University of Macau (UM) Confucius Institute (CI) held the Plaque Unveiling Ceremony at E1 University Gallery today (April 16, 2018). The ceremony was officiated by the of Minister of Education of the People’s Republic of China CHEN Baosheng, Deputy Director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao SAR SUN Da, Secretary of the Party Committee and Deputy Director-General of Confucius Institute Headquarters MA Jianfei, UM University Council Chair LAM Kam Seng, Rector Yonghua SONG and Dean of CI Honggang JIN.
The Seminar on Future Direction of Confucius Institutes was held yesterday to discuss the dual positioning and development in teaching and academic research of the UM Confucius Institute, as well as its function in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay area. Representatives of the CI Headquarters participated the seminar, namely Secretary of Party Committee and Deputy Director-General of Hanban, Deputy Chief Executive of Confucius Institute Headquarters MA Jianfei and Director of Division of Development and Planning of Hanban CAO Diefeng to engage in an in-depth communication with UM Vice Rector (Academic Affairs) Lionel Ni and Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FAH) teachers and students. After the seminar, representatives visited the teaching and research facilities of FAH, including the Laboratory for Cognitive Studies, Simultaneous Interpreting Lab and the Black Box Theatre.
The UM Confucius Institute will make good use of Macao’s unique status as a special administrative region, its advantageous geographic location, as well as its cultural and linguistic diversity to develop into an international platform for enhancing cooperation in Chinese language teaching and training for Portuguese-speaking countries and countries with relations with Macao. The CI will also provide both short and long term Second Language Acquisition (SLA) courses in Chinese to local citizens who are non-native-Chinese speakers, as well as foreign employees in Macao and UM exchange students. The SLA courses will be conducted by a team of experienced teachers through communicative methods to cultivate student’s basic communication skills and abilities to understand, speak, read and write Chinese at elementary level.
The Institute will be located on the ground floor of E34, the design and construction work of which is still in progress and is estimated to finish by early 2019. The Temporary Office of CI is operating on the third floor of E7 Central Teaching Building.
