From the Immediate Past President
December 2004
Source: CLTA Newsletter 28.3. December 2004, pp. 3.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve you. It has been a busy and rewarding year. At the conclusion of my term as President I want thank the Board of Directors, the CLTA officers for their hard work on behalf of our organization. Our Association enters 2005 with the exceptionally able leadership of President Hong Gang Jin (Hamilton College) and Vice President Mien-hwa Chiang (University of Pennsylvania) and a very dedicated Board of Directors.
It is gratifying to share with you some of the exciting events that have happened during the last year. First, we have just had another well attended conference in Chicago. Professor Hong Gang Jin and the Conference Program Committee did a superb job and put together a high-quality program. The number of paper proposals increased by 20% in comparison to last year. Secondly, the Jiede Committee chaired by Boar Member Mien-hwa Chiang worked hard and inaugurated our first CLTA workshop for members who want to conduct empirical research. The workshop was conducted by Board Member Michael Everson who has done extensive empirical research on CFL and other L2 acquisition issues. Thirdly, we continue to reach out and work with other professional organizations such as CLASS, JNCL, NCOLCTL and AAS to promote the teaching, learning and research and the building of our field. Board Member Gloria Bien organized and will chair an AAS panel on Cinema in the Chinese Language Classroom, April 3 at the 2005 AAS Annual Meeting in Chicago. Professor Bien also secured a room for April 2, 2005 for CLTA members and other interested people to meet and talk about “Teaching Asian Languages: What do we have in common?” at the AAS conference. Board Member Yea-fen Chen is working on possible sponsors of the round table discussion, which will be moderated by Board Member Julian Wheatley. If you plan to attend the AAS conference please come to these events. Another important event last year was that the College Board started the AP Chinese Program under the guidance of a task force of 12 members from our field. The first AP Chinese courses will be offered worldwide in the fall of 2006, followed by the exam in May of 2007. The AP Chinese Program will have a significant impact on the teaching and learning of Chinese. In order to ensure the success of the AP Chinese Program I would encourage all to visit the web site of the AP Chinese regularly ( http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/), and send your comments, suggestions and advice to any of the task-force members that are listed on the AP Chinese web site. Finally, the Year of Languages, another exciting event, has been started to advance the teaching and learning of world languages. ACTFL created a web site: www.yearoflanguages.org/, which consists of important happenings throughout the country and many ideas that we can use to expand our professional enhancement and to promote the study of Chinese. I would like to urge our members to take the opportunity of Year of Languages to convince more people to join CLTA.
In 2004, CLTA designated the Walton Award for lifetime achievement in Chinese language education to Professors Yeh Te-ming and John Montanaro. Congratulations, Yeh Laoshi, and Montanaro Laoshi, and thank you for your outstanding contributions to our profession. The 2004 Walton Travel Award was given to Ms Alice Lee; the Cheng&Tsui Award to Ms. Peng Wang; the Jiede Award to Dr. Meng Yeh. Congratulations to all!
The best of the season and a bright and fulfilling Year 2005 to all!
Jianhua Bai
November 25, 2004