TX Startalk

Program Goals

The goal of the Chinese Teacher Program Word to World, in Dallas and Houston, is to lead the trainees to move beyond word/grammar teaching to focusing on real-world communication in a language classroom. Participants will understand that the ultimate goal in foreign language teaching and assessment is to create contexts and provide opportunities for students to use the language to engage in meaningful communication in real-world situations.

To realize the goal, the Program offers 90-hour instruction centering on topics of national standards, performance-based approaches and assessment, second language acquisition, teaching Chinese as a second language, technology for language teaching, curriculum development and daily lesson plan design. Our Program includes four university instructors from Rice University, University of Houston, University of Texas at San Antonio, and two high school teachers from Chicago and New Jersey. Our Program also arranges teaching practicum during the summer in June and July. The Teacher Program starts in April and ends in May. The workshops are offered during the weekends. 2009 Teacher Programs have twenty-three participants in Dallas and twenty in Houston. For course details, please see the schedule below.