News

Happy Chinese New Year of the Dragon! (龙年 lóng nián)

On Thursday 1^st February, 2024, the OU Online Confucius Institute hosted another fun and engaging celebration for the Chinese Lunar New Year on the Milton Keynes campus. Open to all OU staff and postgraduate students, we were delighted to welcome over 200 people including members of the OU senior team. Attendees joined in with the festivities creating a lovely atmosphere and opportunity to catch up with one another face to face. Please click into the article to see the full story, video and photos.  

This open-access special issue has recently been published by the peer reviewed Journal of China Computer-Assisted Language Learning (JCCALL). It is co-edited by Dr SHI Lijing of the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Director of the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University, Dr KAN Qian. 

Throughout May 2023, the OU Online Confucius Institute delivered a unique and exciting four-week online Virtual Exchange training programme with the Institute of Online Education at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), and UNICollaboration.org. Designed for those who have little or no experience with international virtual collaboration, the programmed introduced participants to different models of Virtual Exchange and how these can be offered to their students to give them an enriched international and intercultural experience virtually.

On Friday 9th June, the Open University were delighted to welcome a delegation led by Professor Yang Dan, President of Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU). The delegation consisted of members of their senior team.  The international visit aimed to strengthen our existing collaborations and served as a starting point to explore new projects in both teaching and research.  Beijing Foreign Studies University and the Open University have previously collaborated on a pilot joint Doctoral of Education programme, teacher training and more recently the Online Confucius Institute which celebrated its first anniversary last month.

During the visit Professor Yang and the senior team met with Vice-Chancellor Tim Blackman, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Kevin Shakesheff and senior representatives from across OU Faculties and teams, including WELS, FASS, FBL, STEM, KMI, BDU and the Graduate School.

Time flies when you're having fun!

It has already been one year since the launch of the Online Confucius Institute at the Open University.  It’s certainly been a busy year and we would like to extend a big thank you for all of the support this past year. Take a look at this year's highlights in our short anniversary video!

Developed by the Chinese team led by Dr Kan Qian at the Open University, this free new Chinese character learning app provides fun and interactive activities to help you write, recognise, and memorise some of the most frequently used characters in a clear and enjoyable way.

Introducing over 200 characters which feature in Beginner’s Chinese courses as well as the GCSE Chinese syllabus, you’ll also be able to form a further 200 phrases and sentences using your new found knowledge!  

This app is now availbe in both App Store and Google Play Store. We also welcome your feedback on this app. After you have had a chance of using it, please complete this short survey to help us improve it.

As we know, Chinese is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.  UNESCO (part of the United Nations) first created Chinese Language Day in 2010 to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity and to promote the equal use of the six official languages at the United Nations.  Since then, 20^th April has been designated as Chinese Language Day. The day also celebrates Cangjie (仓颉), who invented Chinese characters about 5,000 years ago.

To celebrate Chinese New Year, the OU Online Confucius Institute held a celebration on campus with live Guqin music, spring roll making, writing the Chinese character for ‘happiness’ in brush and ink and Chinese tea with snacks.  We were delighted that over 150 people attended the celebrations and you can see a selection of photos from the day are here. 

Now open for registration! Enrol anytime and study at a pace to suit you. 

If you have previous basic knowledge of Chinese, either gained from our Beginners Chinese short courses, or via your own studies, you can now build on that knowledge and take your learning further with our new suite of Elementary level courses.  Over 16 units, you will work with audio and interactive text-based materials and have access to a dedicated website, forum and support from one of our dedicated learning advisers.
New Elementary Level Short Courses in Chinese | Online Confucius Institute at The Open University

The 19th International Conference on Chinese Language Teaching in Higher Education hosted by the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University was successfully held between 24^th- 25^th June at the OU’s Milton Keynes campus. The two-day conference was jointly organised by the British Chinese Language Teaching Society and the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University. The hybrid conference offered both online and in-person attendance, attracting over 100 participants from around the World.

19th International Conference on Chinese Language Teaching in Higher Education | Online Confucius Institute at The Open University