Chinese Language Teacher Training Programme

The Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS) hosted “Chinese Language Teacher Training Programme 2018” at Sungai Long Campus on 17 and 18 November 2018.

From left: Dr Tee, Chu, Wong

Present at the opening ceremony for the training programme were ICS Deputy Dean for R&D and Postgraduate Programmes Assoc Prof Dr Tee Boon Chuan, National Taiwan University (NTU) Deputy Vice President for Academic Affairs Chu Wenyi, Jabatan Pendidikan Negeri Selangor Senior Assistant Director Wong Chong Wai. 

Chu explaining “Flipped Learning”

The training programme consisted of several talks; the first talk was given NTU Graduate Programme of Teaching Chinese as Second Language Assistant Prof Chu Ching Hua. Her talk focused on “Flipped Learning” where teachers begin the class by playing an educational video and discussing what the students have learned from the video. The role of the teacher in “Flipped Learning” is to guide, motivate and inspire students. The goal of “Flipped Learning” is to enhance interactions between students and teacher as well as among themselves.

Dr Wong presenting her talk

The second talk “Introduction to Malaysia Secondary School Chinese Literature Programme” was conducted by ICS Head of Programme Dr Wong Lih Lih. Dr Wong briefly explained the history of Chinese education in Malaysia. She said that the “Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah” (KBSM) was introduced in 1988 by the government to foster students’ patriotism and respect for each other’s culture and norms as well as to enhance students’ listening and writing skill of the Chinese language. Besides, according to Dr Wong, the “Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Menengah” (KSSM) aimed to help students master listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. It also aimed to help students utilise the Chinese language in thinking, learning, socialising and analysing as well as artistic appreciation. 

 Prof Wu

Taipei University of Education Department of Psychology and Counseling Prof Wu Yuh Yin, was the third speaker for the talk. Her talk was titled “Introduction to Student Psychology”. Her talk outlined individual psychology (IP) of a student. She used several case studies to provide a better understanding of students for the audience. One of the cases mentioned was about a 21-year-old Taiwanese student, named Cheng Chieh, who stabbed some passengers in the mass rapid transit (MRT) randomly which resulted in four dead and 22 injured. The public requested him to apologise to the victims’ family. However, Cheng said that, even if he did apologise, his apology would be ‘fake’ as he committed the crime deliberately. According to Cheng, people only apologise for something they have done accidentally. Cheng first apologised when his high school teacher attended his court trial. When asked about Cheng’s performance at school, his teacher said, “He is good at writing and rarely disobeys the school rules.” Cheng was a good student in Chen’s impression. Cheng then apologized, for the first time, after committing the crime, “Sorry teacher, I had let you down.”

Prof Wu emphasised on the importance of praising students from time to time and letting them know what the teacher thinks about them in order to keep up the good work. In Cheng’s case, he did not know that the teacher would remember him in such a positive way. If only he knew, it might have prevented the tragedy from happening.

Fourth from left: Wong, Chu and Dr Tee with the speakers and audience