The workshops were focused on an introduction to the performance-based pedagogy, an overview of the curriculum for high school students, Chinese: Communicating in the Culture (CCC), and a demonstration and practice of CCC class. The trainers included Yunxin Zhang, Eric Shepherd, Steve Knicely, Mari Noda, and Galal Walker, and organized by Zhiwei Bi and Kun Shi. The OSU K-12 Chinese Flagship Program will continue to provide workshops and ongoing support to Chinese language teachers throughout Ohio. For more information about teacher training, please revisit Latest News and Events on our website or contact us.

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The OSU K-12 Chinese Flagship Program hosted a pre-interview meeting for school administrators to meet potential Chinese language teachers on April 16, 2007, at its office on 2941 Kenny Road, Suite 200, Columbus. Participants included 17 administrators from 10 schools/districts (mostly from outside of central Ohio) that want to hire Chinese language teachers, and 22 potential Chinese language teachers from the OSU Alternative Licensure Program. Three more schools that want to hire could not participate. Contact information for the hiring schools was distributed to all potential Chinese language teachers at OSU. If any school plans to hire a qualified Chinese language teacher, please contact Kun Shi at 614-292-0460 or shi.7@osu.edu.

Update: By August 2007, most of the schools/districts above have hired teachers from the Alternative Licensure Chinese Teacher Program.

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The annual conference of the Ohio Foreign Language Association (OFLA) will be held on April 3-5, 2008 in Cincinnati. The OSU K-12 Chinese Flagship Program is preparing several presentations, and the National East Asian Languages Resource Center plans to display publications at the event.

Due to the fast growth of Chinese language programs in Ohio’s K-12 schools (from 17 schools/districts last school year to 47 in current school year), we encourage Chinese language teachers to attend the OFLA conference to network and learn from other educators. We are also planning to host a gathering for Chinese language teachers across Ohio and possibly help them create an organization for future professional development.

For registration and program information about the OFLA conference, please visit http://www.ofla-online.org/index.php. If you want to learn more about our plan for the gathering of Chinese language teachers during the OFLA conference, please contact Kun Shi at shi.7@osu.edu. For more information about our presentations and event at the OFLA conference, please see the agenda.

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One of the objectives of the OSU K-12 Chinese Flagship Program is to build model programs through partner schools. As we entered the second year of operation in October 2007, we reached agreements with three partner schools: Beachwood High School in the Cleveland area, Beavercreek High School in the Dayton area, and Metro High School in Columbus. As part of the agreement, both sides plan to build the model programs by developing teacher training, performance-based curriculum, technology assisted learning, and connection with schools in Ohio as well as in China.

We plan to enlarge the pool of partner schools in Ohio as the next school year starts. In addition to the partner schools, we provide support to any school in Ohio that operates or plans to start a Chinese language program. The photo below shows the OSU staff and representatives from the three partner schools when they signed the agreement on October 1, 2007.

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To meet the needs of growing Chinese language programs in Ohio, the OSU K-12 Chinese Flagship Program organized a one-day workshop for the Chinese language teachers in northern Ohio on March 19 at Beachwood Board of Education. Twenty teachers participated in the workshop, which was focused on the theme: “Creating Chinese Environment in the Classroom.” We organized two one-day teacher workshops last year, but this time the participants showed greater satisfaction as shown in their informal feedback and evaluation results. They all liked the performance-based pedagogy from OSU and showed special interest in the curricula being developed by OSU. The workshop trainers are Yongfang Zhang from University of Akron and Patrick McAloon of OSU.

We are planning another one-day teacher development workshop in late May for Chinese language teachers in central and southern Ohio, and the specific information will be available soon. For more information, please contact Kun Shi.

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Ohio has witnessed tremendous progress in K-12 Chinese language programs over the past year. We now have 50 schools/districts operating Chinese programs, with almost 60 teachers of Chinese. In order to help these teachers better connected and provide more support, the OSU K-12 Chinese Flagship Program has worked hard to help establish the Ohio Association of Teachers of Chinese (OATC). In March, we invited 13 teachers of Chinese to form a planning committee to review the OATC bylaw. Nanping Wang (Beavercreek High School) was recommended to serve as the committee chair, and Jeannine Subisak (Columbus Academy) as the secretary. At the recent Ohio Foreign Language Association conference on April 4, we organized an event to announce the beginning process of OATC.

Recently we sent an open letter to all teachers of Chinese in Ohio schools to invite them to become OATC members and vote for the first term of OATC officers. We should have an operational OATC by the end of this school year. (For the open letter, OATC bylaw and membership form, please click here.) The OSU K-12 Chinese Flagship Program will provide a supporting role to OATC in sharing resources and sponsoring annual OATC meeting.

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