On July 19th, the opening ceremony of the 2022 online training program for local Chinese language teachers in Cambodia was launched online. Mr. Song Yongbo, Deputy Director-General of the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC); Chang Jian, Minister Counselor of Chinese Embassy in Cambodia; Gu Hongliang, Vice President of East China Normal University; Zheng Mianfa, Executive Vice President of Khmer-Chinese Association in the Kingdom of Cambodia, and Sok Touch, President of Royal Academy of Cambodia attended the opening ceremony and delivered speeches.
The opening ceremony was presided over by Ding Anqi, Deputy Dean of the School of International Chinese Studies of East China Normal University, and Vuth Sopheakna, Dean of the School of International Chinese Language Education of Royal Academy of Cambodia. Nearly 300 local Chinese language teachers and heads of local Chinese language education institutions in Cambodia attended the ceremony.
Song Yongbo said that the comprehensive and pragmatic cooperation as well as people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and Cambodia in various fields had greatly promoted Chinese language education in Cambodia. The key to the development of Chinese language teaching lies in teachers, and a large number of local teachers are needed. For this reason, the Center for Language Education and Cooperation has specially set up local teacher training programs to improve teachers' teaching ability. They are willing to work with all parties in Cambodia to continuously deepen their cooperation, continuously provide high-quality teaching resources, and strive to train a team of professional, young and high-level teachers for Chinese language education in Cambodia.
Chang Jian pointed out that the friendship between China and Cambodia was profound, and the two countries' bilateral relations had entered a new stage of development. Language exchange and cooperation have always been one of the key contents of cooperation between China and Cambodia. This training program is of great significance to promoting the localization of Chinese language teacher training and the integration of Chinese language education forces between China and Cambodia. The Embassy will continue to support the training of local Chinese language teachers and strengthen the development of Chinese language education in Cambodia.
Gu Hongliang said that with the deepening and friendly development of Sino-Cambodia relations and increasing exchanges and cooperation in language and culture, East China Normal University would continue to help promote the transformation and upgrading of Chinese language education in Cambodia. Through training, Chinese and Cambodian teachers can not only communicate and discuss in the field of international Chinese language education, but also contribute to a more solid friendship between China and Cambodia.
Zheng Mianfa expressed his gratitude to the Center for Language Education and Cooperation for its support to Chinese language education and Chinese language teacher training in Cambodia. The Khmer-Chinese Association in the Kingdom of Cambodia will, as always, support online training programs to train local Chinese language teachers in Cambodia to improve their teaching ability and become high-level teachers.
Sok Touch believed that the deepening development of Cambodia-China friendship had promoted the rapid development of Chinese language education in Cambodia, and Cambodia's demand for learning Chinese had soared. Cultivating a local Chinese teacher team with excellent quality, outstanding comprehensive abilities and high professional level is the key to the development of Chinese language education. The local Chinese language teacher training program is an important step to promote the further development of Chinese language education in Cambodia and meet the needs of the country and society, and it also represents the strengthening of language exchanges and cooperation between Cambodia and China.
This training course lasts for 2 months, and senior front-line teachers from East China Normal University and Royal Academy of Cambodia are invited to give lectures. The training contents include Chinese language elements teaching, classroom activity organization and design, classroom management and other courses, which are conducted in the form of lectures and workshops.
In recent years, the Center for Language Education and Cooperation has done a lot of work to help build Chinese language teaching forces in Cambodia. As of June 2022, nearly 2,000 local teachers had been trained. In 2020 and 2021, Cambodia's first master's major and undergraduate major in Chinese language teaching were established respectively, which further expanded the training scale and enriched the level of teacher training. (Source from Center for Language Education and Cooperation)
