April 21st to 22nd, 2023, the 4th International Symposium of the European Association of Chinese Teaching (EACT) was held at the University of Southampton, UK. The symposium was organised by the EACT, hosted by the University of Southampton and the Confucius Institute at the University of Southampton. The British Chinese Language Teaching Society (BCLTS) provided assistance by having their 2023 Teacher Training Workshop on the second day of the symposium.
The theme of this symposium is "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Chinese Language Education in Secondary and Higher Education from a Multilingual and Multicultural Perspective". Discussions were carried out around eight fields:
- Chinese language education and policy in different national education system;
- Teaching and learning of Chinese both as a degree and as a course for different purposes and research in higher education;
- Chinese language teacher education and professional development and research in different countries;
- Development, publication of Chinese language teaching materials and research in different countries;
- Research and development of Chinese language education syllabus in home countries;
- Role, application and models of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Chinese language education and research in different countries;
- Research on Chinese learners of Chinese, such as their background, motivation and implications for the impact on Chinese learning and teaching;
- Chinese language proficiency standards and assessment in different education systems.
In addition to keynote reports and round table forums, the conference also set up eight further mixed online and offline venues. More than 100 experts and scholars from China, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the United States, Vietnam, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, South Korea, Canada, Ireland and other parts of the world participated in the event.
Dr Meishan Zhang from the Chinese Department at Maynooth University delivered a speech entitled "Construction of the Cultural Industry: Combination of Immersive Live-Scene Games with Movies as Story Background and Chinese Teaching". She put forward the idea of building a student-centred cultural industry to innovate and stimulate the vitality and attractiveness of Chinese teaching. She stated that immersive games would help students integrate into vivid situations and improve students' Chinese learning experience in the form of in-depth expertise and rich fun, such as an escape rooms and DIY Audiobooks. In addition, Chinese film festivals will create a new situation in which Chinese teaching can enter the international market and people's daily life. Finally, the "online virtual city" to learn Chinese will also be another essential puzzle for the Chinese teaching and cultural industry.
