2017 In-Service Training Workshop for Volunteer Chinese Language Teachers in Indonesia Held in Jakarta

From May 6th to 7th, 104 volunteer Chinese teachers from six Confucius Institutes and local schools in Indonesia gathered in Jakarta to participate in the 2017 in-service training workshop for volunteer Chinese teachers in Indonesia. The workshop was sponsored by the Confucius Institute Headquarters / Hanban and co-organized by the Confucius Institute at the University of Al Azhar Indonesia and the Board of Mandarin Education Coordination in Jakarta.

Ahmad Lubis, President of the University of Al Azhar, Mr. Yang Jianqiang (Kakan Sukandadinata), Counseling Chair of the Board of Mandarin Education Coordination in Jakarta, Professor Murni Djamal, Indonesian Vice Board Chairman of the Confucius Institute, and Deng Yao, Secretary of the Chinese Embassy in the Republic of Indonesia attended the ceremony.

In the opening speech, Deng Yao expressed hopes for the volunteer teachers to learn continuously, overcome culture differences and promote culture exchanges and friendship between China and Indonesia.

According to Huang Bin, Chinese Director of Confucius Institute at the University of Al Azhar Indonesia, this is the first in-service training workshop since the launch of Volunteer Chinese Teacher Program in Indonesia. Contents of the workshop were designed to deal with practical problems volunteers faced in studies and work. The training includes five modules which are introduction to Chinese language and culture education in Indonesia, common problems and countermeasures in Chinese classes, students’ characteristics analysis and classroom management skills, culture and customs of Indonesia and case analysis of cross-cultural communication, as well as work experience and challenges sharing. The workshop took place in various forms including lectures, interactions and practices. In addition, the workshop also invited experienced Chinese language teachers currently working in schools to offer guidance and feedbacks to volunteers, and they also shared experience and teaching skills which they have accumulated over years.

For the lectures, Cai Changjie opened the session by giving a lecture titled “Introduction to Chinese Language and Culture Education in Indonesia”, presenting the development course of Chinese language and culture education in Indonesia. One of the local Chinese teachers, Zhu Wei, explained how to appropriately and effectively impart Chinese cultural knowledge in classroom teaching on the topic “Strategies and Methods for Improving the Cultural Knowledge in Chinese Language Teaching”. Another teacher, Guan Nan, gave a case analysis entitled “Indonesian Cultural Customs and Cross-cultural Communication”, and introduced the differences of non-verbal factors between Chinese culture and Indonesian culture, as well as how to improve the cross-cultural communication skills in daily life. These two local Chinese teachers introduced to the voluntary teachers the Chinese language courses and the Chinese language teaching situation in Indonesian senior high schools, as well as the common problems and solutions of the Chinese language teaching in Indonesia.

Lecture venue

In group discussions, volunteers discussed in groups on such topics as management measures in Chinese language teaching classes, cross-cultural communication cases sharing, adjustments of volunteers’ mental health and teaching methods and teaching experience. Participators freely expressed their own opinions and enjoyed a warm atmosphere. In order to improve the efficiency, two special sessions, teaching demonstration and the lecturer’s comments, were designed for the training. After the demonstration of different teaching types from four volunteers, lecturers made comments on their demonstration lesson.

Group discussions

Ahmad Lubis extended his gratitude to Chinese voluntary teachers for their contributions in improving China-Indonesia cultural exchanges, hoping that this training can raise the teachers’ teaching and contribute to the long-standing friendship between China and Indonesia.

Ahmad Lubis, President of the University of Al Azhar, delivering a speech

Group photo

After the training, volunteers expressed that with high efficiency, its abundant contents and various forms, not only promoted their cross-cultural awareness and abilities, but also enhanced their understanding on the current Chinese teaching conditions in Indonesia and on different teaching environments and classroom management between China and Indonesia, which gave them some solutions to the problems they met in practical teaching. This training adopted a combined way of group discussing and experience sharing, effectively improving the teachers’ participation and inspiring their deep thoughts on Chinese teaching.