Educators join Mandarin workshop

To strengthen the professional competencies and practical classroom skills of overseas Mandarin teachers, the Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC), R.O.C (Taiwan), in collaboration with the Culture Center of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines, organized the 2025 Mandarin Teaching Workshop — Philippines Group on 26 to 27 April at the Fil-Chi Cultural & Economic Association.

The opening ceremony was hosted by Eric Chuang, Director of the Culture Center of TECO in the Philippines, and attended by distinguished guests, including Herman Mendoza Chong, executive director of Fil-Chi Cultural & Economic Association. The event attracted close to a hundred enthusiastic Mandarin educators from various Chinese schools across the country.

In his opening remarks, Chuang emphasized that OCAC has long been dedicated to advancing overseas Mandarin education. OCAC actively promotes a range of initiatives, including Overseas Teacher Training Workshops, Mandarin Teacher Seminars, and Overseas Folk Culture Seed Teacher Training Programs in Taiwan.

In terms of teaching materials, OCAC provides a series of textbooks such as Let’s Learn Mandarin, and integrates a wide array of teaching resources through HuayuWorld (https://www.huayuworld.org), the official Mandarin learning platform established by OCAC, offering flexible support for teachers worldwide.

The Culture Center also collaborates with Fil-Chi Cultural & Economic Association to organize events like the Traditional Character Culture Festival, the Global Overseas School Mandarin Singing Contest co-hosted with the Dynamics Youth, and the upcoming 2025 Global Mandarin Speaking Competition, encouraging students to showcase their Mandarin learning achievements.

This year’s workshop featured a diverse curriculum, covering Mandarin teaching strategies, pronunciation and tone instruction techniques, beginner-level listening and speaking demonstrations, and vocabulary activity design. Special sessions addressed common challenges faced by overseas Mandarin learners, offering practical insights and solutions.

To deliver the training, OCAC invited two renowned lecturers from Taiwan, Yi-Yi Chen and Yi-Chieh Liu from the Mandarin Language Center of Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages in Kaohsiung. Their dynamic, professional teaching demonstrations were highly praised by participants.

Throughout the workshop, teachers engaged in ice-breaking activities, group discussions, and peer exchanges, fostering new pedagogical ideas and strong professional connections. The program concluded successfully with a closing forum and graduation ceremony, with participants expressing that they had gained valuable knowledge and practical tools to enhance their future teaching practices.

The OCAC remains firmly committed to promoting Mandarin education globally. By working hand-in-hand with overseas communities, OCAC aims to cultivate outstanding Mandarin talents and ensure that Mandarin language education continues to shine brightly around the world.