China will host the second Confucius Institute Conference from
December 11 to 12, and expects to welcome more than 900 delegates
from 64 countries and regions worldwide.
"The conference will focus on exchanging experiences of Chinese
language teaching between China and foreign experts in an attempt
to promote cooperation and teaching quality," Xu Lin, director of
the Office of the Chinese Language Council International, said here
Thursday.
The two-day conference will include training courses for
presidents of Confucius Institutes and a forum on Chinese language
teaching between presidents of the Confucius Institutes and
universities from China and overseas, according to the office.
On the opening day, an exhibition will open to the public for
one week, showing teaching materials for overseas Chinese learners
and pupils' work from Confucius Institutes from across the
world.
The opening ceremony will be held on December 11 at the Great
Hall of the People.
The Confucius Institute, a non-profit public institute on
Chinese language and culture education, was initiated in 2004 to
satisfy the surging overseas demand for Chinese language learning.
Up to now, 210 Confucius Institutes have been set up in 64
countries and regions.
Xu revealed that there will be some 500 Confucius Institutes all
over the world by 2010.
China hosted the first Confucius Institute Conference in Beijing
in July, 2006.
Statistics from the Ministry of Education show that currently 30
million people overseas are learning Chinese and the figure may hit
100 million by 2010.
(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2007)