Teacher Training Day: Teaching Chinese Language and Cultures in the AI Era

Another successful collaboration between OU Online Confucius Institute and Lancaster University Confucius Institute 

On Friday 25^th April 2025, the OU Online Confucius Institute and Lancaster University Confucius Institute co-organised another successful hybrid teacher training day for teachers of Chinese as a Foreign Language, as well as teachers of other languages.

The theme of this year’s event was Teaching Chinese Language and Cultures in the AI Era and we were delighted to welcome over 100 delegates on the day with 30 attending in person in Lancaster and 76 joining online from a range of countries across mainland Europe, China, USA, and Egypt. The day comprised of 6 keynote speakers and 5 lightning talks.  

Key talks covered a range of interesting topics from teaching Chinese culture through MOOCs and AI technologies (by LUO Rong, Zhejiang University and LI Wenjing, Hangzhou Normal University), using AI agents in the field of Chinese education (XIE Junjie, Taoli Chinese), opportunities and challenges for Chinese language teachers in the AI era (CHEN Ye, founder of Dongyan Education Studio), foreign language speaking anxiety (Zsuzsanna Bárkányi, The Open University), the use of self-made AI bots and finally (XU Xin, Online Confucius Institute at The Open University, the use of AI in foreign language teaching and how to balance innovation with integrity in course design and assessment (KAN Qian, The Open University). 

The full programme and slides from the key note sessions are available to view on the event page here. The afternoon was devoted to sharing good practice and we had some fantastic contributions from a very engaged audience! 76% of those who responded to our survey found the quality of the event excellent; and 94% rated the event engaging and highly engaging.

Amily Wang, the Deputy Director of Lancaster’s Confucius Institute remarked that the event was ‘exceptionally well-received, garnering numerous positive comments from participants who found the sessions both informative and engaging’.​ UK Director of Lancaster’s Confucius Institute, Derek Hird extended ‘a huge thank you to the Lancaster University and Open University teams for all the hard work on this event. Its wide appeal was evidenced through the great turnout, in person and online… it’s wonderful what we can achieve when we work together so well!’. 

KAN Qian and XU Xin, Directors of the OU’s Online Confucius Institute, also thanked the Lancaster team for their ‘tremendous efforts and brilliant organisation.’. They went on to say that they look forward to this successful teacher training day, now in its second year, becoming an annual event co-organised between the two Confucius Institutes. 

We’re already looking forward to next year!