News

On the 11^th November 2024, Dr Kan Qian, Director of the Online Confucius Institute (OCI), was honoured to attend the annual service of remembrance for Armistice Day in London alongside a small group of 40 Chinese participants representing the Chinese Labour Corps.  The Chinese Labour Corps has been officially recognised for at the annual Armistice Day service for the last three years.  This was largely due to a project on the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC)  led by Peng Wenlan on behalf of the Meridian Society. 

After the service, Dr Kan attended an exhibition showing the history of the Chinese Labour Corps organised by Ming-Ai (London) Institute and heard talks from various speakers including the grandson of a member of the Chinese Labour Corps and Dr Francis Wood who talked about how the labourers were recruited for the war effort. The service and exhibition were a reminder of the courage and sacrifice of the Chinese Labour Corps during the war and stories which were often left untold and forgotten by history.

The Virtual Exchange (VE) China Hub is an initiative designed to promote virtual collaboration between educational institutions in China and around the globe. This hub was launched by Regina Brautlacht, Presidential Commissioner for Global Digital Learning at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Dr. Mirjam Hauck, President of EUROCALL and Academic Co-Lead for AI in Learning, Teaching and Assessment at The Open University (UK) and Dr. KAN Qian (阚茜), Director of the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University (UK). Professor TANG Jinlan (唐锦兰), Dean of the Institute of Online Education at Beijing Foreign Studies University (China), and and Dr CHEN Hao (陈昊), Associat Professor and Director of Business Case Centre at Shen Zhen Tecnnology University later joined the Coordination Team as local leads in China.

Building on the success of the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University, which fosters global understanding of Chinese language and culture, the VE China Hub is extending these efforts to the field of virtual exchange.

On April 23^rd, we held a successful teacher training day jointly organised by the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University and the Confucius Institute at Lancaster University.

The hybrid online and face-to-face training day brought together over 50 people including university teachers, primary and secondary school teachers as well as PhD and undergraduate students. 21 people joined us in person on campus at Lancaster University and a further 29 joined the training day online.

We are delighted to announce that a new 30 credit module in Beginners’ Chinese is launching at The Open University.  This brand new module is now open for registration and will begin in October 2024.
Read this news item for further details. 

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.