Working Together to Promote Language and Culture Exchanges between China and Italy—2018 Joint Conference of Confucius Institutes and Independent Confucius Classrooms in Italy and San Marino Held in Rome

On June 8th, local time, the 2018 Joint Conference of Confucius Institutes and Independent Confucius Classrooms in Italy and San Marino was held at the Confucius Institute at the University of Rome La Sapienza. Over 50 guests attended the conference, including Eugenio Gaudio, Rector of Sapienza University of Rome, Luo Ping, Education Counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Italy, Zhao Liang, an official of the Confucius Institute Headquarters, as well as Chinese and foreign directors of Confucius Institutes and directors of Confucius Classrooms in Italy and San Marino.

During his visit in Beijing in May this year, Eugenio Gaudio expressed his wish to continue cooperation with Confucius Institutes, which is an important way to promote educational exchanges and cooperation between China and Italy, since China has already stepped on modernization in recent decades.

Gaudio giving his speech

In his speech, Luo Ping said that during the 2017-2018 academic year, educational and cultural activities of every Confucius Institute and Independent Confucius Classroom have gone well, and he hoped that every Confucius Institute and Classroom would deepen cooperation and development in order to build a community with a shared future for mankind.

Luo Ping giving his speech

At the conference, foreign and Chinese directors of Confucius Institutes and Independent Confucius Classrooms had presentations and discussions on such topics as teaching quality assessments of Confucius Institutes, benefit evaluation of Confucius Institutes’ cultural activities, the Outline of Supervision of Confucius Institutes (Draft), successful cases of offering Chinese language courses for enterprises, avenues for collaboration between enterprises and Confucius Institutes, International Chinese Language Teacher Certificate and the promotion of examinations for YCT certificate. They had an intensive talk and gave valuable suggestions according to two countries’ characteristics and local conditions.

Site of joint conference

Besides the established topics, guests also reviewed the development of Confucius Institute magazine (Italian version) and discussed topics including the model of future development of the magazine, the teaching model of the Confucius Classroom of national boarding school under the Confucius Institute at the University of Rome La Sapienza and the development of Confucius Institutes in different countries.

Masini, Foreign Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Rome La Sapienza, delivered a final speech as a host. He said that the mutual exchanges and joint efforts of Confucius Institutes and Independent Confucius Classrooms in Italy are good ways to promote the development of language and culture between China and Italy.

Masini giving his speech

Group photo

Zhang Hong, Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Rome La Sapienza gave questionnaires to guests in order to deepen the content of related issues, research characteristics of Confucius Institutes and advance the development of the cause of language and cultural exchanges between China and Italy.

Story and photos by Jia Hao